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That night we made a devil’s bargain, he and I. It seemed that I had no choice, my life held fast in those ungainly hands. I knew his vengeful purpose, the glaring lies he told himself to exonerate this, the latest of his crimes. My death, like those before, was not, was never his fault. The blame lay elsewhere, always. So he believed. I used that. “Oh, you poor thing!” I wrung my hands and let my voice embrace a note of tender helplessness. The food of monsters is the trembling surrender of their prey. They grow fat upon it