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“He’ll come for you.” He cast his eyes across the freelancers. “With all the fury in the world.”
“There is nothing you could ever do to make me give up that boy,” Jack said. “He’s the best part of me.”
things should honor what preceded them and inspire what is to come.
Most of all he remembered the helplessness. Twelve years old, his fate in the control of forces so large and unseen they might as well have been ancient gods. Being asked to jump and jump again, never knowing if there’d be earth underfoot, if he’d ever land.
‘Adapt what is useful, reject what is useless, and add what is specifically your own.’ ”
If you don’t know what you don’t know, how can you know what to learn?
“It’s just one more ounce of trigger pressure,” Evan said, “but it’ll blow your whole world apart.”
“What’s the difference?” she said. “If I do it or you do it?” “All the difference in the world.”
“That’s not because you’re weak,” Evan said. “It’s because you’re stronger.” “Than who?” He hadn’t seen where the words were headed, not until now. He set his hands on the wheel, breathing the dark air. “Than me,” he said.
“People today. You know how to work everything, but you don’t know how anything works.”
All his impeccable training, living his cover, becoming his legend. Never a skip, a stutter, a false move. And here he was. Undone by Target.
“Nothing is for life. We can remake ourselves in any image we want. One choice at a time.”
“I’m not saying it’s easy. I’m saying it’s worth doing. Pain is inevitable. Suffering is optional.”
“You can’t help people more than they want to help themselves.”
The front desk sold miniature bottles of Absolut Kurant, which Evan didn’t buy because he wasn’t a fucking savage.
you never know what kind of strength you have until you have to have it.”
Joey blinked languidly. “Why’d … come back for me?” Evan drew in a breath that felt like broken glass. He said, “That’s what my father taught me.”
“You were supposed to jump,” he said. “Across the freeway. Away from all this.” His eyes were wet. “Goddamn it. What did I teach you?” She said, “Everything.”
He closed his eyes, saw his tiny feet filling Jack’s footsteps in the woods. This was the path he was born to follow. A path into life, no matter the cost.
Jack had always taught Evan that the hard part wasn’t being a killer. The hard part was staying human. He was superb at the former. And growing proficient at the latter. It was worth the trying.
