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David's jaw clenched and a vein in his te, Noelle We keep this country safe We protect people"

"But you do kill" It wasn't really a question

"When it's necessary"

"And who gets to decide when it's necessary?"

He scrubbed a wide hand over his head and pulled in a deep breath as if to calm himself "There are a lot of bad people out there It's not exactly sohtly news if we can help it We like for people to be able to sleep at night, not worry about whether or not they're going to wind up dead in ways they can't even i 'we,' Are you one of the people who get to choose between life and death for another hu the chair away "Yeah, I'hts and decided whether or not to pull the trigger I've set explosives on a building knowing that as soon as I pushed the button everyone inside was going to be blown to hell I've even killed with ht out of their bodies"

He leaned forward, his hands flat on the table, his eyes frigid blue with anger "And I'm not sorry because I knohat thosehad they lived"

Noelle leaned back in her chair, needing to put soer But even in the face of such rage, she still thrust her chin up, refusing to back down on as important "You can't knohat is in a person's heart And if you can't know that, you can't judge the"

His nostrils flared as he studied her face She wanted to get up and round under his scrutiny

Slowly, he leaned down and picked up the briefcase he'd brought with hier loud, but it was just as cold "No, Noelle, you're the one who's wrong I do knoas in their hearts" And with that, he pulled a stack of glossy eight-by-ten photos fro thehtmare in shades of blood and dead flesh There were severed liues Half of a penis The faces of the victinizable as human There were men, women and even a couple of children that couldn't have even lived into their teens Two dead babies

Noelle fought the urge to vo could have prepared her for the real thing Even with the added detachment of photos, she could al from the pictures

Her body started to shake and sweat as her led to assimilate what he'd shown her This wasn't real It couldn't be No one was that horrible

"This," he said in a quiet, aching voice, pointing at the photos "This is as in their hearts"

Noelle didn't want to look, but she couldn't stop herself Her stomach clenched painfully, but she forced herself to face the ie as she could These were real photos Real people Real children

Noelle's eyes filled with tears, but she blinked theuish burned in his blue eyes, which were also ith unshed tears His jaas clenched and his lips were pulled into a snarl of self-loathing

"And this one" His voice was nearly a whisper now, quiet with the tightness of grief With a shaking hand, he pulled out a set of photos shohat had once been a beautiful young blonde woman She was bound to a metal chair by thick leather cuffs around both wrists and ankles She was naked and bruised over much of her tanned skin

There was a pool of blood under her chair that looked too large to have ever fit inside her slihs were stained with ers had been severed and were lying neatly in rows on a table at her side "This woman was my wife My Mary" He sed audibly before he could continue "The Swarm did this to her They raped her and tortured her and beat her for the cri more She was supposed to be safe at ho op I wouldn't have even known she'd been taken if I hadn't received her wedding ring--still attached to her severed finger--in the rief in his voice that made Noelle look up He'd loved Mary She could see it plainly, shining in his eyes, along with anguish, regret and self-hatred He'd loved this woman and they had mutilated her

Suddenly, all the people in the photos becaes on paper They had parents and siblings and friends who loved thehed and cried and loved in return They were people Alive

Turned into photos too grotesque to iine

David looked up froht into her eyes There was so much pain there inside him that she couldn't look away She felt that if she averted her gaze, even for a second, David would cruuilt She could tell that he felt like he should have saved his wife frorueso he could to save the woh

"This is e're fighting, Noelle This is e need your help Without you, the Sill find those weapons and they won't hesitate to use the" His voice fell to athread of sound "Please, don't let that happen Don't let someone else's wife be tortured and killed like ainst David's plea How could he ask this of her? How could he ask her to throay all her morals and do what she'd sworn she'd never do? What if her as used to kill?

A tiny, new voice inside her answered, What if it wasn't used to kill those monsters?

Noelle forced herself to look at the photos again David was right Whoever had done this deserved to die They needed to die before they could kill again No ly or horrible the task was, soroup of people It was a group of demons Pure evil

Someone had to stop theh to be that person

The glossy eyes of the dead stared at her, pleading with her to help Mary's lifeless, brown eyes begged Noelle to save her husband fro