“She kept saying, ‘Help me. Call the police, call somebody. Stop the bleeding, please.’” He looked at Dance levelly. “But I didn’t. I couldn’t. I pulled out my cell phone and I took pictures of her for the next five minutes. While she died.”

“You needed to take the next step. To a real death. Seeing it in real time. Not a game or a movie.”

“That’s right. That’s what I needed. When I did, with Jessica, the Get went away for a long time.”

“But then you took another step, didn’t you? You had to. Because how often could you happen to stumble on a scene like Jessica’s death?”

“Todd,” he said.

“Todd?”

“It was about four, five years ago. I wasn’t doing well. The college failures, the boring job… And, no, the video games and movies weren’t doing it for me anymore. I needed more. I was in upstate New York, a sales call at Cornell. I drove off campus and took a walk in the woods. I saw this bungee jumping. It was illegal; not like it was a tourist attraction or anything. These people, kids mostly, just put on helmets and GoPro cameras and jumped.”

“What you mentioned earlier? The tape you sold to Chris Jenkins.”

He nodded. “I got talking to this one kid. His name was Todd.” March fell silent for a moment. “Todd. Anyway, I just couldn’t stop myself. He’d hooked his rope to the top of the rock and walked away to the edge, to look over the jump. There was nobody around.”

“You detached it?”

“No. That would’ve been suspicious. I just lengthened it by about five feet. Then I went down to the ground. He jumped and hit the rocks below. I got it all on tape.” March shook his head. “I can’t tell you…the feeling.”

“The Get went away?”

“Uh-huh. From there, I knew where my life was going. I met Chris and I was the luckiest person in the world. I could make a living doing what I had to do. We started small. A single death here or there. A homeless man—poisoning him. A girl on a scooter, no helmet. I’d pour oil on a curve. But soon one or two deaths weren’t enough. I needed more. The customers wanted more too. They were addicts, just like me.”

“So, you came up with the idea of stampedes.”

“The blood of all.”

She gazed at him with a frown of curiosity.

He told her about a poem from ancient Rome, praising a gladiator for not retiring even though the emperor had granted him his freedom and the right to leave the games.

March’s eyes actually sparkled as he recited:

O Verus, you have fought 40 contests and have

Been offered the wooden Rudis of freedom

Three times and yet declined the chance to retire.

Soon we will gather to see the sword

In your hand pierce the heart of your foes.

Praise to you, who has chosen not to walk through