he who hesitates is toast

The question doesn't register; she's too busy looking at the necklace. The star sits against her palm, blackened but still whole, and the chain, she realizes, is in a few pieces. She bends to retrieve a shorter section from the rug and sets it with the rest into the cup of her palm, then runs the pad of her finger gently over it.

She'd never taken it off. Not from the day he gave it to her. Not until the mission.