"Atonement isn't an idea I have a good grasp on." Erin's voice is so soft, so distant. "When I was growing up you were a good person or a bad person. When I was taken it was easy to believe that there's only bad people, that anyone would have done me the same way I did them with half a chance. Told myself that every time. They're no better. They'd do the same. A...friend."

Erin has to stop, for a long moment.

"...A friend, after, she doesn't buy into good people and bad people. I demanded to know why she was helping me when she didn't like me, and she said she figured the tomorrow where I'm around to help is better than the one where I'm dead. I'm. Trying to live up to that. I still get it wrong. Hurt people's feelings, misunderstand them, lash out. But. I want. So badly, to be that person she thought I could be."