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They reached Hidden Valley the next day.



She'd hoped he was fucking with her. She should have known better. He was serious about taking down the Brotherhood, and using her as his instrument of destruction. She wished he'd just killed her.



He threw her robes at her.



"Put them on."



Part of her still wanted to rebel. Part of her wanted to fight him, to refuse to be his tool. She wasn't happy with the Brotherhood, sure, but she didn't want it gone. They were the only family she'd ever known, even if they were sort of fucked up sometimes. But the pain of yesterday's rape, of yesterday's beating, of the sunburn and her raw feet. They reminded her that he could do so much worse than kill her.



She put on the robes.



He smiled, but it didn't reach his eyes, and it didn't comfort her. Instead, it made her feel cold inside. She wished she was brave enough to sacrifice herself for the Brotherhood. She wasn't.



"You're going to get me in. You're not going to warn them. If you do, I will kill every last one of them slowly and painfully, and I will make you watch as I desecrate their bodies." The look of pleasure on his face made her shudder.



They were going to die with or without her help. If she helped him, she might at least earn them a merciful death, instead of the horrors he described with such relish.



It was over faster than she could have imagined.



Veronica had always thought that the Brotherhood of Steel was difficult to kill. That they might have stood a chance. But they had not expected her betrayal, had not responded quickly enough, had not done a lot of things that they should have done. Instead, they fought, and they died. And she was the last.



Or, nearly the last.



She knelt, facing Elder McNamara across the room. He'd put up a fight, but had ultimately been beaten, stripped naked, and bound to his chair. When he'd regained consciousness, he'd fixed his furious gaze upon Veronica, and it had stayed there. She knew he couldn't understand her actions, he would see it as nothing but betrayal.



It wasn't.



She tried to convince herself of that. Tried, and failed, to tell herself that her actions had led to a less terrible end for her family. But she was coated in their blood. Some had spattered on her during the fighting, but most had come after.



The Courier had done it to her.



He'd taken her around the bunker, made her name each of the fallen. He'd dipped his fingers in their blood, and written their names on her skin. He'd murmured the whole time how her obedience pleased him, how he was glad she'd chosen to spare them from a less merciful end.



She didn't know what he was planning for Nolan McNamara, but based upon her own predicament, she could guess. Part of her wondered if this really was a mercy. She didn't know if he would agree with her.