“What?”

His words are weightless. Breathy things that a strong wind could blow away, yet Ify feels as though each one could pulverize her. “It was beneath the cell where I was being held where I saw you.” He licks cracked lips. “I remember. I know it was you.”

“You don’t know—”

“Please.” He raises a hand limply, as though to stop her. It immediately falls back onto the bed. “I know it was you. The men obeyed you and the pilot you were with. If they are torturing me, it is because you are making them.” His words don’t match his tone. The words should be coming from someone angry, someone threatening vengeance. But his voice is one of resignation and soft certainty, the type of voice with which the elderly speak when they know they don’t have much longer to live. Tears brim in his eyes. “But I am not hating you. I should be hating you, but I am not. I should be wanting to kill you, but I am not. Even while others that I am with are wanting to be killing you and doing horrible thing to you, I am not.” He holds her gaze. As weak as he looks in that bed, he refuses to break her gaze. “You are leaving the war. You are surviving and leaving. And you are coming here. Why am I not able to do the same? You are doing horrible thing during war, just like I am doing horrible thing during war.”

“We are not the same.”

A tear slides down his face, drops from his chin. “But I survived. And I left. And I came here.”

“You are a weapon. You will always be a weapon. You can’t change. And this?” She gestures at the entirety of the hospital room. “You doing what you did? It changes nothing. I know what you’re doing. You’re trying to manipulate them into caring for you. You want them to hold on to you even tighter, so you do something like this.” She’s getting angrier than she intended, and tears spring anew to her eyes. This isn’t my fault, she tells herself. “But it’s not going to work. Because I”—she jabs a finger into her chest—“I am here to protect them. I know what you are, and I won’t let you hurt them.”

She leaves before she can say any more, stomping to the door and waiting frustratedly for it to slide open. When she stops outside, she remembers that Paige and Amy are on the bench right next to her. She wipes the wetness from her eyes and stuffs her bloodstained tissue in her pocket.

“Oh, Ify,” Amy says, rising to hug her.