Killing the women was never going to be an option. Not for him. Not even now, cornered and bleeding and running out of time, with the DeathWill bonus dangling in front of him like a lifeline he refused to grab. He couldn't do it — and somewhere beneath the cold arithmetic of survival, he was quietly glad that he couldn't.
Running was equally off the table. There was nowhere to go, and even if there had been, his legs already knew what his pride hadn't yet fully admitted.
All that remained was a single fraying thread of possibility, thin enough to snap at the slightest tension — a five percent chance of instant execution from the Infinite Execution Record. Five percent. A number so small it bordered on insult.
And yet.
