“How long have you been working for Luther?” I ask Ever.

“Hmm … maybe … five years now?”

“Wow.” I try to do the mental calculations on how many people he’s killed in that time, but then I give up and just ask him. “Do you know how many people you’ve killed?”

He chuckles. “I do. Zero.”

“Zero?” That perks me up. “Do you only pretend to kill them too?”

“No, Perry, that’s all you.” He throws me a look, and I can’t tell if it’s an amused or disgusted one. They really shouldn’t be similar enough to be confused. “I’ve never been hired to kill someone.”

“I thought you were a hitman?”

“You thought wrong. That’s Arlie. She’s one of the best. I’m the stage before her. Sometimes people are worth more alive than dead to whoever hires us. They just need a whole lot of persuasion and a whole lot less fingers.”

I stare at the gleam on his bald head. “You take their fingers?” I hiss.

“How is that any worse than taking their lives?”

“It’s … well …” Okay, so I can’t really vocalize why it’s worse; I just know that it is. “You know …”

“I don’t.”

I scrape my brain for the logic I’m sure is there. “Shooting them is over instantly. They don’t know they’re in danger. They’re not in pain. It’s … nothing. Torturing is something they have to live with forever.”

“But at least they’re alive.”

I scrunch up my face, torn over the ethics of which is worse.

Then he chuckles. “How did the no-pain thing go for Reilly when you shot him?”

“Okay, but that was a onetime thing, and he still holds it against me. If I took his fingers on purpose, I’m confident he would have held that against me even more.”

“Good thing, then, that you’re not cut out for this life.”

I sigh pathetically. “I’m worried that I’m not cut out for any life. I haven’t found that place where I fit, you know?”

“Yet.”

“What?”

“You haven’t found where you fit yet. But there’s a place for someone like you, and I know you’ll find it.”

“At least one of us believes in me.”

“You’ve never seemed bothered about this before.”

He’s right. I’ve never seemed bothered because I’ve never been bothered, and I still don’t know why it’s tying me up so badly now. Is it really so unbelievable that I’d want to be more than a constant fuckup though? Maybe once, I’d like to be the capable guy who handles shit instead of bumbling along and—oh wow. I think I’m having an identity crisis.

Come to think of it, I probably should have picked up on this before now.

The signs were there.