Was it sincere? Was it just another ploy to keep him caught in her web? Did he even care about truth or lies any more? Part of him just wanted to give in, to have somewhere solid to land … even if it was his own concrete slab.

Maybe it was time to embrace his end, rather than just flirt with it.

“Not any more than I can return to the man I was when Baba was still alive. We’re both…”

Broken. Beyond repair, and beyond redemption. He sucked his teeth as he allowed himself to look at her fully. Remember her with that rope device in her hands, covered in blood. Remember every cadaver he’d ever seen with rope burns around the neck, wondering how long they suffered. How long he suffered for the crime of loving his daughter too much.

“Changed.”

Haunted. Inconsolably lonely with all the destruction that entailed behind them, be it self- or other-directed.

“You can stomach things most women would struggle with, and you aren’t affected by corpses. Nurses are always in demand, be they local or for greater opportunity abroad.”