The guard watches her with still and weighing eyes and a mouth twisted to a cruel, clever line.
“Why are you doing this?” Gruff, low. They aren’t supposed to talk to prisoners.
Red’s always been one for small talk. And—tomorrow’s the end. “Some things matter more than winning.”
The guard considers. Red knows the type: idealistic but unskilled, hoping to rise through the ranks on dependability. Yet her defection loosened this one’s lips.
Blue would have been impressed.
“You broke into Garden, and out again, and you won’t tell us how. So you’re not on our side. Why not join them when you had the chance? Sell us out?” So earnest. Red was that way once.
“Garden doesn’t deserve us. Neither does the Agency.” By us she means herself and Blue, wherever she may be, if in fact she is. She means all of them, all the ghosts on all the threads dying in this sick old war. Even this guard. Red gives her this truth, at the last. Maybe it will save her life.
The guard throws her into the cell anyway.
Red hits the floor and skids. She lies still and does not look up. Something rustles behind her. The cell door shuts. All over soon. She did what she could. The guard walks away, boot thud echoing heavy, measured, slow.
When Red looks up, a small rectangle of white paper lies upon the floor.
She scrambles toward the envelope, claws it to her.
Her name. Handwriting she knows.
She remembers the guard’s grip on her arm. Remembers that voice. Was it familiar?
She rips the envelope open with her thumb and reads, and by the second line, her cheeks hurt from the fierceness of her smile.