My wife has been brain-dead since breakfast. That won't make killing her any easier. There's also the fear, the looming, corrosive dread that's been gnawing at my gut ever since the coming of the Takers.

Do it, Ben, she'd begged. Kill me.

They say a good man loves his family more than he loves himself; that no sacrifice is too great to shield them from harm. But I was weak: I couldn't end my wife's suffering, no matter how much she begged. Finally, when she'd run out of tears, she called me a coward. I slammed the door in what was left of her face.

This is the price for my weakness.