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"Better." She was still as pale as the sheets that covered her, little color in her lips, which curved into a small smile. "Will you bring me a sip of water, please?"
"Sure." Mira grabbed the cup and straw from the rickety nightstand beside the bed and held the drink while Candice sucked weakly. "How are you feeling?"
"Good." She nodded for Mira to set the cup down. "Doc says I'm going to make it. No walking for a week or so, and I'll have to take things slow for a while."
"But you're alive," Mira pointed out, and she felt genuinely glad about it.
"Yeah. Doc's the best. He's a good man." Candice was looking past Mira now, her jet-black eyebrows knitting into a small frown. "Where's everyone else?"
"They're around," Mira said. "There were things that needed to be done. Things for Chaz . . ."
She said it gently, not wanting to upset Candice. But the woman's hazel eyes went a darker shade of green as tears welled up in them. "Have they already buried him?"
"Not yet. I heard them talking about taking care of that later tonight. They want to do right by him. I heard them say his life deserves a worthy acknowledgment."
"Bowman," Candice said, smiling again, bigger than before. "That sounds like something he would say."
Mira stared, neither acknowledging nor denying it. But it had been he who'd said the words. It had been he who'd carried Chaz's lifeless body out of the cell and into a private chamber somewhere deep in the bunker. It had been he who'd informed the others that he wanted to perform a burial worthy of the warrior who'd served with honor and had fallen too soon.
Candice's eyes were locked on Mira in soft understanding. "Bowman's a good man too. I have a feeling you know that better than any of us."
Mira started to shake her head, but the denial wouldn't come. Instead she murmured, "It was a long time ago."
Candice's expression softened even more. "I don't need to know what he was called then, but I know it wasn't Bowman. I knew that from the minute he gave me the lie, when he finally woke up after two months of watching over him, unsure if he'd ever open his eyes, let alone speak. I didn't need to know his real name then either, or what he'd done that put him in the middle of a war zone."
Mira couldn't speak. Could only look at Candice and listen, reliving the private hell of the night she'd lost Kellan and his new life began.
"I figured he'd tell me his name one day, but he never did. Eventually I stopped looking for those answers." Candice brought her hand out from under the coverlet and laid it over the top of Mira's. "It didn't take long before I learned all I needed to know about the Breed male named Bowman who chose to live among humans instead of his own kind. I saw for myself that he was honorable. Not long after he was recovered, he learned there was a rebel faction looking to sell a group of young women into prostitution. The deal had already been struck with some bad men from overseas, but on the night the rebels were to make the trade, Bowman stepped in to derail the exchange and free those girls single-handed."
Mira was hardly surprised to hear it, having seen Kellan in action when they were part of the same unit for the Order. He was a fierce warrior, afraid of nothing when it came to combat and protecting those who couldn't do for themselves. Apparently those qualities had followed him into this other part of his life too, in spite of the fact he now straddled a threadbare moral line.
Candice went on. "I saw from the start that he was courageous and just. But he was also scarred somewhere deep inside. He was alone and kept himself isolated by choice. I knew he belonged to someone else. I just didn't know who, until I saw the way he looked at you when we brought you back with us to the base that day."
"You saved his life," Mira finally managed to croak out of her dry throat, swamped by gratitude for this woman she hardly knew. "I thought he was dead, but you found him. You took care of him. You and Doc didn't know him at all, but you didn't let him die . . ."
Candice frowned slightly, gave a mild shrug. "He needed help. We gave it. That's all."
"You did all that, even though he was Breed."
"If you saw someone bleeding and broken in the street, would you stop to see if he was different from you before you lifted him up?"
Mira fell silent as Candice's words sank in. And then she knew a profound shame, because she realized that, not very long ago, she might have been the one to turn her back. Her hatred and mistrust of humans, rebels in particular, was so blind and deep, she likely wouldn't have even broken her stride if it had been one of them in need of her help.
It was ugly, what she'd allowed herself to become.
For so long, she'd held people like Candice and Doc and Nina in contempt, lumped together with lowlifes like Vince and Rooster - villains all of them, to be squashed under her boot or skewered by her blades.
And now . . . ?
She withdrew her hand from beneath Candice's loose grasp, feeling undeserving of the kindness she was being shown. She felt regret for the loss these people had suffered today. And she felt fear for what their future might hold, if what Kellan saw in her eyes eventually came to pass.
The coldness that thought brought with it settled in Mira's chest like ice. She needed to find some distance from the dread that was pressing down on her when she considered the price all of them might pay if her vision proved true.
Mira summoned what she hoped was a reassuring smile. "You should rest now. I'll let Doc know how you're doing."
At Candice's nod, Mira backed away from her bedside and pivoted toward the door. She paused there, gratitude rising inside her, swamping even the darker tide of emotion that was doing its best to pull her under.
She looked back at the human female who'd done the impossible eight years ago, bringing Kellan back from the dead and delivering the miracle Mira had hoped for so desperately. "Thank you for saving him."
