Cain did not answer her right away.
For a moment, he simply looked at her, letting the question hang in the air between them, heavy with meaning that went far beyond simple curiosity. Her eyes were fixed on him, sharp and searching, as if trying to peel back every layer he had built around himself. She was not asking like a soldier questioning a suspect. She was asking like someone who had once stood beside him in the dark, someone who had seen him at his weakest, someone who refused to accept a shallow answer.
Inside his mind, the truth rose first.
"…I survived."
The words were simple, but what they carried was not.
