â well iâm not exactly a fan of owninâ it, yâknow.
 itâs ... bound to me, or ... something. i donât know.
 i canât shake it even if i wanted to. â
â believe you me, iâve tried everything i can to get rid of  this fuckinâ thing. nothing short of an atom bomb has a snowballâs  chance in hell, and even then ... i think this thing would outlive  the cockroach. â
he wipes his hands off on his pants and then stands taller, firmer, eyeing her with something blended between disappointment and understanding. ash has this reaction to, only just internally, now. heâs so used to the rotten thing it hardly phases him anymore --- for that matter, neither do blood or guts or viscera.
She was being insensitive, wasnât she? In her defense, it wasnât like sheâd ever been able to talk on this kind of subject with a living person before. Still, an uncomfortable heat started building under her skin.
âIâm sorry,â she said. âI could have handled that better. Though itâs reassuring that you arenât... um... enthusiastically consenting to anchor it.â
Generally speaking no one was, but evil people existed in the world. Sheâd helped to many of their victims to believe otherwise.
âIâm Shiloh,â she said. âSorry for... well, Iâm sorry. I donât mean to be rude.â
Did you know, she almost said, you have dead people in your shadow? She kept her mouth shut on that one.Â