“When you walked back to the superstructure from Kate’s house last night? I was there. In the woods. It was dark, and it was just you and me. I had my bowie knife, the same one I killed abbies with in hand-to-talon combat you couldn’t even fathom. You don’t know how close I came.”

Ethan felt something cold inch down his spine.

“What stopped you?” he asked.

Hassler wiped blood out of his eyes.

“I’ve been thinking a lot about that. I think it’s because I’m not as hard as I’d like to be. See, in my head, I know there’s no right or wrong, but my heart hasn’t made that connection. My twenty-first-century hardwiring is too deep. Too institutional. My conscience intrudes.”

Ethan stared at his old boss through the mounting darkness in the living room.

“Where does this leave us?” Ethan asked.

“The best moments of my life I lived right here. With Theresa. With your son.”

Hassler groaned as he hoisted himself up into a sitting position against the wall.

Even in the low light, Ethan could see the man’s jaw beginning to swell, Hassler’s words now coming lopsided, garbled.

“I’ll walk away,” Hassler said. “Forever. One condition.”

“You think you’re entitled to a condition?”

“Theresa never hears about what really happened.”

“You’d just be doing this so she goes on loving you.”

“She chose you, Ethan.”

“What?”

“She chose you.”

Relief swept over him.

His throat ached with emotion.

“Now that it’s over,” Hassler said, “I don’t want her to know. Respect that wish, and I’ll make an impossible situation possible.”

“There is another option,” Ethan said.

“What’s that?”

“I could kill you.”

“Do you have that in you, old friend? Because if so, knock yourself out.”

Ethan looked at the cold woodstove. Into the evening light coming through the windows. Wondered how this house could ever feel like home again.

“I’m not a murderer,” Ethan said.

“See? We’re both too soft for this new world.”

Ethan got up. “You were out there for three and a half years?” he asked.

“That’s right.”

“So you know more about this new world than any of us.”

“Probably so.”

“What if I were to tell you that we couldn’t stay in Wayward Pines any longer? That we needed to leave this valley and go someplace warmer, where crops could be grown? Do you think we’d have a chance?”

“Of surviving as a group on the other side of the fence?”

“Yeah.”

“That sounds like mass suicide. But if we truly have no choice? If it’s stay in this valley and die or take a chance heading south? I guess we’d have to find a way.”