“Why?” Ness took a step forward, her fingers tightening around the rifle. Saskia strained against Cady’s hold, but Cady hauled her back. “Why, Cadence?”

“I don’t know.” Cady lost it. “The girl we’d saved was in bad shape. Mac had taken enemy fire. We made it back by the skin of our teeth, with minutes to spare, and Ash went back.”

I knew, beyond any human knowing, that Cady had relived that moment, again and again. This was her forest. Her Girl.

“You left him,” Ness said, her volume rising.

“There was an explosion.” Cady shuddered. “Enemy forces were incoming. We were outnumbered and outgunned, and…” Her head bowed with the force of what she was about to say. “We left him.”

The silence that followed that statement was deafening. I calculated the space between Cady and me, the space between Cady and Ness, the chances that I could get to the gun, the risk that Saskia would break Cady’s hold, the consequences if she did.

“Ash knew.” Mac took first one step toward Ness, then another. “When he went back in—whatever he was thinking, whatever he was after—he knew that he wouldn’t make it back out.” For the first time, I could hear something that wasn’t calm or steady in Mac’s tone. “Ash knew we’d have to leave him there.”

Ness turned her head toward Mac, the gun still aimed at Cady’s chest. “Why?”

As hard as it sometimes was for me to read people, I heard echoes of a thousand more questions in that single word. Why would Ash choose to go back? Why would he take that kind of risk? Why hadn’t he thought, in that moment, of her?

“Ash was always in it for the adrenaline.” Mac shook his head. “He liked taking chances. He liked winning. But in the weeks leading up to that mission, he was different. The chances he was taking were less calculated.” Mac shook his head, his voice tightening. “I confronted him about it, but he kept pushing, right up to the end.”

“He knew,” Cady whispered. Then she repeated the words again, louder.

“Knew what?” Mac asked the question before Ness could.

When Cady answered, her answer was only for him. “Ash knew that we were together, Mac.” She swallowed, her eyes closing, just for an instant. “He knew that I was pregnant.”

Silence fell, for one second, two, three. And then Ness spoke. “Loving you,” she told Cady, her voice almost tender, “killed my son.”

“You never told me.” That was from Mac. “That you were pregnant. You told Ash?”

Cady stared at the barrel of the gun. “He found the test. He asked me. I couldn’t lie to him. I was going to tell you, Mac, but then we lost Ash. And I didn’t tell you, because I didn’t deserve to.” She lifted her gaze to Mac’s. “I didn’t deserve you.”