Page 65 of Fated in A Time of War

He takes a step closer. I don’t back up.

“Do you know what it’s like?” he says, voice low now. “Seeing your people look atyoulike you’re the risk? Like you brought the snake into the den? I’m responsible for these lives, Alice. If he turns, if he was everfaking—it’s on me. You get that?”

“Yes,” I say.

He blinks.

I nod. “I get it. And if he turns, I’ll take responsibility. I’ll shoot him myself.”

Anderson doesn’t respond. Not right away.

“He won’t,” I add. “He could’ve killed me a dozen times by now. He didn’t.”

“He’s a soldier.”

“Not anymore.”

He studies me. I can see the gears turning behind his eyes, trying to connect dots that don’t line up the way he wants them to.

“You trust him?” he asks.

I shrug. “I shouldn’t.”

“But you do.”

I nod.

“Why?”

I meet his gaze. “Because he saved my life.”

“That it?”

“No,” I say. “It’s not.”

I run a hand through my hair, sweaty and sticking to my neck. The sun’s baking this side of camp, and I suddenly feel like I’m being grilled.

“He didn’t just save my life, Anderson. He gave up everything to get that medicine here. You saw the wound. You saw what he walked through. He’s not doing this for glory. There’s no Alliance camera feed, no promotion waiting. He could’ve run. He didn’t.”

Anderson’s jaw tightens.

“If he were the monster we were told Vakutans are,” I say, “I’d be dead.”

Silence hangs between us. Heavy. Real.

Anderson exhales through his nose.

“Just… be careful,” he mutters. “You care too much. That’s always been your weakness.”

“Maybe,” I say. “Or maybe it’s what keeps people alive.”

Anderson doesn’t say anything for a long time.

His eyes shift off me, fixed somewhere just past my shoulder like he's chewing on words too big to swallow. I watch his jaw work, the tendons standing out like wires under skin. Then, finally, he nods. Not quick. Not confident. Just… slow. Like it costs him something.

And then he says it.

“They’re coming.”