"Where?"
"I don't—"
"WHERE?"
He didn't answer.
He couldn't answer.
He'd stopped breathing.
I killed him.
Clean. Efficient.
The way Gabriel had taught me.
Or maybe the way I'd always known.
I couldn't remember.
I never could.
The knife slipped from my fingers and clattered to the floor. I stood over the body, my hands red, my clothes red, the floor red. The blood was everywhere—on the walls, on the desk, on the broken glass that sparkled in the dim light like stars.
I couldn't remember why I'd come here.
I couldn't remember his name.
I couldn't remember anything.
"Daddy."
The whisper was soft.
"Daddy, I found something."
"A compound in Moscow."
"A place where you might be hiding."
"Is it real?"
"Is it another lie?"
"I don't know anymore."
"I don't know anything anymore."
I started laughing.
The sound came out of nowhere—high and broken and wrong, the laugh of someone who'd forgotten how to laugh. It echoed off the walls, bounced off the ceiling, filled the warehouse with something that wasn't joy and wasn't grief and wasn't anything I recognized.
I laughed until I cried.
I cried until I laughed.
I couldn't tell the difference anymore.
