Cain.

The heavy door slammed shut, and the loud click of the lock cut off the outside. Cain
I was left alone in the room - with her.
Lane didn't move. She sat, tied to a metal pipe, but even so, her back was straight. There was something painfully honest in that look: she didn't care who he was. There was no fear, no awe, no judgment. Just a studying detachment.
Cain took a step. Then another. His cloak brushed against the rusty bunk, and across the floor
The clanking of chains ran through the air. The silence became thicker.
“You’re a cryptographer,” he finally said, “Lane from Siberia. You’re not
should have survived.
She blinked without answering.
Cain squatted down in front of her. Eye level. He wanted—for the first time in
for a long time - to hear what she would say. How her voice would sound. - What did they do to you? - His voice was quieter than usual. Without the theater.
Without a mask.
“You think I’ll tell you?” Lane’s voice sounded muffled, hoarse. “After
how you turned in your own brother?
Cain didn't flinch. He didn't flare up in response. He just slowly lowered his gaze.
on her bloody wrists. His fingers trembled. He ran his hand down
air, and the iron that was squeezing her came unfastened with a sharp click.
Lane didn't run away. She didn't even move. She just looked at him with an unexpected, almost pitiful interest.

• Why did you do this?
  “Because…” Cain fell silent, choosing the word like a knife from a set.
  carefully, so as not to cut myself. - Because I'm a coward. And a monster. Sometimes at different times. Sometimes at the same time.
  He stood up and turned away. The aura around him trembled, not from strength, but from
  something different. Broken.
• Tomorrow they will ask you about the book. Don't lie to them. But don't say too much.
  I won't always be able to intervene.
  "You don't have to," Lane said. "I didn't ask you to."
  Cain smiled. For the first time, truly. And there was something in that smile
  deadly tired. "You have something that I don't have." His voice became almost a whisper. "You saved something. I forgot what it's called long ago.
• Conscience?
• Faith.
• You betrayed your own brother, Cain. And you talk to me about faith?
• I'm not a saint, just an angel.

He stood in the hangar, where the air smelled of iron and fear. Donnovan had not yet
She managed to wipe the blood from her fingers, and Abel, limp, hung from the chains, as if the crucifixion was not a symbol, but a curse. Cain did not look at him. He looked at the control panel, at the light bulbs, at the crack in the concrete under his feet - anywhere but where his brother was dying.
"You chose it yourself," he said then, not out loud, but to himself. The voice inside
sounded muffled, as if in a walled-up room.
But Donovan watched. Too closely. Too understandingly. Cain
I felt her gaze like a knife under my ribs.
“We’re done with him,” Donovan said, nodding at the tortured Abel.
— We have a new guest.
Then he saw her.
The girl is in a dirty uniform, her hair is tangled, her lips are pale. Lane. She
sat on the cold floor, tied up like a wild animal, with eyes that held no fear. Only detachment. Fatigue. Silence. Cain couldn't tear himself away.
Like everything that happened before - Abel, betrayal, the vile hum
the sirens, even the rage that had been boiling inside him, receded. He looked at her, and for the first time in a long time, he felt something like a shudder. Her presence was different. Not a weakness. Not a threat. A memory of something important. A forgotten line.
“Who is she?” he asked.
Donnovan smiled. “Nobody yet. But you know how quickly ‘nobody’ becomes ‘everyone.’”
Cain came closer. He leaned in. Their eyes met. There was no
there was a prayer.
For the first time, he felt that he could—no, wanted—to watch someone.
Not out of curiosity. But because she was a strange anchor in his torn,
dead world.