The First Cut Changes everything.
I didn't decide to kill him.
That's the part that stays with me.
If I'd chosen it—if I'd weighed it, accepted it, stepped into it knowingly—I think I could have forgiven myself faster. But the truth is uglier. My body moved before my thoughts caught up. Training slid over instinct. Instinct swallowed fear. And somewhere between one breath and the next, the line was crossed.
The Saints scout stepped into the corridor like he belonged there.
Confident. Careless. Alive.
I remember noticing the sound of his boots more than his face. The scrape of rubber against concrete. The steady rhythm of someone who didn't expect resistance. I remember thinking, distantly, that he was younger than I imagined Saints would be. That the tattoo on his wrist still looked raw.
Then my knife was in my hand the way it was supposed to be.
Balance. Angle. Pressure.
Cager's voice echoed in my head—low, unforgiving.
Between the ribs. Don't rush. Don't hesitate.
So I didn't.
The blade slid in easier than I expected. That shocked me more than the blood. He made a sound—not loud, not dramatic. Just surprise. His body went heavy almost immediately, like something that had been waiting to shut down.
I caught him.
That part still confuses me.
I could've let him fall. I should have. But my arms wrapped around him as if this were something else entirely, as if I were preventing an accident instead of causing one. His breath ghosted across my cheek once before it stopped.
I lowered him to the ground carefully.
Carefully.
Blood spread across the concrete in a slow, almost lazy way. Darker than I thought it would be. Thicker. It smelled like metal and warmth and something permanent.
I stared.
This was it, then.
Not power. Not justice. Not triumph.
Just weight.
"Vale."
Cager's voice cut through the fog.
"Don't look."
I looked anyway.
His eyes were still open. That's what got me. Empty, but not peaceful. Like he'd been interrupted mid-thought.
"Vale."
I turned because her voice changed the air. Grounded it. Pulled it tight.
She was close—closer than I'd noticed her moving. Her attention wasn't on the body. It was on me. My face. My hands. The way my breathing had gone shallow without me realizing it.
"Breathe," she said quietly. "In. Out."
I did.
My lungs burned before the air settled.
My hands were shaking.
"You did exactly what you were supposed to," she said. "Clean. Fast. No hesitation."
That didn't feel true.
"It doesn't feel like that," I said.
Her jaw tightened—not anger. Something older.
"That's because you're still human," she replied.
The words landed heavier than the kill.
I swallowed. "Does that go away?"
She didn't answer right away.
The lair stirred around us. Voices. Footsteps. Grim calling clear from the far end. Faye laughing too loudly. Mako dragging something heavy out of sight. Life continuing as if I hadn't just stepped into something irreversible.
"If it does," Cager said finally, "you're doing it wrong."
I watched her then.
Really watched her.
The scars weren't dramatic. They never were. They sat on her skin like facts—undeniable, unadorned. Her posture never sagged, not even now. But there was tension in her hands she didn't seem aware of, the slightest tightness around her eyes.
"How old were you?" I asked.
She stilled.
"What?"
"The first time," I said. "When you learned."
For a moment, I thought I'd crossed a line she wouldn't forgive. That she'd shut me down the way she shut everyone else down.
Instead, she said, "Sixteen."
The word hit harder than the body at my feet.
"They put a knife in my hand," she continued, voice flat, controlled, "and told me if I didn't use it, they'd give it to someone who would. Someone weaker. Someone slower. Someone who'd make it messy."
Her fingers curled once, then stilled.
"So I used it."
I didn't ask who they were.
I didn't need to.
"Who put it in your hand?" I asked anyway.
Her eyes hardened.
"That's not a story you earn with one kill."
I nodded. The boundary made sense.
She turned away and cleaned her blade. Her movements were precise—too precise. I noticed the tremor before she forced it still.
That was when something shifted inside me.
Not attraction.
Not admiration.
Recognition.
She wasn't untouchable.
She was disciplined. Feared. Lethal.
And she carried something heavy all by herself.
"You're bleeding," she said suddenly.
I looked down. A thin line of red traced my knuckle.
"I didn't feel it," I admitted.
She stepped closer without hesitation and took my hand. Turned it palm-up. Inspected the cut.
Her touch was firm. Professional.
Still, my pulse jumped.
She froze.
For a fraction of a second, neither of us moved.
I felt her heartbeat through her fingers.
Then she let go abruptly.
"Wrap it," she said.
I did.
Later, when things quieted, I sat on the workbench and cleaned my knife. Slower now. More deliberate. The blade felt heavier than before, like it remembered.
Grim stopped nearby. "You handled yourself."
"So did you," I said.
He snorted. "First kills don't break people. They rearrange them."
He hesitated. "Cager doesn't usually stay that close."
"She needed to," I said.
He studied me, then nodded and walked away.
I found her across the room, speaking low with Faye. Her posture was rigid, controlled—but I caught her eyes flicking back to me before she stopped herself.
That was when it settled.
I didn't want her approval.
I wanted her attention.
I wanted her safe.
The realization scared me more than the blood ever could.
I didn't name it.
I wasn't ready to.
But I knew this much:
The first cut hadn't just changed me.
It had bound me to her in a way I didn't yet understand.
And understanding, I suspected, would be far more dangerous.