All in all, she thought, as he tore through the living room behind her, it had been a good life. If this was how she was going to die, it was far better to go like this than at the jaws of a dinosaur or before the barrels of a militia. At least with this, she was doing something that mattered.
But when Aidan made it to her, she hadn't expected him to cling to her. She hadn't expected him to beg, and she hadn't expected to be faced with the sheer agony in his face. How much of that was the loss of what she was destroying, and how much of it was the shame that he was begging for what had taken his control from him?
She looked down at him in shock, but she didn't dare stop for a second. She didn't know how long this would last, how long his arms around her would be relatively gentle, how long she had until he started crushing the life out of her. She needed to make these moments matter.
Then, if he killed her now, would the City ever be safe from him again? In the back of her head, she felt Peter - wordlessly offering reassurance and gentleness and a concern for Aidan that matched her own secret feelings. Peter was there with her, whether Aidan knew it or not, and she drew more courage from that than she would've admitted.
"She needs you," Evey said. "You don't even know how much she needs you, Aidan." Another bag drained through her pressing fingers down the drain. "When I lost you, when you die... When I thought you died, I couldn't... I couldn't feel anything anymore. There was this... this hollowness, and it never... it never went away. I hated you for leaving me. I hated you. After everything. You were just gone. You were gone and I couldn't.... There was nothing I could do. Please - Aidan, it's really too late for me, but please, she needs you. Don't turn into this. Please fight."