“I know you’ve been through a lot. I can help out.”

His face turned red. “I don’t want your money.”

He had taken that entirely the wrong way. “That’s not what I meant.” Mosh watched me for a bit, trying to decided if I was intentionally trying to offend him or not, then turned away from me and started playing a song, something familiar, from when we were kids and he’d been taking classical lessons. It sounded amazing. Almost as good as before. “I heard you play tonight. You sounded good.”

“It was pathetic.”

“Naw, it was great.”

“You’re deaf. Always have been. It’s from all that shooting. This? This is trash. This is embarrassing.”

The tune he was playing now was incredibly complicated, and his fingers were flying back and forth with blinding speed. It was amazing, and he was doing it all with the wrong hand. I didn’t try to talk, I just listened, hoping that he would open up. I watched the scowl of concentration on his face grow deeper, and then I understood what was wrong.

It was beautiful, haunting, better than anything almost anyone else would ever be capable of producing, but it wasn’t perfect. He wasn’t now, and probably never would be, as good as he’d once been. And that was killing him.

“I’m impressed,” I said quietly.

Mosh struck one last harsh, discordant note, then took the acoustic guitar by the neck and swung it against the table. Bottles bounced across the room. The guitar flew away in pieces. He stood up, fists clenched, veins popping out in his neck, and shouted, “I don’t want your pity!”

I got up and got in his face. “Then stop being pathetic.”

Mosh’s teeth were clenched and I got ready for him to hit me. “You ruined me, Owen! Is that what you want to hear? You want to rub it in? I had everything. Now I’m nothing, and it’s all your fault!”

“I know.” I had also tried to trade my life for his, but now wasn’t the time to bring that up. “I was the target, not you. I’m sorry.”

He glared at me for a long time, nostrils flared, and I wondered if that was how I looked when I got mad.

“I’m sorry,” I repeated.