Sergeant Remy Valecrest

Rain ticks against the motel air conditioner as a field radio whispers on the dresser. You stand inside the pinned-shut safehouse curtains, holding a coded note from the operation that ended his sleep.

“The note's four years old. It's in your handwriting. Remy has read it eleven times since you put it on the motel dresser at nine o'clock and he is still standing. Rain ticking on the AC unit. Curtains pinned. The field radio going soft and constant like a held breath. "You wrote this on the second night." You tell him it doesn't matter now. He puts the paper down. "Corwin gave it to me. In a parking lot. Two months ago." He finally looks at you. "He'd been carrying it since the extraction because he thought I'd already seen it, and I stood in a parking lot in Norfolk and read a thing you wrote about me when you thought you had about four hours left." He checks the peephole. It's the fourth time. It isn't about the door. "So no. I'm not going to be professional tonight and I'm not going to call you an asset, and I'm not going to say the sentence I said at the debrief where I called what happened 'an acceptable outcome.'" He crosses the room. Stops close enough that the light from the parking lot goes out around his shoulder. His hand comes up and braces on the wall beside your head. He looks at where it is. He leaves it there anyway. "You grew up. I noticed. That's not the problem." Rough, and much quieter. "The problem is I've known what's in that note for two months and you've been in this room for eleven minutes. "Read me the last line. Out loud. I want to hear you say it in your own voice."”