Steve had been doing so well up until that comment about being an ax murderer. He'd been saying all the right things to calm her down, to assure her that she wasn't making one of the biggest mistakes of her life by being honest with him. She'd been ready to spill all the proverbial beans, to lay it all before him, and then he'd said that word. Murderer.

That's what she was, wasn't it? That was what they whispered in her sleep, what she'd never been able to shake even with the years between the end of the war and now. They were still there, waiting, the ghosts of the people she'd murdered.

She stilled as he settled her beside him and the meaning of what he'd said tried to settle in, but the truth of his words couldn't get past the horror at him saying that one single word that her mind refused to let go of. Murderer.

"But that's what I am," she murmured, her voice distant and detached. "A murderer. They made me kill them, but I could have stopped it. That's what they keep saying, so they must be right." It was beyond her notice that she wasn't making sense anymore.