He could hear only her labored breath over his pounding pulse, he could see only her swollen face through his hot tears.

“I’ll kill him.” His speech struggled. “He… I’ll kill him.”

The motion of her cracked and bleeding lips answered rather than her fading voice. “No… no, I will close my eyes now… let that be the end… we brought this on ourselves… some things are worth killing for… not revenge, not revenge for revenge folded over a th… a thousand times… time…”

The wheezing stopped.

“And me… AND ME? HOW AM I TO LIVE? Him alive, not you? HOW?” Spittle flew, rage purple on his face. He shook the corpse violently, his veins standing against his skin like serpents. “How can I live? How… Not worth killing for?”

Hours later, exhausted, sad eyes dry, breathing slow but steady, he whispered, “Wrong, love… if you are not worth killing for, nothing is… but you are worth dying for.”

Just one flick of his powerful wrist; he drank in her face as his life’s blood bore him back to her.