"That's not possible."
"Isn't it?" Another circle against my palm. "You're worrying. About the next fight. About Hewes. About whether I'll survive long enough to kill him."
My breath caught. "How did you—"
"Because I'm thinking the same things."
I turned my head on the pillow to look at him. In the dim light filtering through the barred window, I could just make outhis profile—the strong line of his jaw, the way his eyes were open and staring at the ceiling.
"You're not like them," I said. The words came out before I could stop them.
"Who?"
"The other prisoners. The fighters. The—" I struggled to find the right word. "The monsters."
His hand tightened on mine. "I am a monster, Merrilee."
"No, you're not."
"You don't know what I've done."
"Then tell me." I shifted closer, propping myself up on one elbow so I saw his face better. "How does someone like you end up in a place like this?"
He was quiet for a long moment. So long I thought he wouldn't answer.
Then: "I was an assassin."
The words hung in the air between us.
"For the Alliance," he continued, his voice flat. Emotionless. "Vaktaire are good at killing. Fast. Strong. Hard to stop. The Alliance used me for the jobs that needed to be done quietly. Efficiently."
I stayed silent, letting him talk.
"I was good at it." His jaw tightened. "Too good. I never questioned the missions. Never asked why. Just did what I was told and moved on to the next target."
His thumb had stopped moving against my palm. His hand had gone rigid.
"There was a compound," he said. "On a colony world. My handler—an Alliance ambassador—told me it was a terrorist cell. Dangerous people planning an attack. He gave me the coordinates, the timeline, the explosives."
My stomach started to sink.
"I planted the charges. Set the timer. Got out clean." His voice had gone hollow. "The building came down exactly as planned. Mission accomplished."
"Ahrick—"
"There was a family inside."
The words came out sharp. Jagged. And then his whole body went rigid.
"A mother. A father. Three younglings." His voice cracked on the last word. "The youngest was four years old."
He stopped. Just—stopped. Like the words had physically choked him.
His chest heaved, ribs expanding and contracting too fast, too shallow. Each breath seemed to cost him. I saw the pain ripple across his face—not from his injuries, but from something deeper. Something that had been festering for however long he'd been carrying this.
"They weren't terrorists." The words came out strangled now, like he was forcing them past barbed wire in his throat. "They were civilians. The ambassador had a personal grudge against the father—some business deal gone wrong. He used me to settle it. Used Alliance resources and an Alliance assassin to commit murder out of spite."
Both hands came up to his face, pressing against his eyes, his forehead, like he could physically push the memory back inside. Then they dropped, and he sat up slowly, carefully, his broken ribs making the movement painful. But he didn't seem to notice.
