He eyed it, thinking with a pang of America's party hats.
"You already know that you can find a much better ******** yardstick than me. No need to make smartass comments about it," he said finally. And then: "Think whatever the ******** you want to about
better than x or
if it'd been y, but it's true enough that you ought to watch your back around here. I don't know who you
ought to trust--maybe no one, that sounds about right, and I ********' include myself in that--just... be careful. That's all I'm trying to get into your head: be careful."
Lawrence's threats and a future where Leslie pulled a gun; an axe drawn in a dark cafeteria and bleeding out onto a classroom floor; Charlotte; a dark place that smelled like vomit and his hands filled with weapon tablets (but there, that time--Bix, handing him the pendant and firmly relinquishing the last chance for freedom, and he doing the same, a painful sacrifice he'd made for a friend that had made it for him), and Jane, calmly pointing out that he'd be better to cut the noose now and go out on a high note: he had learned to fear, not monsters, but men and women in white and gold coats. He sounded unspeakably exhausted, his voice worn almost as thin as he was, and he sounded like he'd said it a lot and seen no good come of it. "Don't take your safety for granted, is all."
And then, with a vague and disgusted sound, he took the star, and he shoved it ungently into his pocket. "Better a live a*****e than a dead dupe."
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