Octavia E. Butler - Earthseed, Book 1 -… [650]

“What if that Alaska guy had had one. You’d be dead.” … “I sneaked up on him while he was sleeping. Just sort of followed him until he went off the road to go to sleep. Then I got him. He led me away from L.A., though.” … “He talked to you. He was friendly to you. And you shot him.” — , Octavia E. Butler - Earthseed, Book 1 -…, 650

Note

A three-beat exchange where the boy’s answer never touches the accusation. Lauren names the victim’s friendliness — the moral fact — and the boy’s response folds the whole death into travel logistics (‘He led me away from L.A., though’). The murderer’s flat jargon (‘I got him’) against Lauren’s plain ‘you shot him’ does the arguing, and the two of them are talking past each other in a way that is itself the subject.