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Adder draws in a long breath, holds it, and blows it out.

“You fucking prick,” he mutters. His soft, pained frown deepens, and he scowls hard into the empty kitchen. “You fucking prick!”

Anger spikes straight through him and Adder turns and smacks a rack of drying silverware off the counter. It crashes to the floor and spills across the tile. His breath heaves in his chest now. He pauses a second, his hands clenching into fists, and then storms forward and grabs a plastic bottle of olive oil off the counter and throws it hard at the floor. It bursts open and coats the tile.

It’s not enough. Almost blind with rage he strides forward to the radio and half reaches for it before stopping. He can’t bring himself to destroy it. But his gaze fixes past it on the dark wooden knife block sitting where he’d placed it at the end of the counter.

He huffs a scornful laugh and goes to it. He hovers his hand over the handle of one of the knives.

“Katherine told me nobody touches your knives. Even when you were alive,” he says. “You just going to let me fuck with them now?”

He waits for a response and receives none. The silence of the kitchen needles him like a taunt. He breathes another sharp breath through his nostrils and wraps his hand around the knife. He yanks it from the block and stands there brandishing it against the empty kitchen.

Nothing happens. Adder grits his teeth, panting hard. He wraps his hand tighter around the handle and glances at the floor. His breath comes harder. He lifts the knife and holds it over his shoulder on the very tight edge of hurling it at the ground, too.

But moment by moment his breath slows and the thumping fog of anger recedes from his mind. He lowers the knife. The guilt for even considering what he’d been about to do constricts his throat and chest.

Adder’s scowl softens. He slides the knife carefully back into the block. He puts a hand over his face and releases a single hard, shaking breath, right on the edge of a sob. He steps back and slumps backwards against the counter, then slides down it to the floor.

“I’m sorry, Janosh,” he says. He leans forward with his hands on his knees and sinks his face into them. “I’m sorry. Please come back.”