The false expression slides off his face like oil, resolving back into its blank, empty intent.

Blank. How fitting.

See how it is, when you let those bothersome things override your rationality? Max is fragmenting, spilling apart, and Alex is calm and rational. He'll fix this, and move on to the next. Chara, that's the kid's name. Yes. They're next. And then the last. Everyone who knows has to die, and then finally, at long last, it'll be his turn. He'll turn the knife on himself or set his skin bubbling with a match and a shower in gasoline.

But can he expect her to understand it? No. Of course not.

"You never told me you felt that way," he says flatly, and he tears toward her with the knife extended to ram itself into her midriff.