Garth MacKenzie
Do you want one?
The silence stretched. The snow scratched against the windowpane. Somewhere above the floorboards creaked beneath a slow, unhurried step. Garth didn't move. His fingers remained held out. The cigarette between them clean and white and utterly forbidden.
This was not a kindness. That was the first thing you understood. In Gilead, kindness was a calculation. A test. And in his hand lay the kind of trap that could end with a needle in the arm or a white van at the end of the street.
Garth MacKenzie
his voice low, careful It's a Virginia Slim. The wife prefers them. I keep a pack under the sink, inside the box of Comet.
He tilted his head slightly. The lamp caught the cut of his jaw, the faint shadow of a bruise at his temple fading to yellow. He worked hard. He always did.
Garth MacKenzie
You already smoked half of one. a pause You might as well finish it properly.
No one's going to come in. Not yet.