“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to put all of you in danger,” I say, averting my gaze.

He falls silent for a while. “What you did was brave. You have nothing to apologize for.” Before I have a chance to think of a response, he adds, “Come on. It’ll be dark soon, and we have a long way to go.”

We make our way through the jungle, keeping a generous distance between ourselves. It makes the silence easier, and it gives me time to heal some of the wounds on my arms without Gil watching.

When night falls, I struggle to see where I’m stepping, and the distance becomes less about practicality and more about me not being able to keep up.

Gil waits by a tree draped in vines and spiky leaves. When I walk past him, he falls in step beside me, holding out a hand in front of him. A small white light erupts from his palm.

For a moment he looks at me, the glow softening the shadows of his face, and I find it hard to pull my eyes away. Somehow, I manage it.

We continue down the uneven path, feet pressing into soil and wet leaves. I focus on the light ahead like I’m hoping for a distraction, when my curiosity rears its head.

“Did they have Nightlings in War?”

His silence is answer enough.

“When it surrounded me, I think I heard you screaming,” I say quietly, the shuffle of grass all around us. “I felt your fears.”

His footsteps slow. So do mine.

“I get the torture part, but the abandonment…” I stare straight ahead. “Are you afraid of being left behind again?”

He sighs, giving in against the night. “My fear is… complicated. Even though Nightlings don’t show you images, I feel what it means—I feel myself trapped in a box, listening while someone turns a key. Someone I know, somehow, that I love. I feel myself locked away, confined to a space where I can’t move, and no matter what I do, I know I’m trapped in there forever.”

“It makes sense you’d be afraid of losing your freedom,” I say. The entire Colony probably shares the same exact fear.

Isn’t that what we’re fighting to preserve?

He shakes his head. “I think I’m afraid of being betrayed.”

The trees loom above us, and the white light in Gil’s hand bounces off their curved branches.

“I know you went through more in War than I’ll ever be able to understand. And—and I shouldn’t have been so dismissive about it before.” A phantom pain prickles at my elbow, where I felt Gil’s arm severed.

“I didn’t show you that memory to earn your sympathy,” he remarks coolly.

“It’s called compassion,” I snap back. “If people can’t be bothered to understand each other, they’ll always be at war.”