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"I know, Darrow I don’t avert my eyes I know the policies I know the conditions your people suffer, but that doesn’t excuse the murders, the rapes, the torture he committed"

"It’s e suffer every day Titus did what he did out of hate Out of a e In another life, I could have been hi searches my eyes "And eren’t you in this life?"

"My wife" I look up at her "And you"

"Don’t say that" Voice thick with regret She takes a step back, shaking her head "You don’t have the right to say that"

"Why not? You alondered what ran beneath the surface of me Know the deep current"

"Darrow …"

"Titus had pain But that’s all he had I had so more Eo’s dream of a world where our children could be free But I would have lost it if I neverato encompass my desperation "I was surrounded by the people who had enslaved ht all Golds cruel, selfish e But then you came … and you showed me there was kindness in them Roque, Sevro, Quinn, Pax, the Howlers proved it too"

"Proved what exactly?" she asks

"That this isn’t about ainst yours You aren’t Gold We aren’t Red We’re people, Mustang Each of us can change Each of us can be e like For hundreds of years they’ve tried to tell us otherwise They’ve tried to break us But they can’t You are that proof You are not your father’s daughter I see the love in you I see the joy, the kindness, the impatience, the flaws They’re in me They were in my wife They’re in all of us because we are huet that Society would have us live by its rules"

I take another step toward her

"You told ave you hope that we could live for more after on the Institute our way Then you said I turned e and went to the Academy But I never turned my back Not for one moment" Another step

"You’ll destroy my family, Darrow"

"It is possible"

"They are rief "My father hanged your wife He hanged her How can you even look at me?" She shudders out a breath "What do you want, Darrow? Tell me Do you want me to help you kill them? Do you want me to help you destroy my people?"

"I don’t want that"

"You don’t knohat you want"

"I don’t want genocide"

"You do!" she says "And why not? After e’ve done to your people After what my father did to you" She unbuttons another catch on her jacket as if it will help her breathe through this The gun shakes in her hand Finger tenses on the trigger "How can I live with this? If I don’t pull the trigger, millions will die"

"If you pull it, you accept that billions should live as slaves Iine all those unborn If it is not me, someone else will rise Ten years from now Fifty A thousand We will break the chains, no matter the cost You cannot stop us We are the tide All you can do is pray it is not someone like Titus who rises in ht eyeball

"Pull the trigger, and you die" Ragnar speaks like the darkness itself

"Ragnar, no!" I snap I can’t even see him in the shadows of the tunnel "Stop! Do not hurt her" He nal as I told hi shuffles sideways so her back is to the wall "Does he know too? Do you knohat he is, Ragnar?"

"The Reaper trusts round and pulls free her razor