She smiled back, her bravado surging forward for a second, and then started to cry. Her hands came up, trembling, to hide her face. I was staring right at him, Talin, she sobbed. He was running right at me, and I didn’t even think to run forward to get him. He watched me do nothing to save him. I feel like I killed him.

I put a hand on her shoulder and waited for her. Finally, when she fell silent and started to wipe her tears away, I leaned forward against her bed and met her stare. You didn’t do this, I signed to her firmly. They did. Listen to me, Adena. You’re still here. You made it. And as long as you’re alive, you carry on your brother’s legacy. As long as we’re still alive, we can keep pushing back.

The memory fades, and I find myself staring back into the face of the same girl. But her grief is not what it once was. She doesn’t see me as the Striker who fought alongside her or who held her as she cried. She looks at me like I’m the one on the other side of the warfront, shooting her brother in the back as he runs.

And she’s right. Because what else am I?

Constantine glances at Caitoman and gives him a curt nod. Caitoman snaps his fingers at his troops, that malicious smile back on his face, and the Strikers are jerked away by their ropes. I tear my eyes away from their bound figures, my heart pounding at the thought of what he might do to them.

When I look back at Constantine, he’s regarding me with a curious expression. “Thank you for saving my brother’s life,” he says to me. But I can feel him studying me, wondering if I did anything in that moment to defy him.

Finally, he gives me a small nod. I know you resent saving my brother.

You know he is a monster.

At that, something strange and different ripples through our link. Pity, maybe, or regret. I can’t tell.

Caitoman is only what our father made him, Constantine replies.

He doesn’t say more about it. Instead, he straightens and walks ahead of me to join his brother’s side, listening patiently as his brother leans over to tell him something.

I watch the brothers go, not knowing how to feel. Then I realize that I don’t care. I don’t care what happened in Constantine’s past, or why Caitoman is the way he is. I don’t care to know why they have chosen to destroy everything in their paths. No matter what it is, it cannot change what they’ve done to me. To Red. To my friends. To my mother.

My mother. My mother. My fear for her life clouds every corner of my mind. So I let myself feel angry instead, allowing the emotion of fury to build in my chest until it overtakes my fear, until rage is the only thing Constantine could possibly feel from me. I hope the anger emanating from me haunts him. Let him wake at night, sweating, from his dark dreams.