It was night and the town lay dark beneath him, paved streets glowing softly under the starlight.

His pant legs had frozen stiff.

As the chill set in, he thought about his life, and the peace he arrived at as he staggered onto his feet again was this: out of thirty-eight years, one had been magic. He’d lived in a canary-yellow house with the love of his life, and there hadn’t been a day he’d woken up beside Theresa that he didn’t know how good he had it.

He ached for more time with her, but the fact that he’d had any time at all . . .

It was enough.

Enough to cling to.

It took him a moment, but he found their home down there in the dark.

Fixing his gaze on it, he saw it not as it was, empty and dark, but rather as it had been in the soft, cool light of those summer evenings as he’d walk toward the front porch, toward everything he loved.

He stepped to the edge.

He wasn’t afraid.

Not of death. Not of pain. He’d experienced enough agony on his nomadic mission for several lifetimes, and death was something he’d long since prepared for. If anything, it held, for him at least, the promise of peace.

He bent his knees to leap.

A noise pulled him out of the moment like a rip cord.

He turned, couldn’t see much of anything in the darkness, but he realized it was the sound of someone crying.

He said, “Hello?”

The crying stopped.

A woman’s voice asked, “Who’s there?”

“Are you all right?”

“If I was do you think I’d be up here?”

“Yeah, I guess that’s a fair point. Do you want me to come over?”

“No.”

Hassler stepped back from the ledge, eased down onto the rock. “You shouldn’t do this,” he said.

“Excuse me? What the hell are you doing up here? I could tell you the same damn thing.”

“Yeah, except I actually should be up here.”

“Why? Because your life is so terrible too?”

“Do you want to hear my sob story?”

“No, I wanted to have jumped by now. I’d finally worked up the nerve when this asshole interrupted me. This is the second time I’ve climbed up here.”

“What happened the first?” Hassler asked.

“It was daylight, and I hate heights. I chickened out.”

“Why are you up here?” he asked.

“I’ll tell you as long as you don’t try to save me.”

“Deal.”

The woman sighed. “I lost my husband when the abbies came into town.”

“Sorry to hear that. Were you two married in Wayward Pines?”