Another life. She’d had another life…but not now. Now she had nothing but to tell the story. Tell the truth. Michael’s truth—little pieces splattered among the rocks below. Eddie’s truth lost in the darkness when they ran. And Tari’s truth. What was Tari’s truth? Friend. Traitor. Stinkin’ pile of dead meat after the locals got done. Truth. Blood. Failure. Fear as she’d never really known fear. Not the fear that squeezed the breath out your body and left you panting. Fear that sucked your privates up into your body in some primordial survival reflex. All because of a dream, an ideal. Her dream; to know the truth, to write of conflict, of cause. Ideals, safe comfortable ideals from a world that knew nothing of stinking gut shot death. She’d thought about dying, before. Noble dying; for a cause, a dream. But not dying of a dream or getting others killed because of her stupid effing dreams.

Another bloody tear ran down her cheek and she kept on keying in the words, the truth. Someone had to know the truth.