“We all made our choices,” I said. “Lookout made her choice, as did the other Chicken Tenders.”

Juliette snorted at the name, a small sound, badly out of sync with the scene and conversation.

I’d already kind of wanted to slap her because she had called Sveta a coward, that didn’t help. Except want was just that. Want. I held my temper.

“We’ll still feel guilty, if we made the choice and we see the fallout. We’ll feel resentful if we make her choose, she chooses something different, and we feel like the alternative we wanted would have been better.”

“I’m okay with resenting her,” Sveta said. “I’m less okay with resenting each other, because we picked different things, or things we think are unconscionable.”

“If it helps,” Byron said. “I think the money is on me or my brother being the ones who end up dying or suffering for a long time. I don’t know what happens when a Case Seventy dies. I won’t hate people if they pick that option.”

“It doesn’t matter,” Sveta said.

“We made the decision and we have to live with it, even if we don’t make the call,” I told her. “Isn’t it better to own it?”

“Uh,” Rain said. “Just going to say… you asked for my input on killing the Leper. You did give me the option to back down, told me why. But you did ask.”

I met the glowing eyes of his mask.

“I’m glad I didn’t have to own that. You were the one to kill the Leper,” Rain told me. “And I think Sveta’s right. We shouldn’t have to own this.”

“We’re not the ones who pick the targets or pull the trigger here,” Sveta said.

“Aren’t we?” Chastity asked. “We’re the triggers, we’re her pawns in this.”

“We’re the bullets that fly out of the gun. It’s not great, but it’s necessary,” Sveta replied, her expression tense. All of this, it was too close to her heart. Cauldron had stolen her life, made her kill so many people already, by way of making her a monster. To accept this would be to condone that, and I couldn’t blame her for refusing to condone what she’d gone through, any more than I would willingly accept any healing from my sister, knowing what she could do, and that she hadn’t meaningfully changed.

Quiet, Sveta asked, “Any objections?”

Juliette raised a hand. Chastity made her put it down.

Nobody objected.

“Contessa!” Sveta called out. “We decided we’re not going to choose! You make the damn call!”

There was only the noise of chaos, gunfire, of rubble collapsing, choking dust in the air. No voice in response.

“Contessa!” Sveta raised her voice.

“Come,” Contessa said.

Make the damn call, Sveta said. But we’d chosen.