Rollins was an attentive listener. The manner in which he listened, which was one of the things about him that unnerved me silently. He was all there in it, not a bit of him astray. Then, as I happened to complete it, he remained silent a long time, his thumb following slowly the line of my jaw.
"You already knew the difference: you and him," he said. It was not a question.
"I knew I was not a normal one," I said. "I did not know I was the end of something."
"Would that make any difference? For you?"
I reflected on that in good faith. "It weighs on it all more heavily," I said. "It makes the incident which happened with Everett seem less accidental and more of a warning."
His hand was now motionless across my face.
Everett. That name had come between us like a boulder i
