“He did all that to Love Lost and Snag, he didn’t do anything to you?”

I chose those words with some intent. Not just to ask what Rain did, but to imply there was nothing, and invite the retort.

“He took people and things from them!” Cradle roared out his response, so he could be heard. “He took me from me!”

With that last exclamation, it was an actual show of emotion—not that he hadn’t said emotional things, but it was the first time he’d put the emotion out there.

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Chris sit down rather heavily, clawed hands raised. He was bleeding in multiple places, and he didn’t have any fight left in him.

Operator Red turned toward the rest of us, and walked away from Chris, cleavers in hand.

Combat thinkers. Worse in a lot of ways than fighting someone like my mom, with her energy weapons. She could slice a grown man in half with her weapons. A combat thinker? There were ones who could hammer at you psychologically by mirroring mannerisms of people you knew or feared, ones who could hit your nerves or arteries any time, with any strike or weapon they had at hand, and there were ones who could win most fights without trying, because they had the fighting skills without working for those skills, combat precognition, or they saw the fight move at a hundredth the speed.

I was mentally slotting this asshole in that broader ‘win without trying’ category. There might have been some of the former, though, if Snag’s team been drawn to him. The awareness of biology and weak points could both help in combat and in torture.

“He took you from you?” I asked Cradle, keeping one eye on Operator. Cradle was looking up at me.

I did have his attention now. Objective achieved, I guessed.

“I was getting everything set up, finally living the life I wanted to live, and he fucked it all up. He pulled me into this, he infected me, and now I’m different!”

I opened my mouth to respond, to retort, bait out more and keep Cradle’s attention, so we could figure out a way to get Rain away. If Vista could get to Sveta and Rain—and it looked like she was heading that way—

“He violated my self!” Cradle’s words were more raw than any others I’d heard from him. Angrier.

My train of thought stopped where it was, as Cradle’s words entered my head and overrode everything else. In those four words, I got Cradle.

There were so many responses I wanted to give, about everything from the preceding events, the event, and everything that followed…

It was upbringing. Really questionable upbringing, sometimes or even a lot of the time.

He was in a bad place, desperate, with nobody to turn to.