The guards reached her and got her by the arms and hauled her back, and she fought them like something feral, twisting, screaming, her eyes never leaving Sarge.

“Look at me,” Sarge said.

It was not a shout. It was low, and deep, and it went through the hysteria like a foghorn through fog, and it stopped her.

For a fraction of a second she went still in the guards’ hands, breathing hard, staring up at the giant.

He stepped toward her — past the guards, still keeping his body angled between her and the isolette — and he looked down at her.

And there was no judgment in his face.