“Yes.”
“You ate beside them.”
“Yes.”
“Then you helped kill us.”
Gideon looked directly at her.
“Yes.”
The word landed harder than any denial.
Ayana wanted excuses.
Excuses were easier to hate.
Instead he stood there and accepted the wound she gave him.
“Why did you save me?” she asked.
Gideon looked toward the window.
“Because I’m tired of watching things die.”
For four days, Ayana hated him.
On the fifth, her fever began.
Gideon had removed the arrowhead the first night.
But infection had already taken hold.
Her shoulder swelled.
Red veins spread beneath her skin.
She drifted between waking and dreams.
Sometimes she saw Ka.
Sometimes her father.
Once she saw Gideon sitting beside the bed, holding a wet cloth against her forehead.
“Get away from me,” she whispered.
“You’re burning up.”
“I hope I die.”
His hand stopped.
“Don’t say that.”
“Why?”
His face hardened.
“Because dying isn’t revenge.”
She stared at him through fever.
“You know revenge?”
Gideon sat back.
“I know what it costs.”
That night, he told her the rest.
His wife had been named Miriam.
His daughter, Ruth.
Three years earlier, Gideon had returned from Black Mesa unable to sleep.
He drank.
He fought.
He told Miriam fragments of what he had seen.
Then Gideon reported his commanding officer, Captain Silas Vale.
Vale had ordered the attack.
Officially, the village had been described as hostile.
Gideon testified otherwise.
The inquiry disappeared.
Six weeks later, Gideon’s cabin burned while he was away.
His wife and daughter died inside.
The army called it an accident.
Gideon did not believe them.
“Vale killed them?”
Ayana asked.
“I spent three years believing he did.”
“Believing?”
Gideon’s eyes settled on the fire.
“I’ve learned certainty can be dangerous.”
Ayana laughed bitterly.
“My father is certainly dead.”
Gideon looked at her.
“Yes.”
Something in the way he said it made her pause.
But fever dragged her away before she could ask why.
By dawn, Gideon had made his decision.
He saddled his horse.
Ayana found him packing ammunition.
“What are you doing?”
“Taking you home.”
She stared at him.
“You know where my people are?”
“I know where they wintered two years ago.”
“They will kill you.”
“Probably.”
“You say that like weather.”
“I’ve been expecting worse weather for a long time.”
Ayana should have let him go.
Instead she said, “They may kill you before I can speak.”
Gideon tightened the saddle strap.
“Then speak fast.”
Despite herself, a sound escaped her.
Almost laughter.
She hated that more than anything.
The journey lasted three days.
Ayana rode Gideon’s mare while he walked.
Her fever rose each afternoon.
At night he built small fires hidden between rocks.
