He took a step back, moving into the darkness again and sweeping the gun back and forth from Blake kneeling on the floor to me. Aaron let go of the droplight, and the bulb swung free on its cord, casting all of us alternately in light and shadow, like some kind of carnival-fun-house effect.

Aaron’s breathing increased. I could hear it bouncing off the walls in the empty concrete space.

“Look,” he said again, but this time the word was a command instead of an expression of incredulity. “Look at me. People have been hurt. Badly. Very badly. And killed, even. And we’re going to settle all of that right now. I’ve finally got the two of you assholes in the same place, so we’re going to settle some things.”

“Just listen to him, Ryan,” Blake said.

“Shut up.” Aaron jerked the gun toward Blake and pressed it against the side of his head again. Blake cringed like a whipped dog. “Just shut up. And you. Drop the bat.”

I did what he commanded. The bat clanged against the concrete floor, sending a ringing echo through the space.

“Okay, I’m listening,” I said. “Say what you want to say. And to be honest, you can do whatever you want to do to me. Just leave my wife and son out of it.”

Aaron’s face lit up when I said that, like an obscene jack-o’-lantern. He looked happy, almost gleeful, and I immediately regretted mentioning Amanda and Henry.

“Your wife and son,” he said. “Right. I met her. Nice girl. But she slammed the back door on me and wouldn’t let me in. Isn’t that typical? I couldn’t even set one foot into your house. It sounds familiar, doesn’t it? Like another group I wasn’t able to set foot in back in the day.”

While he spoke, I studied his face and tried to reconcile the gaunt, slightly crazed man I saw before me with the memory of the younger man—almost a boy—I had known in college. The two images failed to line up, even though I clearly saw the shadow of that college student in the face of the person before me. It was him, without a doubt. But gone was any lightness, any of the almost joyful naivete that other Aaron had displayed when he first came around Sigil and Shield, hoping to gain admission. We kidded him then, compared him to Opie Taylor from The Andy Griffith Show, which we all used to gather around and watch on Nick at Nite. But none of that remained. His face was all hard lines and paleness, his eyes lit by a fire of rage and not a sense of wonder.

“If you want to talk about all of that, we can,” I said. I held my hands out, placating, hoping for calm. “But if you just put the—”