Jason flexed his oft-broken hands, and twisted once to take pressure off the poorly healed ribs. When he reached the bottom of the stairs, he looked up as the guard nodded, and locked the steel door to leave Jason alone in the shadows beneath death row. There was a stone archway at the bottom of the stairs. Beyond that was the corridor and X’s cells and X.

“Hello, Jason.”

The voice was the same. So was everything else. Jason had wondered at this moment: his physical reaction, his first words. He wanted to vomit. He wished for a .45 in his hand. “You told me I was free of this place and of you. You said I was out clean.”

“I meant it at the time.” X stood center corridor, a lean man of average height, casually dressed. “Things change.”

Jason moved beneath the arch, and into the corridor. “Things like what?”

X shrugged, but seemed happy. “Let’s say that a date certain for one’s execution tends to sharpen the mind until some things become painfully acute.”

“Such as?”

“Old regrets. Final aspirations.”

“You had Tyra killed to bring me back.” It wasn’t a question. For Jason, it had never been a question.

“Sadly for the young woman, I didn’t know that you would be arrested on gun and assault charges, that I might have simply waited.”

“She was an innocent woman.”

“But was she really?” X took a few steps, eyes glinting. “She taunted the men on that bus, forgotten men with little dignity and few reasons to live. She teased and tormented them, and did it for what, exactly? A moment’s distraction? Her own venereal pride?”

“Please spare me the false indignation. You don’t care about the men on that bus. And any sins of Tyra’s pale beside your own.”

X raised his shoulders, both hands behind his back. “I’m merely deconstructing whatever narrative you’ve built in that otherwise fine mind of yours. The men on the bus are irrelevant, yes, but any positive qualities your young friend may have had, she was, at the core, selfish and unworthy.”

“Of her life?”

“Of you, Jason. For God’s sake, did you learn nothing from me in our time together?”

Jason took a deep breath, trying to steady himself. It had always been like this with X. “Why am I here?”

“Can’t two friends simply visit?”

“We are most certainly not friends.”

“Kindred spirits, then.”

Jason shook his head. It was all so familiar. “I’ve never understood these delusions of yours.”

“Delusions!” X raised his voice for the first time. “How many men have you killed, my friend? And how many of those deaths do you actually regret?”

“That was war. It’s different.”

“But is it different there?” X pointed at Jason’s heart. “Does a song not play each time? You alive, another dead…”