“No!” Alicia burst out, shaking her head; the absolute last thing she wanted was to turn her back on what she and Adrian had. There had been a moment when she had thought that he was telling her all of this as a way for him to get out of this, a moment followed by a briefer moment where the doubt caused by his unfinished story had her thinking that he wasn’t the man she thought he was. But no, she wasn’t about to let go of this.
“No,” she repeated quietly. Her eyebrows furrowed as she drew in a deep breath, seeking to calm herself, wanting to comfort Adrian, though not knowing how. She had so many questions, yet she knew that she had no real right to ask them. It was a secret to nobody that they had been on opposite sides of the divide that had been at school. How could she possibly question something she had been so certain that she had put so firmly in the past that it no longer mattered? Well, Adrian had just told her about what had happened during the war, had just made her aware that his father and generations before him had been raised to believe that literally her entire family, save for four people, were someone to avoid. But she had to know, or she knew it would continue to gnaw at her.
“You were in the Inquisitorial Squad,” she said, clearing her throat when her voice threatened to break, knowing that she had to get this out of the way so they could start healing whatever discomfort or injury his confession had caused. “With a lot of people who are still your friends today. Would you have followed them if your father hadn’t… done what he did?”