Caine brooded.
What else was there to do? Sit and starve? Lift a brick and throw it at the wall? Both of those had lost their ability to be fun long, long ago to Caine. Diana sat and watched him, listened to him.
So he thought aloud. He thought about everything he could think of, including thinking about subjects to think about. He'd ask Diana for topics so that he could think about them, and Diana could listen to them, to try and distract them.
Diana had no idea what type of things to suggest to him. He always seemed to come up with something, so she didn't try. Listening to his thought calmed her, it distracted her, gave her hope for the future. He replayed every moment of every battle with Sam, he reread every psychiatric evaluation he'd ever had, and he considered plans of conquests, past and present.
His greatest torment came when recalling an English class, that may have been a million years ago, or maybe just a year ago. Foreshadowing, a literary technique, he'd recalled.
"If there are two brothers, and one is destined to control the powers of light and good, the other on a conquest to control and manipulate, to such a degree it reflects in his power, who is foreshadowed to win?"Caine wondered. The answers was obvious, winking at him, but he shoved it aside.
He wouldn't have been a very good sociopath if he waswilling to accept that he might be wrong. No, that would make him normal, not a sociopath at all.
"Foreshadowing doesn't work like that. It's all great on paper, but in real life you can't read signs like that, it will drive you insane. Sometimes words have more than one meaning," she commented. It was something her English teacher had said long ago.
Caine wasn't willing to give it up though. He talked. He talked about the possibility of a higher power, he talked about being afraid he'd go to hell. He talked about how it was too late for them, he talked about a divine evil, he talked about gods, he talked about religions and their beliefs.
He talked about corridors, and he talked about one-way streets. He talked about highways, and he talked about black, white, and the many shades of gray in between. He talked about cars, the vessels evil could take, and he talked about the drivers and the passengers of life.
He talked about law and order, and he talked about predestined fate. Diana interrupted him,
"Evil isn't a road, Caine, it's the destination. Our actions are the highway, and we can always turn around," Diana worked into his metaphors.
Caine frowned and continued. He talked about fate, he talked about his own fate, he talked about them being together. He talked about sin, and he talked about life, he talked about his own beliefs. He let her further in his head than he had ever let anybody else–and why shouldn't he? He talked about how he had lost, he talked about wagering his chances against Sam, and how he had lost.
Why not let her in? Why not let everybody in? There was no pride to having lost. There was only losing, and then there was no point of keeping secrets if you had nothing to hide.
Caine talked about it all, to the point thoughts and words would blur, no difference between the two.
Then Caine did two very un-sociopath-like things. The first one was him bursting into tears. And the second one was that he admitted he was wrong. He listed everything he had done that was wrong, he confessed to every crime he could remember committing. He began asking questions, questions Diana wasn't sure he wanted answered.
He asked if there was a god that would punish him, he asked what the point of life was, he asked if Sam would kill him. He asked if Diana would stay with him forever, he asked if Diana loved him any less with all the crimes he had committed. He asked if he was born evil, or if he grew evil. He asked if he could change, he asked if Perdido Beach would accept him, he asked if it was all too late.
"There are two paths you can go by, but in the long run there's still time to change the road you're on." Diana commented. It was something out of a song, something from so long ago.
Caine stopped crying, but not without effort. "By your own song's logic: a new day will dawn for those who stand strong. A new day, a better day. I don't feel very strong," he admitted. So he had caught the reference. And so began, the beginning of the end.
"The song doesn't say stand strong it's stand long." Diana corrected him. She continued, "And the forests will echo with laughter. You don't have to be strong, but the new dawn might not be what you want, no matter how long you stay with your beliefs."
Caine chuckled wearily. "I don't understand any of this, you're making it sound like it's just better to lay down and die. I don't even think I have a stairway to heaven, Diana. Led Zepplin were idealists, even for the seventies." He paused, as if in reflection. "I suppose I'm on the stairway to hell."
Diana didn't deny it. "That's the thing about stairs, Caine, you can climb back up them, it just takes a bit more effort."
So, Diana led him to reason.