In the airport arrivals parking garage, between a concrete pillar and a stairwell, Munroe strapped the helmet and Bradford’s backpack to the Ninja’s seat and abandoned them there. Eventually the bike would be towed—probably with the backpack and helmet still strapped to it, such was the level of honesty in everyday life here—and she would count the loss of the machine and the money she’d put into it as the price of a hard lesson learned.

She carried her own bag into the departures terminal, where wide de facto corridors were governed by ticket and check-in counters, and lines of passengers and luggage carts snaked between corded, winding pathways. A dozen airline logos lined up on either side like running lights on a bowling lane, and Munroe scanned signage, searching for a carrier that would get her direct to—

She paused and turned a full circle.

Dallas wasn’t an option, not like this, with the wounds so fresh and raw; neither was a return to Africa, the continent of her birth, where the comfortable familiarity of living and working in despot-run dens of corruption would only loop her into a repeat of past mistakes.

Beneath the blue and red of Malaysia Airlines, the line had already begun to lengthen, which meant a pending departure. Munroe stepped in behind a luggage cart and followed the wheels, moving brain-numb and rote from ticket counter, to ticket in hand, through security, to the gate for a flight to Kuala Lumpur.

In the departure lounge she sat on the floor by the window, the afternoon sun casting shadows on her arms. Ear buds piped music in from her phone, drowning out the world enough that if she closed her eyes, she wasn’t there at all, but still Bradford was inside her head, an innocent man with his calendar pages and notes and, most of all, the lies.

She shut off the madness, disgusted by her own hypocrisy.

His few lies, the little he may have used her, didn’t even cover the entry fee into the games of deception and betrayal that she’d played. She’d told thousands and been told thousands—even by those she loved and trusted. Had filled years with manipulating others to achieve her goals, and sometimes been knowingly manipulated in turn so that others could achieve theirs. She’d allowed that. Had gone into the jaws of death as a tool for those she loved, knowing that they used her—and never cared.

And that was the point then, wasn’t it? That she cared.

Bradford, in lying to her, in taking choice away from her, had done the one thing that no one else had yet managed.

Across from her a young couple, deep in conversation, leaned into each other over the armrest. Happiness was etched across their faces and oozed out of their pores so thick it created an aura.

Munroe blocked them out.

She’d been there; she’d had that. One minute to the next, it had been ripped away. She would have paid any price to keep it.

Could still pay that price.

In self-righteous fury she readied to throw everything away, to throw him away, to make the pain of love’s betrayal stop.

Munroe tapped the boarding pass against her fingertips and weighed the ticket against never knowing what had happened in that facility, weighed killing her soul against abandoning the person she claimed to love most in the world, weighed a chance of having what might have been against allowing him to rot.

She stood. Picked the backpack off the floor, shut off the music, and began the long stroll out of the airport. Victimhood was unbecoming. Bradford’s actions didn’t control hers. She wasn’t finished here until she chose to be finished.