““Why bother helping you at all?” Elias said, his voice lazy. “Why feed you breadcrumbs when I could just stuff the whole loaf in your face?” He laughed, and the sound chilled Alex’s blood. It was a jackal’s laugh, high and keening, and it cut out with the abruptness of a breaking window. “A bomb should only be armed once its user is sure it will hit the mark,” he said, his voice creaking with laughter.””
