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“So how do you know?”
“I don’t, Claire,” Anna said, appropriating Tilly’s pet name to try and create a connection “I don’t know But Holden believes it’s true, and the consequences if he’s right are too extre moment of silence Then ato in here?”
It took Anna a nize it as Hector Cortez She’d known he was on the bridge with Ashford, but somehow the reminder that he’d sided with the men who killed Bull was tooat him
“Anna wants me to open the elevator airlock and let the other side into the bridge She wantsShe says it will kill everyone on Earth if we do”
“Don’t listen to her,” Cortez said “She’s just afraid”
“Afraid?” Anna yelled “Do you hear those sounds, Hector? That’s gunfire Bullets are flying by even as we speak You’re locked away safe and snug on the co you don’t understand, while I aunshot wounds to stop you Who’s afraid here?”
“You’re afraid to make the necessary sacrifices to protect the people we’ve left behind You’re only thinking of yourself,” he yelled back Anna heard the sound of a door closing in the background Someone had shut the door to the security station to keep the arguood sign
“Clarissa,” Anna said, keeping her voice as calht behind her “Claire, the people waiting outside the airlock door are going to be killed if you don’t open it They are trapped there People are coe the subject,” Cortez started
“It’s Holden and Nao him “And Bull is there too Ashford will have theer if they hadn’t attacked Ashford’s rightful command,” Cortez said
“That’s three people who all ive you a second chance,” Anna said “Bull chose to protect you froeance when he had no reason to When I asked her to, Naoreed not to hurt you, in spite of the ave him”
“Those people are criminals—” Cortez tried to say over the top of her, but she kept her voice level and continued
“These people, the people who forgive, who try to help others The people who give their lives to save strangers, they’re on the other side of that door, dying I don’t have to take that on faith That’s fact That’s happening right now”
Anna paused, waiting for any sign Clarissa was listening There was none Even Cortez had stopped speaking The con it was still on
“Those are the people I’ you to betray is a et Earth, and the Ring, and everything else you’d have to take on faith Ask yourself this: Do you want to let Ashford kill Holden and Naomi? No faith Just that simple question, Claire Can you let them die? What choice did they make when the same question was asked of the Knew she was repeating herself But she had to force herself to stop speaking anyway She wasn’t used to trying to save a person’s soul without being able to see the by their reaction She kept trying to fill that e
“I don’t like the idea of those people being killed any more than you do,” Cortez said He sounded sad, but committed to his position “But there is the necessity for sacrifice To sacrifice is literally to be made sacred”