Harder, yes. The exhaustion I glimpsed last night buried under layers of command presence. Dark hair pulled back severely, revealing a face that's all sharp angles and sharper focus. Eyes that miss nothing and forgive less.
But there's more. There's the way she moves, like every motion has been calculated for maximum efficiency. The way she fills a room without raising her voice. The way I can see the weight of forty-three lives pressing down on shoulders that are strong enough to carry them.
She's beautiful in the way a well-maintained weapon is beautiful. Functional. Lethal. Necessary.
And I'm the bastard who left her to die.
"Talk," she says.
"I've told you everything I know."
"About Old Hawk. Not about why I shouldn't slit your throat and dump your body outside the walls."
Fair point. "You want me to justify abandoning you three years ago? I can't. There is no justification."
"Then what can you offer?"
"The truth. All of it." I meet her eyes, don't look away even though looking at her makes my chest tight. "I was a rescue operative even then. Freelance. Worked the routes between settlements, responded to distress calls when I could. That night, I was tracking an Iron Wolf raiding party that had hit two settlements already. When your call came through, I was forty miles northwest."
"Close enough to help."
"Close enough that I had to choose. Your settlement, or the one the Wolves were heading toward next. Intel said they had thirty people, including a school. Twelve children." I swallow hard. "Your distress call said you were overrun. Said the walls were breached. Said—"
"Said we were dying." Her voice is flat and raw. "I remember what I said."
And I remember. I remember her voice on that radio. Young. Terrified. Determined even in the face of death. The voice burned itself into my brain, followed me through three years of nightmares.
I never knew the voice had a face until last night. Never knew it belonged to someone who survived through sheer force of will and impossible choices.
"I calculated the travel time. Factored in the herd size you described, the breach reports, the number of defenders you mentioned. By the time I could reach Clearwater, you'd be dead or scattered. But the other settlement, if I moved fast, I might get there before the Wolves."
"Might."
"Might. It was a gamble. It was always a gamble." I look down at my hands. "The other settlement was empty when I arrived. They'd evacuated two days earlier, moved south when they heard about the Wolf attacks. The school, the families, the thirty people I thought I was saving—they were already gone."
"So you saved no one."
"I saved no one. And your settlement survived without me." I look up again. "I didn't know until last night. Didn't know Clearwater pulled through. Didn't know who led the defense, who made it, who didn't. I just knew I made the wrong choice and people died because of it."
Avery is silent for a long moment. I watch emotions war across her face, a storm of rage and grief.
"I'm sorry."
"Don't." The word snaps out like a whip. "Don't apologize. Sorry is worthless. Sorry doesn't bring back dead children."
"I know."
"Do you?" She steps closer, and suddenly the cell feels too small. Close enough that I can see the pulse hammering in her throat. Close enough to catch the faint scent of gunpowder and soap. Close enough that I have to fight the urge to reach out and—what? Touch her? Like that would fix anything. No, it would make it worse.
"Because I've spent three years not apologizing for the choice I made that night. Not making excuses. Just living with it."
Her eyes are locked on mine. Understanding that cuts both ways. She sees the guilt I carry. I see hers reflected back.
"I chose to let five people die so forty would live," she continues, voice steady even though I can see the cost of those words in her eyes. "You chose to let my settlement burn so you could save children who didn't need saving. We're the same kind of monster, you and me."
"Maybe."
"Definitely." She holds my gaze for another long moment. She’s close enough that when she speaks again, I feel the words as much as hear them.
