What's changed is that your high-minded morality is suddenly faced with consequences. Every choice has them.

Sometimes with the stakes this high a choice you would never make before, that you would never consider in any other circumstances, becomes the only moral option. The only action you can take and still live with yourself in the morning.

This was it. This was what I had never felt before--an emotional connection to another human being. I'd tried kindness, I'd tried love, I'd tried friendship. I'd tried talking and sharing and watching, and nothing had ever worked until now. Until fear. I felt her fear in every inch of my body like an electric hum, and I was alive for the first time. I needed more right then or the craving would eat me alive.

Most fires crackle and pop, but that's not really the fire talking, it's the wood. To hear the fire itself you need a huge blaze like this one, a furnace so powerful it roars with its own wind. I crouched as close as I dared and listened to its voice, a whispered howl of joy and rage.

It's a pretty big shock to realise that the only people you can identify with are psychopathic killers.

I used to have a list of people I was going to kill one day. It was against my rules now, but sometimes I really missed that list.

I'm a good person," I said, "because I know what good people are supposed to act like, and I copy them.