Without remorse.
I get that.
I get that more than I want to admit.
"Jett?" I prompt, turning to the silent one.
He doesn't look up from his plate immediately.
Just continues eating with that mechanical precision, like the question is something he needs to finish processing before he can respond.
Then he sets down his fork.
Meets my eyes.
Grey storms and distant lightning.
"I was trained as an assassin," he says, voice flat. "From childhood. My family had... connections. Debts. I was the payment."
The words are sparse.
Minimal.
But they paint a picture.
"They taught me to kill before I knew how to read," he continues. "By the time I was ten, I'd already taken my first target. By twelve, I'd lost count."
"You stopped counting?"
"Numbers stopped mattering." He shrugs—a small, economical movement. "It's all just... motion. Physics. The application of force at the correct angle to achieve the desired result."
Cold.
Clinical.
Completely detached from the reality of what he's describing.
"The training emphasized disconnection," Jett adds, like he's explaining a technical process. "Emotion is liability. Attachment is weakness. I learned to turn it off. To exist in the space between action and reaction, where feeling doesn't reach."
"But you feel things now," I say. "You caught that volleyball. You touched my cheek."
Something flickers in his grey eyes.
Brief.
Quickly suppressed.
"The pack changed things," he admits quietly. "Kai especially. He... demanded. Kept pushing. Wouldn't accept the empty version of me."
"Annoying habit of his," Blaze comments with a grin.
"Very annoying," Jett agrees, but there's something almost like affection underneath the flat delivery.
"Blaze?" I turn to the last one. "Your turn."
He leans back in his chair, golden eyes bright with something that looks like anticipation.
"I set things on fire," he says simply.
