Leading up to the trail, he could see the footprints were becoming more staggered. Increasingly fatigued. Like the soldier had used the last of their strength to get here.

  His power told him he was approaching a woman in her mid twenties, lying on her back atop a rocky outcropping. Her skin had an unhealthy pallor to it, and her uniform was covered in snow.

  Injuries, recent and old, lined her body like a fragile mosaic, telling the story of a hard life lived in battle. But there was something else. Something inherent, speeding up her deterioration.

  The aura told him everything: resignation, pain, terror, sorrow, longing. They fluctuated, slowly spiraling into despair.

  She was suffering.

  While Finn didn’t want to leave the truck behind for too long lest the refugees face danger without him present, it was wrong to ignore this. And besides, he could get information out of her. That was a good enough reason to stay.

  As for potential threats, he could detect no advanced equipment or powers. The colors of her aura lacked that existential weight he normally saw in a superhuman. So why was she out here all by herself?

  Cognizant of her physical condition, he made haste. But the distance wasn’t too great because she hadn’t made it very far at all. Soon enough, the pace of his run turned into a jog, and then a walk once he got within earshot.

  Panic shot through her when she managed to turn her head in the direction of the crunching footsteps, only to see nothing there. Her breath came short, eyes darting around until he undid his invisibility. Her shoulders slumped slightly as he took shape beside her, tension bleeding away.

  “Your clothes aren’t…” she trailed off in a weak voice that he couldn’t make out from two meters away. The reason he understood it anyway was due to his senses allowing him to lip read.

  “My clothes aren’t what?” he prompted, stepping up and taking a knee at her side. Seeing him step this close made her tense up, a hand reaching for her pocket, fumbling uselessly three times before she gave up with a sigh and let her head fall back into the cushioning layer of white.

  “From one of Seraphim’s,” she clarified. “You’re not from around here, I take it?”

  He shook his head. “No.”

  The stranger exhaled a chuckle, though he saw little amusement rippling off of her. “Sounds like bad luck to me, ending up in a shithole like this. You’re young, aren’t you?”

  He didn’t answer. He wasn’t sure it mattered.

  “Well—don’t blame me for swearing then. ‘Cause my hands are fucking numb. Can’t even draw my knife on you.”

  Indeed, he did sense her weapon. Not that it was of much use in her state. “Tell me what you’re doing here,” he said.

  “That a threat? I’m not about to disclose… eh, who cares? I’m on my deathbed here. Looking at the sky in my final moments. They say it’s supposed to be peaceful.” Dark eyes glanced his way, and he could see the strain there despite her smirk. Years of exhaustion catching up to someone.

  “You came here to die?” He could hardly believe his ears.

  The woman shrugged. “Don’t look at me like I’m crazy. I’ve thought long and hard about it. If there was a better way, I wouldn’t find it before this damn body gave out.”

  To live knowing the end was creeping closer—that must’ve been unbearable. But to surrender to it? He struggled to understand it. “What about healers? Or medical technology? Nothing can be done about your injuries?”

  More resignation. “Not with my disease, it can’t. Lived with it my whole life, and now it’s my time. I couldn’t outrun it. Stopped trying.”

  That sounded horrible, he couldn’t imagine having to go through anything similar himself for years, much less giving in to it. He didn’t blame her, but he did wonder why she ended up here of all places. “What made you want to go to war?”

  “Wasn’t a matter of ‘want.’ It was the thing to do, knowing I wouldn’t live to see thirty. Soon as I hit the minimum age, I signed up. Worst decision of my life, best decision I ever made on my own terms. Got my hands dirty, but at least I don’t have to find out what it’s like to be a retired war vet.” She had a faraway look as she said that, like the past was playing out in front of her.

  Still, it didn’t explain what the others were thinking. “I saw the tracks. Why did they leave you behind?”

  She huffed. “I asked them to. When the call for a scouting mission came after the icebitch pulled back, I volunteered. Realized this was a good opportunity to venture off on my own and find a resting place. What, you thought there was some tearful goodbye? We weren’t best buddies. All my friends have given up the ghost already, and I didn’t allow myself to make more since I know I should’ve gone with them.”

  “Couldn’t they have—”

  “Euthanized me? Nah, just doesn’t really happen in the army.”

  Not what he was going to ask. “Couldn’t they have buried your body?”

  “I don’t care for that stuff. If I’m gone, I’m gone. That’s it.” She sounded as if she didn’t want to argue, and he saw no need to challenge that disinclination.

  The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

  “Are they going to use this place as a battlefield again?” he asked instead. He required intel in order to get the refugees out safely.

  “Probably not? I can’t tell you with confidence one way or the other. I wasn’t there for the debrief from the other scouting teams, no idea if there were any better locations.”

  “Alright,” he said with a nod, inwardly cursing the fact that his nanites wouldn’t enter anyone else’s body regardless of how hard he tried. In theory, they were perfectly capable of just fixing this woman right up, but because of some idiotic design choice, she was going to die. He could see her body succumbing to the cold and organ failure at a grueling rate. It wasn’t going to be quick, or painless.

  But he couldn’t stay here. He had failed to save her, yet he needed to return. Maybe he would alert her people to do what they could for her. With that in mind, he moved to stand.

