Warehouse Blood

Mara found him apart from the others, as she usually did. She never approached like he was fragile, which helped, and never like he was harmless, which helped more. "How bad?" she asked. "Useful," he said. "That is not what I asked." He looked at his hands, at the dark vein pulsing under the skin. "Bad enough that if I start giving orders you know I wouldn't give, you stop me." "I remember," she said. "Do you?" That question hurt more than the wounds. He made himself nod. Their relationship did not bloom in candlelight. It grew in triage rooms, watch rotations, shared ammunition, and arguments whispered beside sleeping children. Mara did not love the monster. She loved the man fighting it and respected the danger enough not to romanticize it.