Chapter Thirty-One
Collateral damage.
I’d heard the phrase before. That’s what the monsters from the domes call the children that die for the sin of accidentally being caught between the Incorporation’s wrath and those who dare to rebel.
The innocents who die along the path to victory―they are collateral damage.
I had always thought of it as a phrase that could only ever apply to the atrocities committed by the Incorporation. I never thought the blood of those I didn’t set out to fight would have to be weighed to balance the cost of our victory.
But I made the choice to sacrifice nameless strangers for our cause. I knew that people who had never held a weapon in their life would die. I knew there would be blood and fire. I didn’t understand the weight of the grief that would come with