  Her hand found his arm. “Wait. Can you… Can you kill me?”

  The words made his head snap back to her. “What?”

  Gazing up at him was the face of a pleading soul. “I thought I could do it alone, but I don’t know if I have the guts to follow through. And I definitely lack the strength. The sergeant took my gun.”

  “I…” He didn’t know what to say anymore.

  She took a trembling breath, fingers barely keeping the lightest grip on his sleeve. “Are you going to make me beg?”

  He hesitated at the seriousness of her request, the desperation and yearning behind it. Taking lives wasn’t something he planned on ever making a habit, nor was it something he’d ever done previously. He didn’t know if he could follow through with it if she insisted. It felt like he was on the precipice of a new chapter in his life, the contents of which were still unknown. He was facing a tunnel of darkness with no way of seeing the light at the end. Was this what heroes did?

  What would Dad do in this situation? Pull off a miracle, most likely. Be it getting her to the other side of the world in minutes, or an equally impossible feat. Nothing he could live up to.

  He swallowed. “Are you sure?”

  A ghost of a smile played on her lips. “I was sure when I walked out here, Ghostie.”

  For a time, he stood upright, radiating some heat. Ending someone’s story for good. With his own hands. There would be no coming back from that. Once he did that, he would be a killer. Forever. He wouldn’t be able to go back to being the old Finn. It was a sacrifice he had been bracing himself to make to get rid of his greatest enemy, rather than some woman he had met that same hour.

  “No, I can’t,” he said.

  “Kid, I'm choosing this for myself. I'm- I'm sorry to make you do this. Can- ugh, please. There, I said it.”

  Silence reigned.

  “You shouldn’t feel guilty for putting me out of my misery,” she continued. “It’s what I want and deserve. God knows I’ve blown enough people’s brains out. Some of them younger than you. Doesn’t that make you sick? Make you want to slit my throat? Come on.”

  Really, if Finn was being honest with himself, he just wanted the easy path. Less than three minutes ago, he had been prepared to leave her to freeze to death. He’d wanted to wash his hands of this and be done with it. That was what it boiled down to. Would he continue to do this when there wasn’t a high road to take? He was aware by now that he hadn’t always been sufficiently capable to prevent terrible things from occurring, and that would happen again in the future in spite of how much he wanted to deny it. Things simply moved too fast. Even so…

  He didn't want to be prepared for this.

  “What’s your name?”

  “Devlin. Madeline Devlin,” came the swift response. “You don’t need to make a headstone for me, no worries.”

  When she saw him turning away from her and he looked up into the sky, he could sense her disappointment; she had concluded that he wasn’t willing to do it. Then he turned around again without the disguise, showing her his true face.

  “It was nice meeting you, Madeline. I’m Finneas Allister. I wish things could have worked out differently,” he replied as he reached over and slipped the blade out of her pocket.

  Madeline was fighting back tears. “Thank you.”

  Gripping the instrument of murder between both palms, he lifted it above the tired soldier’s chest, reinforcement enhancing its penetrative power such that it would pierce right through her vest. His arms hovered over her, ready to grant mercy.

  For the first time since landing in this hellish perpetual winter, the boy's hands started to shake.

  “When you have a girl like me,” his victim said, “falling through the cracks of the system, it pushes her to the periphery. Teaches her how insignificant she is. That’s what made me end up on the frontlines. Thinking you’re not important. One more nameless warm body in an army of thousands, might as well. And you know what? I learned that that’s true. Live or die, I’m not making an impact either way. But I do have one regret.” She closed her eyes. “I didn’t have to be by myself. Sounds silly, I know. Doesn’t make it any less true. I know I’m not going to be missed for my short time on the globe, but I want to be. Would’ve preferred having a person who completed me instead of living five more years in hell. If you have someone like that?”

  His grip tightened.

  She rested a hand atop his. “Never let them go.”

  Finn sank the knife into her heart.

  Her eyes shot open, and she gasped in a beat of instinctive fear. Her muscles clenched, limbs lifting into the air a fraction before going limp. Relief and tranquility flooded her aura as it disappeared.

  Leaving him with her corpse.

  The knife slipped from his fingers, landing with a soft thud in the snow, dyeing it red.

  Finn stared.

  Her long black hair was splayed out behind her, strands catching the light of the pale sky above. The tension that had lined her face moments ago had eased, leaving behind something almost… peaceful. Like she was only sleeping. Like she might stir at any moment and make some wry, self-deprecating remark about the whole situation.

  She would not.

  Wind howled through the trees, tugging at his shirt, urging him to move, though he remained frozen.

  He had killed her.

  The blood spreading beneath her looked too bright against the snow, soaking into the ice like it was swallowing her last trace of warmth. The knife—the weapon he had used—sat beside her limp hand, glinting dully.

  The sight of it made the weight in his chest press down harder. He didn’t know what he’d expected. That the moral correctness of his actions would soothe his conscience? That he wouldn’t sit with the knowledge of having executed another human being for eternity?

  Whatever the answer, there would be no undoing it.

  So he picked up the knife, wiped it clean, and began to dig.

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