“I figured it out,” he said. “A reason to keep going, I mean.” He flexed his left arm, where his first kill mark was etched. “Oh?” “Yeah.” His head bobbed. “Something Ryzek said kept bothering me . . . that he would make Eijeh into someone I didn’t want to rescue. Well, I decided that’s impossible.” Days ago he had looked empty to me, and now full, an overflowing cup. “There’s no version of Eijeh that I don’t want to rescue from him.” This was the cost of the same softness that had made him look at me with sympathy earlier that day instead of disgust: madness. To continue to love someone so
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