He hesitates. I don’t let him off the hook.
“How many people,” I ask, “have you personally signed off on erasing?”
His voice drops. “That’s not?—”
“How many, Caleb.”
He looks at the floor. Once. Then back at me.
“Enough,” he says.
The word hits harder than a number ever could.
“And you sleep?” I ask.
“Not well.”
“Do their families?”
He doesn’t answer.
I nod. “That’s what I thought.”
“You think exposure would fix that?” he snaps suddenly. “You think truth comes without blood?”
“I think lies guarantee it,” I say. “You’re not preventing violence. You’re just deciding who absorbs it.”
He laughs, sharp and bitter. “You really think humans would choose coexistence?”
“I think some would,” I say. “And others wouldn’t. But at least the choice would be real.”
“You’d risk everything onsome?”
“I’d rather risk chaos than live inside a managed lie,” I say. “Because lies always rot. They don’t stabilize. They metastasize.”
He studies me for a long moment. Not as sheriff. Not as alpha.
As something wary.
“You’re not afraid of us,” he says slowly.
“I’m afraid of systems that don’t allow dissent,” I reply. “And right now? That’s you.”
The words land. I see it in his face.
“Say I agree,” he says. “Say I stop managing you. What then?”
“Then you talk to me,” I say. “You argue with me. You warn me. You let me decide what risks I take instead of deciding for me.”
“And when I think you’re wrong?”
“Then you live with that discomfort,” I say. “Like everyone else.”
A beat.
“You don’t back down,” he says.
“No,” I agree. “I don’t.”