“Lock it away,” the half-man whispered. “You feel, after. Not now. Now you are a soldier. Now you do your duty for your pack. If you break, your Mouse will die, and you with him. Feel, after. Not now.”

“You will die.” “I guess. I don’t know.” She shook her head, trying to pick through her feelings. “I used to think I was alive just because I kept getting away. If someone didn’t put a bullet in my head, I was winning. I was still breathing, right?” She looked at the blackened land around her, feeling tired and sad and alone. “But now I’m thinking it ain’t like that. Now I’m thinking that once you got enough dead looking over your shoulder, you’re dead anyway. Don’t matter if you’re still walking and talking, they weigh you down.”

“She’d been so busy worrying about soldier boys and villagers she’d forgotten the jungle had hunters of its own, and now she was going to die for it.”

“Killing isn't free. It takes something out of you every time you do it. You get their life; they get a piece of your soul. It's always a trade.”

“Suicide is not something I owe you or yours.”

“You think you are some fine predator? A swamp panther or coywolv?” He pretended to inspect her. “Where are your teeth and claws, girl?” He bared his teeth. “Where is your bite?”

“You can’t know its mind, and you can’t control it. This creature is nothing but war incarnate. If you traffic with it, you bring war into your house, and violence down upon yourself.”