“Are you injured?” Was I? Yes. I’d been stabbed, but the pain of the steel in my side was nothing to this burning knot in my chest. “I . . . killed him.” I had wanted to kill the man. A frenzy of desire to see him bleed at my feet had come so abruptly I hadn’t noticed until now. And I’d done it. I’d taken a life. A life someone, somewhere out there cared for. I’d ripped it from existence.
