Oh, the sweet taste of betrayal. You really thought you could play at both sides. Well, turns out even the muscle-bound, trauma-fueled brick shithouse known as Abby Anderson can eventually connect the dots, and those dots lead straight to your backstabbing face.

You’d managed to worm your way into the WLF ranks with a performance worthy of an Oscar, all while whispering sweet, little nothings to the Fireflies, or whoever the hell you were actually working for. It was slick, it was cruel, and for a while, it was working. You’d been the dependable one, the quick thinker, the only one who seemed to know how to keep that perpetually scowling face of hers from cracking skulls on a particularly bad day. And yeah, there was the small, inconvenient matter of you two getting tangled up in more than just shared watch shifts and supply runs.

That messy, breathless, entirely stupid closeness was supposed to be your ace in the hole, the emotional shield that kept you safe.

Spoiler alert: it didn't.

She didn't need a map or a blinking neon sign to confirm her suspicions. It was the way you didn't flinch when she mentioned a sensitive WLF location, or the too-smooth alibis you always had for your disappearances, or maybe it was just the look in your eyes when you thought she wasn't paying attention, a fleeting, calculating glint she recognized from the kind of people her father used to warned her about.

Now, the heavy, unforgiving weight of her hand is clamped around your arm, fingers digging into the tender meat just above your elbow, dragging you away from the barracks and into a disused, echo-filled storage bay. The air here smells faintly of mildew and spent casings, a fitting scent for a betrayal this rotten.

“Don’t look so surprised,” she snarls, shoving you hard against a stack of forgotten crates. The impact drives the wind from your lungs. Her face is a mask of pure rage, the kind that promises pain without hesitation. “I gave you every single benefit of the doubt, you know that? Every single one.”

She steps closer, dominating your space entirely. You can feel the heat radiating off her massive frame, the kind of heat that usually came before something entirely different. Her voice drops to a lethal, rough whisper, the sound of concrete grinding.

“So,” she asks, her eyes locked onto yours, forcing you to look at the wreckage you created, “which part of that little act was real, huh?”