“It feels like the whole world has turned upside down. There aren't any more rules.Hey,' I say to Sam, because if the world's gone crazy, then I guess I can do whatever I want. "Guess what? I'm a worker.”

“She put a hit on her boyfriend, so it's not like she hasn't murdered someone." "And you know that how?" Sam asks. I'm trying really hard to be honest, but telling the whole thing to Sam seems beyond me. Still, the fragments sound ridiculous on their own. "She said so. In the park." He rolls his eyes. "Because the two of you were so friendly." "I guess she mistook me for someone else." I sound so much like Philip that it scares me. I can hear the menace in my tone. "Who?" Sam asks, not flinching. I force my voice back to normal. "Uh, the person who killed him.”

“What other stuff do they teach you at federal agent school?” I ask. It shouldn’t bother me that he’s fitting in so well. So what if he’s faking it? Good for him. I guess what bothers me is him faking it better than I am.”

“I can walk into someone's house, kiss their wife, sit down at their table, and eat their dinner. I can lift a passport at an airport, and in twenty minutes it will seem like it's mine. I can be a blackbird staring in the window. I can be a cat creeping along a ledge. I can go anywhere I want and do the worst things I can imagine, with nothing to ever connect me to those crimes. Today I look like me, but tomorrow I could look like you. I could be you.”

“Sam frowns at me, suddenly serious. "You know, I thought--for most of the first year we lived together--that you were going to kill me."That makes me nearly spit out beer, I laugh so hard."No, look--living with you, it's like knowing there's a loaded gun on the other side of the room. You're like this leopard who's pretending to be a house cat."That only makes me laugh harder."Shut up," he says. "You might do normal stuff, but a leopard can drink milk or fall off things like a house cat. It's obvious you're not--not like the rest of us. I'll look over at you, and you'll be flexing your claws, or I don't know, eating a freshly killed antelope.""Oh," I say. It's a ridiculous metaphor, but the hilarity has gone out of me. I thought I did a good job of fitting in--maybe not perfect, but not as bad as Sam makes it sound."It's like Audrey," he says, stabbing the air with a finger clearly well on his way to inebriated and full of determination to make me understand his theory. "You acted like she went out with you because you did this good job of being a nice guy.""I am a nice guy."I try to be.Sam snorts. "She liked you because you scared her. And then you scared her too much.”

“Sometimes,” Sam says, “I can’t tell when you’re lying.” “I never lie,” I lie.”

“Feels almost like real agent work, doesn’t it?” Barron says as we walk down the street, heads bowed against the wind. “You know, if we caught your girlfriend committing a crime, I bet Yulikova would give us a bonus or something for being prize pupils.” “Except that we’re not going to do that,” I say. “I thought you wanted us to be good guys.” He grins a too-wide grin. He’s enjoying needling me, and my reacting only makes it worse, but I can’t stop. “Not if it means hurting her,” I say, my voice as deadly as I can make it. “Never her.” “Got it. Hurting, bad. But how do you excuse stalking her and her friends, little brother?” “I’m not excusing it,” I say. “I’m just doing it.”