Page 349 of Scarlet Wars
I turned away, walking back toward my desk, but left the door open. A silent signal. She could come in, but I wasn’t about to roll out a red carpet.
“About what?” I asked, not bothering to mask the chill in my tone.
She stepped inside, her movements slower than usual. Cara didn’t usually fidget, but now her fingers kept twisting and untwisting like she didn’t quite know what to do with them.
“I want us to get along,” she said. “We’re fighting the same war, against the same enemy. The people in an alliance should at least be able to look at each other without wanting to draw weapons.”
My brow arched as I leaned a hip against the desk. “You say that like you’ve forgotten the children you killed with that monstrous Amplifier. My Offensives at Crown. At Hunza. People I trained. People I knew.”
I straightened. “You say that like you don’t know saying sorry doesn’t reallybuyforgiveness.”
“I wanted to do both, actually.” Her voice didn’t shake, but it wasn’t as steady as she probably meant it to be.
That got my attention, just enough to make me sit forward. “How?”
She glanced toward the bed. “May I sit?”
I gave a small shrug and motioned to it. “Go ahead.”
She crossed the room and sat on the edge of the mattress like someone not sure if she was welcome. I watched her. Not speaking. Not blinking. Only…watching.
I rested my elbows on my knees. “All right. Talk.”
She took a deep breath, the kind that steadied a soldier before a losing battle.
“I am so very sorry, Caden,” she said firmly but quietly. “My actions toward you and your Collective were mostly misguided. Influenced by those who claimed to uphold the same principles I believed in. I followed them because I thought they stood for something righteous. I should’ve known better and I should’ve questioned more.”
She looked down at her hands, then back at me.
“Fighting alongside you. Watching the way you, Walker, McGrath, and Emma carry the people who follow you, how you protect them even when it costs you everything, it made me realize where I should have stood all along.”
I narrowed my eyes. “Which is?”
“WithCrown and Cyclos,” she said. “Not against them.”
I leaned back, folding my arms.
“I acknowledge your apology,” I said.
Her face didn’t change. But her eyes... Yeah, they flickered. “But you don’t accept it.”
I said nothing.
She nodded slowly, like she’d already expected the answer, like she wasn’t here for grace—only for a chance.
“Which is why I brought you this.”
She activated her Nexus. Yellow drops shimmered into existence above it, floating like stardust. With a flick of her wrist, she shot them toward me.
I caught them with mine, letting the file transfer settle into my system.
“What did you send me?” I asked sharper than I intended.
Her expression shifted, serious now, steeled like she was slipping back into the general she was.
“I had a talk with James before Stone’s funeral,” she said. “Not unlike the one we’re having right now. He listed all my misgivings, and in doing so I realized there is something I need to set straight.”
“I’m listening.”
