George’s eyes lowered, not in embarrassment, but in a tired refusal to be turned into an exhibit.
“Master Chief,” he said softly. “Please don’t.”
Thorne did not move.
“Mr. Stanton,” he replied, “some debts are not yours to decline on our behalf.”
Miller’s expression faltered.
The confidence drained from his face in pieces, replaced by confusion, then suspicion, then the first shape of fear.
Thorne turned toward him.
“Do you know what that pin is?”
Miller swallowed. “No, Master Chief.”
“Did you ask before you mocked it?”
“No, Master Chief.”
“Did you know whose table you were leaning over?”
“No, Master Chief.”
Thorne’s voice remained calm, which somehow made each question heavier.
George closed his hand around his cup of water. The paper flexed slightly under his fingers.
He could have ended Miller in that moment with a sentence, not professionally perhaps, but inside himself.
He could have given them the story, the mission, the names that still woke him before dawn.
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