“You said you didn’t want what happened before either, but we’re playing through it in fast forward now. You told me you were sorry once, but ‘sorry’ doesn’t mean shit if—” Egg stopped. He’d made a fierce enough expression and talked violently enough that it had cracked his chin open. He wiped at the mess and left a streak of red across the line of his jaw. That hand held his jaw together as he finished, “—doesn’t mean shit if you don’t learn from it, change anything, or make amends.”

“I’m helping people.”

“Like you were when you were with us. Except you’re repeating the exact same old mistakes, and you want to waltz into our lives, earn our trust, and fuck us over again, exactly as before.”

“That’s not what I wanted.”

“I know what you wanted. You wanted happy, pretty illusions. You wanted to be with us and you wanted to be with Weld and you didn’t want to do the hard thing and take action.”

“That’s not fair,” I said. “No, fuck that.”

“Fuck you,” Egg retorted. “Don’t talk like you know.”

“I’ll talk like I know her. It was the end of the world, everyone was panicking, and you’re condemning my friend for not making a decision you agreed with in the midst of the worst days in human history.”

“You. Don’t. Know,” Egg said.

“It’s not worth it,” Sveta told me.

“You’re not worth it,” Egg told her. “You—”

“She’s one of the best people I know,” I interrupted him. “And this is about something more than your grievances against my friend, okay? Things are at stake.”

I looked at the clock as I said it.

Only a few minutes until the deadline.

“Doesn’t matter anymore.”

It had been Tattletale who said it.

“What?”

“The time. No need to watch the clock. They aren’t acting on us right now because they’re preoccupied. They pulled the trigger. Bullet has left the gun, and now we find out who or what takes the shot. How is our Old Man?”

“He’ll live. He’s concussed. Do you know the treatment for a concussion?”

“Yeah,” Tattletale answered. “Sveta? Still feeling under control?”

Sveta bobbed her head in a nod. She walked away from the argument to pick up the Old Man, who was conscious enough to recognize what was going on.

“You should come,” Tattletale said. “If they make a move against you guys it’ll be soon, after they’ve done what they’re doing, sometime while we’re reacting or reeling from their big move.”

“What Tattletale was saying before about you being too visible and connected to easily and quietly deal with isn’t going to count for much if everything else is chaotic,” I pointed out.

“Where would we be going?” Engel asked.