“Dus wat zeg je?”
Mara looked at her reflection in the dark glass of the window beside her.
The woman staring back wore a green sweater. She looked tired, ordinary, almost anonymous.
But that had never truly been who she was.
“I’m saying I’m done running,” she said quietly.
“I tried civilian life. I tried to disappear. But today proved something to me.”
She took a breath.
“I can’t escape who I am. And maybe I shouldn’t try.”
The voice on the other end of the phone was careful.
“Are you saying you want to come back?”
Mara thought about the 300 people on that aircraft.
The strangers who had looked at her with hope when everything had gone wrong.
The passengers who had found courage of their own.
The child whose mother had thanked her for giving the baby a future.
“Yes, sir,” she said.
“I want to come back. Because there are more Victors out there.”
“And someone has to stop them.”
For a moment there was only silence.
Then her former commanding officer spoke again.
“Welcome home, Captain Dalton.”