Chapter 30 · Taren's Black File

Keira kicked Taren's door at 0300 and it didn't matter that half the instructor wing probably heard it. Her knife was already in her hand.

He opened the door in standard-issue sleep pants and nothing else. Didn't flinch. Didn't reach for a weapon. Just looked at her like he'd been expecting this.

"Your name," she said. "Oren wrote your name in his own blood and then passed out on my floor."

Taren stepped back. Let her in. The door shut behind her and she realized how stupid this was, cornering him alone, but the adrenaline was still crackling through her veins and Oren's handwriting was burned into her retinas.

"I know," Taren said.

"You know."

"I know what he told you." Taren moved to his desk. Slow. Hands visible. He pulled up a holo-file and flicked it to the wall display. "I was going to show you anyway. Just not at oh-three-hundred with a blade in your hand."

The file header made her stomach drop. Operation Skybreak. Clearance level: Redacted. Coalition Joint Task Force.

Her operation. The one that killed her.

"Turn it off," she said.

He didn't. The file unfurled. Mission parameters. Asset deployment. Casualty reports.