"Placement." His fingers hovered over the connections. "They're placing assets throughout the system. But why train them so young?"
"Loyalty." The word tasted bitter. "Take a child young enough, break them properly, rebuild them with purpose—they'll never betray you. We can't. It's not in our programming."
"But you did. You're hunting them."
"I wasn't a child, no one in my particular part of the program was." I laughed, short and sharp. "I don't think hemeant for me to hunt backward along my own trail, but he should have been more specific with his instructions."
Nathan studied me with that intense focus. "You're still following his programming. Even while rebelling against it."
"I know." It should have bothered me more. "I can't help it. It's carved too deep. All I can do is aim it in directions he might not have intended."
"And if you find him? What then?"
I considered the question, staring at Gabriel's photo. "I don't know. Part of me wants to show him what I've become, make him proud. Part of me wants to peel him apart like Carter and ask why with every cut."
"Both impulses can coexist."
"Speaking from experience?"
"Every day." He moved away from the wall, examining the rest of my apartment. It was sparse—just the murder wall and basic furniture. Nothing personal except the web of death. "This is how you live?"
"This is how I hunt. Living is what other people do."
"No books? No art? No life outside the mission?"
"The mission is life." I watched him catalogue the emptiness. "What would be the point of pretending otherwise?"
"Because even weapons need maintenance. Even hunters need rest." He picked up a knife from my coffee table, testing its edge. "When's the last time you did something just because you wanted to?"
"I served Carter his eyes on a silver spoon because I wanted to."
"Something that wasn't work."
I thought about it, genuinely trying to remember. "Gabriel and I went to an art museum once. Part of a cultural education unit. I liked the Caravaggios—all that dramatic light and shadow, violence made beautiful."
"Wasn't that a long time ago."
"Art seems frivolous when there's work to do."
"Everything seems frivolous when you're empty." He set down the knife. "Trust me on that."
"I'm not empty." But the protest sounded weak even to me. "I have purpose. Direction."
"You have programming." He moved closer, and I felt that dangerous magnetism again. "There's a difference."
"Is there? You're following your own programming—find patterns, solve problems, avenge Emma. How is that different?"
"Because I chose it." His hand lifted to my face, thumb tracing my cheekbone. "After she died, after everything broke, I chose to become this. What did you choose, Bunny?"
"I chose to survive." The words came out raw. "Every day in that place, I chose to survive instead of breaking completely. And when he finally said I was ready, I chose to use what he made me to burn down everything he built."
"Even if it burns you too?"
"Especially then." I leaned into his touch, starved for contact that wasn't violence. "I'm already ash, Nathan. At least this way, I take them with me."
His other hand framed my face, holding me steady. "What if you're not ash? What if you're just... paused? Waiting for something to start you again?"
"Like what?"
