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“What?”

“You won’t hesitate to defend yourself.”

His words punch me in the gut because they’re true.

I don’t want them to be true, but they are.

I didn’t hesitate.

Not enough.

Not when it mattered.

Some part of me, the part Audrey and every cruel person I’ve ever known taught to be quiet, finally went silent.

And another part stepped forward.

A darker part.

“I don’t want to become someone who can use this,” I whisper.

“Then don’t become her,” Nathaniel says. “Just survive long enough to decide who you are tomorrow.” He presses the gun into my hand.

It’s heavier than I expect.

Cold at first, but it warms against my palm. I curl my fingers around it awkwardly.

“Keep your finger off the trigger unless you mean to fire,” he says.

My stomach rolls.

“Don’t point it at anything you don’t intend to shoot. Don’t warn someone three times. Don’t let anyone get close enough to take it from you.”

I look up at him.

He’s too calm.

That scares me almost more than the gun.

“If someone blocks you?” he asks.

My voice barely works. “I leave.”

“If they try to take you?”

I swallow.

“I stop them.”

“If Hazel appears?”

Pain flickers through me.

“Nathaniel—”

“If Hazel appears,” he repeats, colder now, “and she tries to stop you, confuse you, redirect you, or put you in another passage, what do you do?”

“I stop her.”