Vicious Memories

Chapter 109

I sized up the men standing behind Bev as I approached, stopping five feet away.

"Well," I said, "you got what you wanted. Was it worth it?"

"Of course." Bev held her head high.

"And you don't regret any of it?"

She pursed her lips.

"Not a single part?" I pressed. "Nothing?"

"I regret trusting you," she said. "Though I don't regret using your knowledge. None of this would have been possible without your work. But I should have had you killed the moment you left the station. It would have saved me a lot of heartache."

"It would have cost you part of your soul."

"My god," she laughed, though it was clear that she didn't find this remotely funny. "You even talk like her now. Do you even know who she really is? Did she share any of her file with you?"

"I don't need to see her file to know who she really is."

Bev shook her head in disbelief and tucked a stray strand of hair away. Her plait had become increasingly frayed, wisps of yellow dancing and jumping around her face like a malfunctioning halo.

"Such a hypocrite," she muttered.

"In that we're the same, at least."

As much as I wanted hate to be the final feeling I would ever have toward her, I couldn't help but remember the Bev I had gotten to know after waking up here. The one who had brought me food to eat in an empty cabin, the one who'd cared for everyone around her, who'd patched wounds and psyches, who'd been a friend. I wondered whether she had been like that in our past, back when I had fallen in love with her.

"I forgive you, Bev," I said. "For what you've done. I know that in some twisted way, you really thought that this was the right thing to do."

At my words her mouth betrayed her, dropping open into a small circle, and her blue eyes seemed shocked for a moment.

"I never asked for your forgiveness."

"I know. But you have it anyway."

Bev struggled for the words she wanted to hurl at me. For once, she failed, and as she did I almost pitied her. I was her partner, and later her lover, and together she had thought we were going to do something great, only to have me turn around and do everything in my power to ruin it all. But instead of that betrayal forcing her to question her beliefs, she'd doubled down on them. Whether we were right and she was wrong didn't matter.

"I won't stop," she said. "Without you, I'm the whole project now. As long as I'm alive the work will continue. I'll see how far I can take this. For the both of us."

"I know you will."

I slowly stepped back, holding Bev's blue eyes with mine, flashing back to the moment in time when I'd told Neema the truth about the poison I'd created and the way its antidote worked. It could happen in one year or it could happen in three, but it would happen. With Neema gone now, there was nobody else who could give up that information.

I didn't feel any shame, not after the events and conversations of the past few hours.

Bev seemed unnerved by the tranquility of my departure - the lack of continued argument - but she remained composed. Once I rejoined the group of departing villagers she coughed once into her black handkerchief.

"Goodbye, Bev," I called, and turned away.

Everything in life and beyond has an end, and this one took place in the middle of the night under a thick mesh of silver stars. I was surrounded by friends, by enemies, and by strangers. To a man, they would all be strangers to me soon.