When he could speak again, he clasped my hand. “I’m going to lose it, to go back to who I am now. I’ll want to kill you. I’ll think you’re a threat.” He clutched me closer. “When I go back, I’ll have to tell him everything. About you, about your sister. I won’t be able to stop it.” Another shudder. “It’s who he made me to be.”

His eyes rolled up in his head. His eyes focused on me. Sharpened. “You’re a threat.”

I scrambled back, knocking over a bunch of the glasses and breaking them. Adam-turned-Vuk stood up and started coming for me. He took out a knife from his inner jacket pocket. I picked up a broken shard of glass but I knew, I knew it wouldn’t do a damn thing.

Adam-turned-Vuk’s face was twisted with pain. “I don’t want to do this, Tila. I don’t want to. I’m tired. I don’t want to go back to the man who made me into this.” Every word was a struggle.

It took me a moment to realize what he was saying.

“Do it,” he said. Every muscle was straining. He held out the knife, and I thought he was going to kill me. But instead he dropped it, and it landed on the floor within reach.

“Don’t have … long,” he gasped. He juddered again, knocking over more of the furniture.

I hesitated. I didn’t want to. But then he said, “If he finds out about you, he’ll find out about your sister. He’ll—” another shudder—“hurt her to get to you.”

That decided it.

Of course that decided it.

It wasn’t as easy as that. He didn’t lie still and let me kill him. His programming took over. His hunter’s instincts. I took a swing and he blocked it, so I only cut his wrist. He grabbed me and I twisted back, stomping on his foot and then kicking up between his legs. He wheezed, dropped to his knees. I knew I couldn’t hesitate. If I did, I would die.

I had a lucky strike. It went right into the upper part of his stomach, and I thrust up, and I think I hit him in the heart.

He fell down almost immediately. But he wasn’t quite dead. He met my eyes and I didn’t look away until he was gone.

I remember the blood was warm and sticky. That everything smelled of red, rusty iron. I felt angry, like I’d been trapped. I slammed the knife into the coffee table and it stood there, quivering.

The puddle of blood got bigger.

The blood must have triggered an alarm or something. Sal came in, and it was the first time I ever saw him shocked by anything.