“Leave me alone,” I scream. I don’t want to hear anything she has to say, not after what she’s just done. It’s like the nightmare when we hit the bucket, all over again. Swift takes the captain’s side no matter what. She’s killed for that woman, and she’d die for her.

“You fucking listen to me, Cas. All your life you’ve killed people like Code. You’ve sent beasts at us that shred us, that swallow us—you measure their success by the percentage of death they deal. And you do it because they attacked you first. There’s no difference between what the captain just did and what you, as a trainer, do every goddamn day.”

“You—”

“What was I supposed to do? Let you tackle Santa Elena? Let you push her into the water with your killer beast?”

“You could have—”

There’s a hollow thud on the other side of the door, like Swift’s just punched it. “There was nothing I could do but save your stupid life, like I always do. Every—every single—”

I can feel a storm building inside me, a fury that won’t quiet. Swift has the nerve to compare Reckoner justice to the brutality I just witnessed. She’s nothing but the captain’s pet, a dog at the end of a very short leash. She’s seen nothing of the world I know. “You’ve never once saved my life, you piece of shit,” I growl. “Everything you do, you do to save your own neck.”

I expect her to scream back, but there’s nothing but empty silence on the other side of the door. I keep my fingers winched tight around the handle, ready for her to wrench it open at any minute, but there’s only stillness.

Then I hear her sigh faintly, the metal between us warping the sound until it rings. “Did it ever occur to you that your neck might matter to me at least as much as mine? Actually, probably more than mine?” she says.

I freeze, suddenly aware of how my breathing has slowed. I’m trying to picture her on the other side of the door in this moment, but an image doesn’t settle. She could be standing, arms folded, wearing that confident smirk that she always puts on when she’s teasing, but I seriously doubt that’s what’s going on. The Swift I picture on the other side of the door is the one that she doesn’t let the captain see. Her forehead’s pressed against the metal, or maybe buried in her hands, or maybe she’s got one hand clutching the handle of the door, waiting for that opportune moment to twist it open.