"I can go into it however I please," he says evenly, though he's not racing into the woods with his first steps, and he's aware of the sense in their words. Aware that he's bristling for all the wrong reasons, at the wrong people--but he has one hand on the cards Credence gave him and the other hanging at his side, and in it he can feel the ghost of Ren's clammy wrists, bruises blooming at his joints and mapping out his bones under the skin.

He can't drag another body home. He can't do it, with no Casey to pull him away from the grave and no Credence to ask him about stars instead of acknowledging the tears on his face in the slightest.

"Just be quick about it, please," he tells Sam, sparing a moment to meet his gaze, to show that he is waiting for them, despite it all. "I'm not trying to be stupid," he says to them both, "It's just--I don't care anymore. I don't care if he kills sixteen people and injures thirty more, I'm not losing him."