I’d put money on the latter.
He catches me watching. Doesn’t look away. Just holds my stare for three seconds before returning his attention to the window.
Professional. Assessing me the same way I’m assessing him.
Dragon, like me.
In another life, we might have worked the same operations. The Syndicate recruited from military and private security—people who already understood that sometimes the mission requires things you can’t talk about afterward.
I wonder what he’s heard about me. Whether Aurora briefed these men on my record or just told them to keep the prisoner secure.
Prisoner. The word fits better than defector.
You don’t defect from the Syndicate. You escape. And even then, you bring your sins with you.
The windshield frames glacial light and sideways snow. Cliff edges drop into valleys choked with pine shadow. Beautiful in the way dangerous things are: clean, indifferent, ready to kill you if you make one wrong move.
I’ve run convoys through worse. Syndicate operations preferred mountain routes for exactly this reason. Natural chokepoints, limited escape options, bodies disappearing into ravines that don’t thaw until spring.
The last convoy I commanded took forty-eight hours through terrain like this. Transporting three targets from a compromised safe house to interrogation. Two made it alive.
The third tried to run at a fuel stop. Broke containment, made it fifteen feet before the guards took him down.
I filed the report. Subject posed immediate escape risk.
Justifiable termination.
The phrase makes my lip curl. It felt like duty then. Like necessity.
Now it just tastes like dirt.
The young guard’s comm chirps. He checks it, shoulders relaxing a fraction. Still on schedule. Still alive.
I turn back to the window.
Every outcrop registers as a possible ambush site. Ridge to the north—ideal sightline for long-range suppression. Valley below—killbox if they trap us on the descent. The tree line’s too close on the eastern flank. If I were planning an intercept, I’d position there. Force the convoy into a bottleneck, then hit the lead vehicle to create a roadblock.
Standard tactics. The kind I taught.
The escort notices me studying the landscape. His hand drifts toward his sidearm.
I don’t react. Just keep watching the trees slide past.
This is what penance looks like. Rolling toward salvation that will never accept you. Pinpointing ambush sites while knowing that if someone does attack, these men might lose their lives to defend a war criminal who probably deserves whatever he gets.
I expect betrayal at every turn—Aurora’s or from my own kind. The Syndicate taught me that survival is transactional. I’mcarrying intelligence that could dismantle multiple purification initiatives. Names, locations, operational timelines.
Worth protecting. Worth killing for.
Whether Aurora honors sanctuary or executes me mid-transit depends on politics I can’t control.
Either way, I keep moving forward.
Because stopping means the intelligence dies with me. And however compromised my morals, however blood-soaked my history, the data in my head could save lives.
It’s not redemption.
But it’s all I have left to offer.
