"How?" Counting to ten, taking deep breaths. He's doing all that, he's doing it right now, but that doesn't make him believe it could be that easy. Tell yourself you won't freak out and you won't? That can't be right.

And if he's only been adequate so far, with a lot of effort, then it's stupid to think there's a lot of room for improvement. "I could have killed so many people tonight." He shifts, scoots away and out of Jade's immediate grasp. Without Strega's help, he'd be the most useless, most awful purchase ever made.