AARON The impact with the ground was brutal. The force nearly knocked the breath out of me as my body crashed down on top of the insurrectionist. Vision narrowed until the world became a tight tunnel. Adrenaline surged, hot and overwhelming. His hands shoved and twisted beneath me, trying to throw me off. Giving him space meant giving him a chance to shoot. That thought locked me in place. Fighting was happening all around. Shouts. Movement. Chaos. None of it mattered. I straddled Malton and drove my fists down again and again, smashing into his head and neck wherever I could reach. The ground beside my shin shook hard. Soil sprayed up and landed across his face. He caught hold of the rifle barrel and swung it up in a wide arc, fast and desperate. The blow would have split my skull.Marianne moved before I could react. She grabbed Malton’s arm and the weapon, ripping them down and slamming them into the dirt. Pain screamed through my hands as the punches continued. Knuckles tore open. Skin split. Blood flew with every strike, soaking our clothes and darkening the ground. It did not matter. Stopping felt impossible. If I stopped, someone else would die. I kept going until there was no doubt left that this man could never hurt any of us again. A small hand pressed against my chest. Yellow nail polish flashed bright through the red haze clouding my vision. The touch startled me, sharp and intense. My eyes lifted, wild and unfocused, and found Marianne. Her mouth was moving, but no sound reached me. The roar of blood pounding through my ears swallowed her words. Her other hand cupped the back of my head. Fingers slid into my hair, holding me steady.Breathing slowed, inch by inch. Her voice finally broke through, calm and steady, repeated again and again. “It’s over. It’s all okay.” The punches stopped. Malton lay motionless beneath me. Unconscious. His airway had likely closed minutes earlier. He might have already been dead. I stared down at my hands. The skin over my knuckles was shredded and bleeding, my blood mixed with his. I scrambled backward, falling away from the body as the weight of what I had done crashed down on me. Marianne was there immediately, just as she had been from the start of this nightmare, back in the office near the Capitol. She moved in behind me. My arm wrapped around her waist without thinking. She pulled my head into her chest and held me there. Her heart beat hard beneath my ear. The scent of her coconut perfume filled my nose, dragging memories with it. Pizza on late nights. Long hours planning outreach. Talking through donation drives and future hopes that now felt like another life. Her head rested on top of mine. Tears fell from her face, warm against my skin. Everything inside me wanted to stay right there. To never move again. To never face the sin carved into my hands or the horrors burned into my mind over the last several hours. “Dad!” The shout tore through me. I lunged forward, breaking free from Marianne’s embrace. Her startled face flashed past as I turned, searching. “Get up, Dad!” The name hit again. The voice was wrong. Lucas could not be here. My head shook hard. Confusion mixed with the crushing exhaustion that followed the rush of adrenaline. “Please get up.” The sound came from farther down the line, near the first car. Commander Silas’s son lay on the ground. Dark bruises were already spreading across his face. A loose circle of passengers stood around him, silent and tense. His arm stretched outward, fingers reaching for his father. Commander Silas lay nearby beside another body. Neither of them moved. One of the passengers stepped forward. Recognition struck. He was the man who had been spared earlier. He lifted the boy’s rifle, brought it to his shoulder, and lined up a shot at the back of the boy’s head. He pulled the trigger. The world froze.The boy’s fingers twitched once, still reaching for his dead father. Shock rooted me to the ground. Then rage surged up, hot and uncontrollable. I staggered toward the group. “Why did you do that?” The words ripped out of me. “He was a kid!” The man swung the rifle toward me and leveled it at my chest. My feet locked in place as the truth hit again. My life was in danger, yet again. The people in the circle stepped back. Fear widened the space between us. My hand lifted slowly, open and empty, trying to show I was no threat. Words were forming. A plea. An argument. The rifle hit the ground instead. The man pointed at the boy’s body.“He just killed my fiancé,” he said. “Tell me what you would have done.”