“It is enough for me to care what happens to you.”
Care.
The word has no tactical use. It offers no cover, no weapon, no route out of a collapsing city. Yet it lands inside me with the force of an orbital strike.
My anger does not vanish. It changes shape. It becomes more dangerous because now it has her sorrow inside it too.
“I will not kill them,” I say.
She watches me. “And?”
“And I will not bring blood here.”
“And?”
I exhale through my teeth. “You negotiate like a smuggler.”
“I negotiate like a woman who knows you’re leaving out the part where you beat half of them into medical debt.”
“That may happen.”
“Kauss.”
“They need consequences.”
“Yes. Consequences. Not slaughter.”
“I agreed not to kill them.”
“That is the most Vakutan answer I’ve ever heard, and I’ve only known you properly for about five minutes.”
Despite myself, something almost moves at the corner of my mouth. It dies quickly, but she sees it. Her expression softens with exhausted triumph, and the tenderness in that look nearly sends me to my knees.
“I do not know another way,” I say quietly.
Her face changes. She hears what I did not mean to confess.
“Then find one,” she says. “Or at least try.”
I look around the ruined bakery. The broken case. The boarded window. The pastry crushed underfoot. The place she made warm because the world outside is cold. Trying feels inadequate. Mercy feels obscene. Restraint feels like leaving a weapon loaded beside her door.
But she asks.
And I am weak enough now that her asking matters.
“I will make them stop,” I say.
Her throat moves. “Without killing them.”
“Without killing them.”
She closes her eyes, and one tear slips down beneath the bruise on her cheek. She turns away quickly, angry at herself for the evidence.
I want to destroy a city for that tear.
Instead, I stand still.
“Do not cry,” I say, because I am a fool who has no proper words.
