[He paused and looked up at her when she said going through the things Thirteen had put them through was less annoying when it was with him. He thought about questioning that but thought maybe he shouldn't. Maybe he'd misinterpret what she was saying again and they'd end up in a big wicked fight again.

Dex gratefully moved onto another subject. Talking about his time in the Army was one of the few things that didn't always felt like it hurt inside of him.]

I've never been good at trusting people. But when you're in the Army, you have to learn to trust the guy next to you with your life. Otherwise, you'll end up dead. And I learned to protect them all because they were doing the same thing for me.

[He absentmindedly kept his hand on Ava's after he finished bandaging it up, not really paying attention to the present moment as he thought back to the way his life had gone since he'd chosen to go into the Army at eighteen instead of trying out any other career path.]

That's why I joined up to begin with. The Army and the FBI helped keep me on the right path for a long time. If I couldn't get rid of the thing inside of me that kept wanting to kill people, at least I could control it by only killing bad people and keeping good people safe from them.