"We have to save him then." Elena glanced from Kira to the boy with an uncertainty that grew the longer Kira was silent. "Right? We're going to save them all."
Kira took a step back from the tank. "No, we're not. We're going to leave."
Right now. Before the Osiri came back and Kira lost control of the situation.
Elena stood there as Kira stooped to grab Elise.
"We can't! We have to save them,” Elena protested.
It wasn't that she didn't want to save Elise's children and Jin's possible clone. The thought of abandoning them destroyed something in her. She knew the future they'd face. What the Osiri would do when he returned to find his prize gone.
The children would be better off dead.
If Graydon or the others had been here, she could make a different choice. Maybe try to save both the children and Elena.
But they weren't.
This was the hand Kira had been dealt. An awful one to be sure. But that was life. Sometimes shitty. Often tragic.
"This is unexpected," someone announced.
Pallas sauntered into view from the same entrance Kira had used to gain access to this place. "Kira Forrest abandoning the innocent. Is this what they call personal growth?"
Kira moved protectively in front of Elena.
Pallas’s expression contained a cruel edge. "I didn't appreciate being imprisoned on my own ship."
"What a coincidence. I don’t appreciate you killing my friends."
There, now they both had something to hold against the other.
"That was for your own good. You were never going to do it. You were going to sacrifice yourself. Someone had to do what was necessary."
"That wasn't up to you to decide!" Kira screamed.
"It was!" Pallas roared. "You were ours! Our sibling! Our friend!"
With Elise in her arms, Kira eased back, using her hip to keep Elena behind her. The girl was careful not to hinder their retreat, clutching the back of Kira's armor with shaking hands.
"Auntie," Elena called softly.
At the sound of her voice, Pallas's gaze flicked to her niece and Elise before returning to Kira's face. Calm replaced his anger.
"Besides, it wasn't like I was operating on my own. I was under orders. Your admiral's orders."
"Bullshit."
"Do you think so?" Pallas flashed her a cruel smile. "Who was it who taught you about the 'greater good'? The admiral, wasn't it?"
Kira's heart went cold, her veins filled with ice.
"We were in contact with him for years," Pallas informed her, digging the knife a little deeper.
He really did like to talk. And talk. And talk.
How had she never realized he was so chatty?
"All that time and he never told you," Pallas mused.
