I feel myself acting like a lunatic, but I can't stop. It would be like refusing to breathe.

Oh. I just assumed... That because I am so absorbed by him everyone must be too.

Candor does not provide us with protection, sustenance, or technological innovation. Therefore you are expendable to us.

Hearing him talk about his mother, about his intact family, makes my chest hurt for a second, like someone pierced it with a needle.

My dear girl. I am his family. I am permanent. You are only temporary.

Yes," I say. "Three of these flying birds." I touch my collarbone, marking the path of their flight - toward my heart. One for each member of the family I left behind.

It doesn't take skill to stand in a place were no bullets find you, or to fire into the dark and hit a man you didn't see.