Page 205 of Reaper Said Mine

The room turns toward me.

Again.

Always again.

Every choice a wound.

Every wound an invitation.

“Send them,” I say.

Skahar’s jaw flexes.

“And send our ships too. Full burn. If Coalition arrives first, they secure civilians and hold until my warriors reach them.”

Theryki issues the order immediately.

On the feed, the Reaper woman lifts the boy and shoves him through a hatch. She turns back for someone else. A shot catches her in the shoulder. She slams against the wall, snarls, and keeps moving.

My vision sharpens until every pixel seems carved in glass.

The old rage comes back.

It should feel good.

It once did.

It once filled the hollow places in me with purpose so simple no grief could argue against it. Find the ones who hurt us. Make them scream. Take from them until they understand loss as a language. Leave wreckage behind so no one forgets the price of hunting Reapers.

But as I watch Rekk burn, the rage feels different.

Smaller.

Less like a weapon and more like a child’s fist beating against a locked door.

Killing Zune did not save Rekk. Threatening the Combine did not protect those children. Every corpse I left in a docking bay, every executive I terrorized, every convoy I seized, every victory I fed to my wounded pride has brought me to a command center where I must ask a Coalition ambassador to save my people because vengeance built fear faster than it built infrastructure.

The thought is so bitter I almost choke on it.

Skahar’s voice reaches me through the alarms. “Gnash.”

I turn slowly.

He rarely uses only my name in public.

His old face holds anger, grief, and something dangerously close to pity. I would rather be struck.

“Do not go where your eyes have gone,” he says.

“Where is that?”

“To the place where a leader blames himself for enemies having teeth.”

My mouth curls. “You told me I invited a dead man into our story.”

“I did.”

“Now you comfort me?”