Darkest Before Dawn

It took a long moment, the room cloaked in silence, for her to realize Conrad had retreated and only Hancock remained.

“You can go now,” she said, no life in her voice.

“Honor, listen to me,” Hancock said, an urgency she’d never before detected in his voice brushing over her like an electric shock.

She stared mutinously ahead, her gaze fixed on a distant object as she continued to retreat more and more into the silent void she’d built around her.

“Damn it, Honor. For once just listen to me. I know you hate me. Despise me. You have every right. But I need you to listen to me. Your sacrifice will not be in vain,” he said fiercely. “Your bravery will not go untold. Your courage will not be forgotten. You will not ever be forgotten. I swear that to you on my life.”

“What does it matter?” she asked dully. “I will die a coward, begging for death, wishing with all my heart and soul to die. How is that bravery or courage? I never want my parents to know the truth of my death. It’s kinder to tell them I died in the bombing. Can you promise me that at least, Hancock? Can you do them this one small kindness since I know you won’t do it for me?”

“No,” he said in a pissed-off voice. “No, I will never let them believe you simply died. I will tell them the truth. That your life and death meant something. That your death saved hundreds of thousands of other people. So they never think your death was senseless and random. They deserve that truth.”

“So it doesn’t matter what I want, but then that should be obvious to me by now,” she said, self-loathing filling her for even considering for a moment that it would.

She turned up her face to him and saw him recoil from whatever terrible look was in her eyes. Or perhaps it was the lack of what he saw in her eyes. Life. Meaning. That she no longer cared and had given up. Finally defeated.

“Why did you kiss me?” she whispered fiercely, hating herself all the more for this display of utter weakness. “Why bother making me care? Making me think you cared at least on the level of one human caring about another? Do you despise me so much then? I can’t conceive of the kind of hatred that drives you.”

She shivered and ran her hands up and down both arms, folding inward, becoming smaller and more inconsequential with every passing minute. Preparing herself, her defenses, strengthening them for the terrible future that awaited her.

“I care,” he denied harshly. “I care too goddamn much, and that’s why I’m so fucking pissed off, Honor. Because I’m not supposed to care. I’m not supposed to be human. I’m a killer. A mercenary. Call me what you will, but it’s all true. Every possible terrible thing you can conjure. It’s true. But you can never say I don’t care, goddamn it. Because I care too much.”

In that moment, Honor knew. She knew that Hancock wasn’t quite as incapable of emotion as she’d thought. That he likely hated what he knew had to be done. But that wouldn’t stop him because he believed in whatever his mission—job—was. And in order to, as he’d put it, save thousands of other lives, hers must be forfeit.

And he hated that.

But he hated that he cared even more.

How lonely and stark must his existence be? Devoid of all the things she took for granted being raised in a huge, loving family, surrounded by unconditional love and support. Things he’d obviously never had—never would have—because he’d never allow himself to have those things.

He didn’t think he was worthy or that he deserved them.

She hated him for betraying her, but she understood in a twisted way. In his own way, he was honorable. Doing what most couldn’t do but had to be done to rid the world of monsters. Even become the very thing he hunted. A monster of the worst kind.

Maybe if he hadn’t made her care about him, the man, she wouldn’t be as hurt or feel so betrayed. Perhaps she’d even understand better that her sacrifice, as he’d deemed it, was necessary.

But she couldn’t simply put it aside like he did and turn off what made her human. It still hurt. It hurt more than the thought of torture and death. It hurt her that she’d trusted him, that she’d cared about him on a deeper level. That they had shared the intimacy—a bond—that she’d shared with no one else and it had all been thrown back in her face.

It hadn’t meant to him what it had meant to her, and for that she felt foolish and humiliated.

Was her hurt pride truly worth the loss of so many lives? Did it even matter how she died or how she was sacrificed if so many others could be saved by one woman? Her?

And why now was she preparing to try to absolve him of the terrible guilt and suffering she’d seen so briefly in his eyes? What kind of naïve fool did it make her to even believe she could give him absolution or peace?

“I understand, Hancock,” she said, allowing some of the cold aloofness in her voice to fade away, sincerity taking its place. “And I forgive you, for what it’s worth. You’re right. What is the good of the one compared to the good of the many?”

Hancock swore savagely, getting up so swiftly that it rocked the bed, and she braced herself, fuzzy from the pain medication. He paced the floor like a caged animal, rage radiating from him in wave after wave.

“Don’t you ever forgive me,” he hissed. “And you sure as fuck do not offer me an apology that disguises itself as understanding.”

She gazed at him, allowing sorrow to fill her eyes. And resignation.

“You can’t control my feelings, Hancock. You control my fate, yes. My ultimate destiny. My life even. But you can’t control me. You don’t get that choice over whether I grant forgiveness or understanding or even apologize that I’m not stronger, that I can’t just stop fighting and accept that my death will save the lives of so many other innocent people.”