Which they do.
I stand there for a long moment, my breath loud in my ears, my hands trembling openly now.
My comm crackles.
“Tur,” Kimberly says faintly.
I turn.
She’s at the mouth of the alley, half-hidden behind a stack of pallets, her face pale and her eyes too bright.
She looks at the retreating figures.
Then at me.
Then at the pile of ruined weapons on the ground.
“You let them live,” she says.
“Yes.”
“You could have?—”
“I know,” I snap, too hard.
She flinches.
I exhale.
“Sorry,” I mutter. “Yes. I let them live.”
She steps closer, slow, careful, like she’s approaching a feral animal.
“This isn’t the monster I was warned about,” she says quietly.
“This isn’t the weapon you think you are.”
The words hit harder than any bullet.
I drag a hand down my face.
“I almost didn’t,” I admit hoarsely. “It would’ve been easier.”
She nods.
“I know.”
I start shaking harder.
My knees feel weirdly weak.
“Everything they taught me says I just fucked up,” I say. “That this is going to come back and bite us.”
“Maybe,” she says. “But you still made the call.”
I look at her.
At the way she’s standing there in the sodium haze, jacket zipped up to her throat, hair pulled back in a messy knot, eyes steady on mine.
