---

Chapter 15: Justified Silence

The conference room was unusually crowded.

Grayson stood at the head of the table.

Oren leaned against the glass wall.

Vera, Dirk, Raven, Cain — all present.

And in the center of it all, sitting on the floor like always — Rook.

Coat dirty.

Sleeves rolled up.

A faint, drying cut on her arm.

She hadn’t cleaned the blood off.

---

Cain stood near Grayson, plugging the pen drive into the secure system.

> “It’s all here,” he said.

“Everything. Routes. Kid IDs. Surgical records. Names of buyers. Names of doctors.”

Silence.

The screen flicked through horrifying data.

No one breathed.

Rook said nothing.

---

Then Dirk’s voice broke the silence.

> “Where did this come from?”

> “Rook got it,” Cain said.

> “How?”

Rook didn’t answer.

So Cain did.

> “She… interrogated the traffickers.

Alone.

Last night.”

> “You mean tortured them,” Raven snapped.

All heads turned.

> “This is not how we operate!” Raven continued.

“We gather intel through surveillance, legal channels, restraint. Not back-alley bloodletting.”

> “The kids they were selling didn’t get legal channels,” Cain muttered.

> “That doesn’t justify her turning into them!”

Dirk stepped in.

> “She’s eight. You want to let an emotionally unstable child handle missions like this? What message does that send?”

---

Rook looked up now.

Still on the floor.

Calm.

Blank.

> “Tell that to the kids in freezers,” she said softly.

Dead silence.

> “Tell them that violence is wrong.

Tell their stitched stomachs.

Their missing lungs.

Their burned ID tags.”

> “Tell them to wait for legal channels.”

---

Her voice didn’t shake.

But her hands did — just slightly.

And everyone saw it.

---

Grayson finally spoke.

> “You’re all right,” he said.

> “Rook’s methods crossed lines. Lines we set for a reason.

But the data is real. And now we can take down the entire network.”

He turned to her.

> “Next time, you come to me.”

> “Next time,” Rook said quietly, “they might move before we blink.”

---

Vera stepped forward gently.

> “You’re bleeding.”

Rook looked down.

> “It doesn’t hurt.”

---

Cain knelt beside her, quietly wiping her arm with a cloth.

> “You scared me,” he said under his breath.

> “I scared myself.”

---

And for the first time since she joined the Ash Team…

No one spoke.

Not because they were angry.

But because they understood:

Rook wasn’t a child.

She wasn’t a weapon.

She was something in between.

And she was telling the truth.

---

End of Chapter 15