The single word was enough to make him pull his hands back to himself, curling them against his knees in tightly-wound fists that caused the blood to drain from his hands and his knuckles to fade to a stark white. He was wracked with indecision, with regret and self-loathing. His chin tucked against his chest, his shoulders trembling, he knew that this was it. The end of the brief reprieve this woman had shown him. An entire year where he had been... happy.
He would not be given another.
A sharp rapping at the front door brought his head up. Alarmed by the commotion, one of their neighbors was now frantically calling out for Vi, asking if everything was alright, that they were calling the police. He carefully reconstructed his features into his typical, emotionless facade, the effect as absolute as watching a steel door slide shut over his anguish, and cast one last look down at the whimpering woman before him, allowing it to penetrate deep into his chest, to burn itself into his memory. "You didn't deserve this. I... I'm sorry," he whispered hoarsely, the only time he would ever utter such words, and with inhuman speed he was on his feet, pausing only to grab his shirt from the floor before he stalked down the hallway towards the tall window that led out to the fire escape.
Someone would be by to help her shortly, he knew. There was nothing more he could do... to stay would mean incarceration, or worse. But maybe that was what he deserved. To the cacophonous sound of their neighbor's shrill yelling, he paused only once to stare down the hallway at her one final time.
When the police did show up some minutes later, he was long gone.