Better? It should have been an easy question to answer, and Jag had managed to, minutes earlier. But now everything felt so raw, and he felt like retreating into himself again. Were things better? He didn't know, not when everything inside his lungs felt so unsettled. "Yeah, sure," he said, although he didn't mean it, and he pulled away, wiping his free hand over his face.

The cherry was only still alive on his cigarette because he hadn't let it die, but there was nothing left to smoke there. Usually he would have pocketed the butt to throw away later, but he was in the kind of mood to throw it into the sea, and finger another cigarette out of his pack to light up immediately.