Not good.

"Of course not," I say. "Wouldn’t know a thing about it."

The detective nods, his gaze turning to Karissa. He tips his head, acknowledging her again. "Miss Reed."

I stand there, not moving, watching as the man leaves, the car disappearing down the street. Once they’re gone, I head straight inside, not lingering downstairs, going right up to the bedroom. I pull off my coat and kick off my shoes, sitting down on the edge of the bed.

I can hear Karissa as she comes inside behind me, hear the clink and clank as she fastens all the new locks on the door, hear her footsteps as she carefully makes her way upstairs.

Unknotting my tie, I glance up in the doorway when she appears.

"You're wrong," she says right away.

I pull the tie off and toss it on the bed beside me. "I doubt it."

Her lips twitch ever so slightly, a hint of a smile at my retort. "But you are."

"Okay," I hedge, unbuttoning the cuffs of my shirt as I watch her, wondering where she's going with this. "What exactly am I wrong about?"

"Earlier you said there was nothing left to say, but there is. There always is."

Sighing exasperatedly, I start unbuttoning my shirt, not bothering with a response. If she has something more to get off her chest, I'm sure she'll say it without any coaxing.

"Maybe you're not a good man—"

"I'm not."

She stalls at my interruption before finishing her thought. "Okay, but that doesn't mean you're a bad man, Naz."

I pull my shirt off, tossing it aside before looking back at her. "What does that make me then?"

"A man," she says. "Just a man."

Her words make me wish I could believe them. It's nice, having her say it, though. "There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so."

The smile returns a bit. She realizes I'm quoting Hamlet. She's smart. She knows what I'm doing. "So you think you're a bad man?"

I gaze at her in silence for a moment. "I do."

"Well, I don't think a bad man would think that," she says. "A real bad man wouldn't see anything he did as bad. He'd feel justified. He'd have no regrets."

I open my mouth, words on the tip of my tongue, but her sincere expression makes me swallow them back. She's wrong—so very, very wrong. I do feel justified. I have no regrets. I make no apologies. It is what it is. But it's endearing, how much she believes what she's saying, how she truly wants to think I'm not a bad man. But I know I am, and enlightenment doesn't negate it.

I just accept it.

She can't, though, and I love her for it. Yet another reason I love this damn woman. Despite everything she knows I've done, despite most of the time hating me, she can't let go of that sliver of hope, that part of her that thought she saw some good in me somewhere. I told her she couldn't change me, but she didn't believe that shit for a second. I wish... I fucking wish... some part of me could let her be right about this.

Instead of arguing, I return her smile. So misguided, but I appreciate it, and I'll let her keep that wishful thinking, fight to protect the untainted part of her for as long as I can. "Thank you."

"For what?"

"For thinking that."

Her smile grows a bit more, her shoulders relaxed. She thinks I'm proving her right, but gratitude doesn't erase greed, just like water can't magically wash away all the blood on my hands. You might not see it, but it's there, and it always will be.

On a whim, I motion for her to come closer, expecting to be shot down, but instead she strolls right over to me. My arms snake around her waist, running along the curve of her ass before my hands slip beneath her shirt, resting on the small of her back.

Her skin is warm.

I love touching her.

"I love you, you know," I say quietly, gazing up at her. "No matter what. I meant that."

She hesitates, her mouth opening and closing as she tries to find words. Instead of saying it back, she merely whispers, "I know."

Sleep deprivation is a funny thing.

There reaches a point of exhaustion when you're just not tired anymore. Drowsiness ceases. You're awake. Alert. The blurriness of fatigue fades away with a strange attentiveness, head clear and eyes wide open.

They call it catching your second wind.

It's something that often accompanies death, too… natural death, anyway. When they reach the point where you think they can't take much more, something sparks inside of them, and the end, for the moment, feels much like a beginning.

Life dangles a bit of hope in front of the most desperate, only to snatch it away afterward.

I've never witnessed it happen, never been around someone that death took naturally, but I've employed the tactic before. I try to make it clean, and quick, an execution and not an experience, but sometimes the moment calls for a little more. It's fascinating, watching the surge inside of them manifesting physically, relief sparking in their eyes when they think maybe, just maybe, they'll make it.

Maybe they'll live.

Maybe they'll survive it.

They never do.

I wonder if it's wrong, teasing them that way, or if it's something they ought to be thankful for. I can only imagine how they must feel—the relief, the gratitude, the reverence for life. I wonder how many find God in those seconds, how many feel God for the first time in their mundane lives, as adrenaline and dopamine and all that feel good shit their body stores up releases in one big flood through their bloodstream.