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“No . . . ”
Church took both of her hands in his. The silk gloves he wore were cool and the fingers beneath them as hard as iron. “A war is coming. I’ve been preparing for it since I first learned about the Rovers. I’ve fought a lot of wars in my life. I will fight this one and I intend to win. I am going to tear the Rovers down. I intend to end them. Do you understand what that means? It means I’m going to war under a black flag. With people like them there is no chance of a reconciliation.”
“Doesn’t that make you just as bad as them?”
Church’s mouth hardened. “Does it? By what logic? No, I want an actual answer. How does killing a monster make you a monster?”
“There was that old saying, from . . . Nietzsche, I think. Something about ‘If you fight monsters you become one.’”
Church sniffed. “Nietzsche is often misquoted and nearly always misunderstood. What he said was: ‘Beware that, when fighting monsters, you yourself do not become a monster . . . for when you gaze long into the abyss, the abyss gazes also into you.’ His words were a caution, but he wasn’t speaking in absolutes. The logic many people infer from that quote is that if you do monstrous things you will inevitably become a monster, but that isn’t so. Are you so close-minded that you think every soldier who has ever killed for his or her country immediately and irrevocably became a monster? That the act of killing makes everyone irredeemable?”
“No . . . that’s not what I . . . ”
“You’re a very smart young woman, Dahlia, but even smart people can be lazy in thinking. You are speaking from a place of hurt and fear, not from a distance that allows for insight and understanding. Consider . . . when this war happens, Neeko will likely have to fight and he may have to kill. Will that condemn him to a changed nature where he will be defined only by what he had to do? Shouldn’t he be viewed through the lens of context? If he kills to prevent the Rovers from raping, brutalizing, and killing many others, does that truly make him as bad as them?”
Now she was crying. Slow tears fell crookedly down her cheeks as she shook her head.
“Wars are fought by people,” said Church. “Some of those people become monsters. A few. Not all. Not most. The rest . . . ? If they’re lucky, they go home to be with the people they fought for. They find a way to lay down their weapons and most of them manage it. And although they carry some scars, in flesh and soul, they are allowed to stop being soldiers.” He paused and tilted his head to appraise her. “Tell me . . . do you want to go to war with the Rovers?”
“God, no!”
“Will you if they attack this camp?”
“Sure, but—”
“Would you step in to fight them i
f you saw them raiding one of those caravans we sent to Asheville? The one last week, for example. There were sixteen children under ten, and eight people over seventy. If the Rovers were trying to murder them and the only thing you could to do stop them was to kill them all . . . would you?”
“That’s not fair.”
“Of course it’s not. Answer the question, though.”
“Yes,” she snapped. “Yes, I’d kill them. To save all those little kids, of course I would, but that’s my point. It makes me a killer.”
“Ah,” he said, smiling sadly, “that is where you’re wrong, Dahlia. The killers are the ones who choose to do that. If you chose to stand between the helpless and people who wanted to harm them, even if you were forced to kill, it doesn’t define you as a killer.”
“Yeah? Then what the fuck does it make me?”
“It makes you a warrior.”
She stared at him, and the word seemed to burn in the air.
“Warrior . . . ?”
“Oh yes. A soldier follows orders, right or wrong. A warrior, a true warrior, steps into harm’s way to save the lives of those who cannot defend themselves.” He released her hands. “I’m teaching you how to fight, how to kill, but I have no intentions at all of turning you into a killer. Even if you kill a hundred of the enemy. I want you to live, Dahlia. When I’m gone you will need to lead your Pack, and you will need to transform it into a community. Maybe into a nation. But before we can rebuild the world we have to preserve it.”
He stood.
“The Rovers are coming for us,” said Mr. Church. “The difference between them and you is that they want a war. They want to kill.”
Dahlia got to her feet. The tears were hot on her cheeks but she didn’t wipe them away. “What . . . what do you want me to do?”
Her voice was shaky, her heart was breaking, but she stood firm.
“Gather the pack,” said Church. “Call in the scouts. We need to find out how many are coming.”
“And then?”
