"Maybe he doesn't deserve to," Eddie said, and it might've been a cruel, unfair thing to believe, but he thought that there had to be some people that were just bad, no matter what. He didn't want to have sympathy for someone who was so awful. He didn't want to think of him as a victim, when he'd kept so many boys helpless and small, only to discard them when they stopped being useful.

"You're a really good person, Jamie," he said, chest aching as he reached up to brush Jamie's hair from his forehead.