Say something.
“How are you feeling?”
Can’t you do better than that?
She shook her head. “I’m alive. That’s all that matters, right?”
He reached over, took her hand. “I can see that something’s bothering you.”
She seemed to hesitate. “Those men you killed today—I was relieved and happy that they died. You saved our lives. They were strangers who weren’t there by choice. They were ordered to come after us. They have families and friends, maybe wives and children. But I wasrelievedwhen they died. What kind of hypocrite am I if I talk about nonviolence and then feel good about it when someone else gets killed?”
Her question stung. He had made a career out of killing. Dealing out death—very selectively and with perfect precision—was part of his job description.
This isn’t about you, dumbass.
He ran his thumb over her knuckles. “You’re not a hypocrite. Every living thing wants to survive, Shanti. What you’re feeling—the relief that they’re dead and you’re not—is normal.”
“Do you really think so?”
“I know so.” He’d felt that emotion more times than he could count. “It’s normal, too, to feel some conflict. No one wants to kill. But you’re not responsible for those men’s deaths. I am. Or Naing is—with my help. Naing arranged to have our guys, Hatch and Davis, murdered and you abducted. He mobilized his army. He gave the orders, and they earned their paychecks by following those orders. They wouldn’t have hesitated for a moment to kill either of us. In fact, they came close to doing just that.”
She lifted her gaze to his. “I wouldn’t be alive right now if not for you, Connor. I don’t even know how to thank you. What you’ve done for me, risking your life and killing to keep me safe… It must be hard to carry the weight of their deaths, of killing. I think now maybe I understand what you mean by re-entry.”
What was she trying to say? Did she believe he’d made some heavy personal sacrifice killing those men today? Was she implying he should feelbadabout what he’d done? He didn’t. It had come as naturally to him as breathing.
She didn’t understand anything about his life.
“Don’t worry about me. I don’t feel bad about killing someone who’s trying to kill me or one of my clients. That’s my job. I kill when I have no other choice, and I get paid to do it.” Done with this conversation, he reached for his backpack and pulled out the bivy sack. “It’s time to get some shut-eye.”