We won’t stop you.”

The scales of selfishness teetered in Doc’s mind. She had always been a servant to selfishness, either her own or the Board’s. She remembered the desperate glances in Kentucky. Could she have helped anyone? Could she have helped that poor girl? Doc couldn’t be sure whether she had wanted to help, or if she preferred to do as she was told. Obedience was easier. Pleasing was easier.

She could excuse any action when it was someone else’s choice. The Board never gave a damn about her, while Magenta offered countless hearts and endless second chances, the kind Doc didn’t deserve.

Still, the needle remained ready. Responsibility was a sickness inside her, and she didn’t know the cure.

“We forgave you,” Magenta said. “But you still want to hurt us. Tell us why.”

Doc didn’t know. For the city’s sake? For ABP? The world could end in flashes of magenta. She had a responsibility. No one else would hold the needle of double-zero virus to Magenta’s neck. No one else would think to do it.

She had expectations. Roll over, Doc. Fetch, Doc. Heel and sic ‘em and play dead. That’s a good Doc.

Tentacles squeezed, and Magenta’s voice became dry. “They aren’t here.

You don’t have to be Agent Docia Hall anymore. You can be Doc. Choose.”

Doc tried to stop the needle. She tried to push it. Neither seemed right. She remembered Kentucky clouds, not white cumulus puffs in the sky, but chemicals that covered a high school and then blew back, carrying debris from the dead pale dragon. She’d made so many mistakes that night. Her mind had been trawling for answers these past nine years, eager to turn back the clock. She’d told Yaya and Magenta while they had fought in her tub that she believed in second chances, but was that a lie too?

The needle pierced Magenta’s flesh. She didn’t recoil. She didn’t fight back. The power rested in her to stop this, and she did nothing. Why wouldn’t she take the choice away?

Tears rushed down Doc’s cheeks. “Imagine getting that one-in-a-million second chance and still failing. Second chances have expiration dates, you know? Sometimes you make a mistake, and there’s no fixing it, no matter how sorry you are. You don’t know how else to be.”

“Forgive yourself,” Magenta whispered. “They’ve bound you to their will.

We were the same. They told us to hate ourselves and be miserable, and we obeyed. We understand, Doc.” Her warm embrace tightened, her last chance to hold Doc. “And that’s why we’ll keep forgiving you until the end of time.”

The fist of old concerns clung to the syringe. Doc’s fingers trembled. Her thumbpad grazed the plunger, but she didn’t press down. Plastic slid across skin and out of her limp palm.

Tentacle tips slipped around the plastic and drew it away. Doc didn’t know where the case of syringes had gone. She didn’t care, so long as no needle punctured Magenta. Her tears fell hot and relentless.