It's strange to find validation in Malcolm's words. She's not sure he gets it entirely because like other teenagers she's sure no one does. Dina tries to. Tommy might have an idea, since Joel was his brother, and he was out there in Seattle doing the same thing she was. But without living through it, it's hard to explain.

Malcolm's explanation is good enough.

"People a lot younger than me have to do terrible shit to survive, too," she says. She'd killed a man when she was fourteen to save Joel. It was one of the worst things she's ever done. That one seems so impossible now, despite all the atrocity that lies between that first undeniably self-defence murder and the slew of vengeful remorseless ones that now litter Seattle.

"I always knew my world was fucked up, I just...didn't think there was anything else left to compare it to. All these other worlds or whatever."