Page 12 of Star-Born Anomaly
“I should have shot myself in the head the day after she died.”
The old man had said that before too.
Carver’s gaze went to his black case lying on the deck a meter away. There were a hundred items in there that could make the old man talk, but the only things Carver had pulled so far were the regenerator and the laser scalpel. He needed to wrap this up if he wanted to get off the station in the next hour, but instead of heading toward his case, he turned and paced again.
“They just need a number, and this will all be over.” Carver would slit the old man’s throat, painless, or create that suicide scenario he’d spoken of. “The only person who can make this easier on yourself is you.”
The old man lifted his head, and Carver paused. He hadn’t done that in a while. A weight settled in Carver’s chest as he turned to face the former captain.
He rarely received full workups on the people he ended, but he could always tell when they deserved to die. There was a stench to them. Unmistakable evil soaked into their bones as blatantly as an alert for a Tellusian raid. Maybe because like recognized like, and Carver was as decayed inside as they were.
But when Captain Archibald met his gaze, none of Carver’s usual senses tweaked that this man was evil, that he deserved what was coming—that he’d deserved what Carver had already done, and healed, and done again.
“Did they tell you what happened to the boy?” the old man asked.
Thatwas different. The scalpel twitched in his hand, and Carver shook his head before he could think better of it.
Defeat entered the man’s eyes. “No. Of course not.” His head hung again. “Why would they tell a nothing shadow?”
Insults never landed with Carver. A person could call him anything they wanted, and it wouldn’t affect him.
But that softly spoken question twisted his insides tight.
“They just want a number,” he said again as he resumed his pacing. “How many?”
He turned the scalpel off, then on again. Then off.
Drip. Drip. Drip.The sound of blood hitting plastic slowed. If Carver wanted to end this, he needed that answer before the old man passed out.
“I’ve always wondered.” Archibald continued like Carver hadn’t asked the same question. “Hoped. Even though I knew hope was pointless.”
Carver stopped directly in front of him and turned the scalpel on. It hummed.
“I just didn’t want him to suffer, you know?” The old man’s voice was stronger than before. “We had to sacrifice him to save the others.He understood.” Then Archibald’s voice shook. “Do you think that’s possible?” Carver watched a different kind of light enter his eyes. “That they wouldn’t make a little boy suffer?”
Carver swallowed his scoff, feeding that hope nothing. Throughout his childhood, he’d seen little boys suffer day in and day out. He’d been one of them.
After a moment, Archibald’s posture slumped, his gaze returning to the deck.
Carver should take that defeat and use it, manipulate it until the man was sobbing his secrets.
But he… didn’t.
He couldn’t let this go on, and couldn’t understand why he was having such a fucking hard time finishing the assignment.
“I deserve to suffer,” Archibald said, his voice only above a murmur.
Carver’s fingers flexed on the regenerator. It didn’t matter what this man had done. Those weren’t his orders. He just needed that fucking number.
Gritting his teeth, Carver stepped right up to him. He turned on the regenerator, and a different sort of buzzing filled the space. Looking down, he healed the oldest cut first, the one near his collarbone, while he gripped the laser scalpel in his other hand.
Once they were all healed, he’d start with the laser scalpel again. The old man would wear down. Eventually.
“Would Miranda want you to suffer like this?” he asked, trying another tactic.
The old man’s response came so fast, Carver hadn’t finished asking the question. “She knew what was at stake. We all did. She’d be doing the same thing right now if she were alive.”
The ferocity of the statement crashed through Carver. What the fuck was he talking about?
