Page 74 of Fated in A Time of War

“I’m giving you the option,” he says.

That catches me.

He looks at me then. Eyes narrowed, but not angry. Just tired. “You’ve done more than anyone here. You brought us medicine. Held the line. Got Vakutan muscle on our side. I’d be an idiot not to try and keep you alive.”

I stare at him.

Then I shake my head.

“No.”

He blinks. “Alice?—”

“My place is here.”

He starts to argue, but I cut him off with a look. “If this place falls, I fall with it.”

Anderson sighs. Long and low. Like I just told him the thing he already knew but hoped I wouldn’t say out loud.

“I figured you’d say that.”

“Then why offer?”

He rolls the map back up with shaking hands. “Because you deserved the choice.”

I reach out and touch his arm. Just for a second. Just enough.

Then I turn and head back toward the heart of the camp, where Krall’s probably just waking up, where the fire’s cold and the morning smells like the calm before the slaughter.

Whatever comes next, I’ll be here.

Exactly where I need to be.

The sky’s gone from gray to bruised violet, that sickly color just before blood spills. You can feel it in your teeth—staticbuzzing through the fillings, the low boom of distant mortars rattling the air like a giant's slow heartbeat.

They’re here.

I sprint across Sector Three, boots pounding cracked asphalt, lungs burning from smoke and fear. My fingers are slick with someone else’s blood, drying in sticky patches across my knuckles. The med satchel slaps against my hip, half-empty already. Too many wounds. Not enough gauze. Not enough time.

A mortar lands somewhere behind me—closer than the last. The shockwave knocks dust off the scaffolding overhead. Screams follow it. I don’t flinch. Just move faster.

The Kru advance patrols are visible now, silhouettes through the haze. They move like shadows with teeth. Like they own the night.

Krall’s voice cuts through the chaos.

“MOVE! Cover right flank—go, go, go!”

He’s on the east barricade, shoulder-to-shoulder with a half-dozen civvies barely old enough to shave. His armor’s patched, dented. His face is blood-smeared. But he moves like a force of nature. Not hesitating. Not blinking. He grabs one of the kids by the collar, yanks him back just as a blast takes out the crate he was hiding behind.

I weave through sandbags, yell at a triage runner to send more tourniquets to the rear post, then duck under a rail beam as shrapnel whistles past. The air smells like melted metal, singed hair, and the sour tang of adrenaline.

Krall sees me.

I’m dragging a girl—twelve, maybe—whose thigh is a mangled mess of bone and pulp. I shout for help, but there’s none nearby. He drops his rifle, runs.

His voice changes.

“ALICE!”