In a flash of a second, Alexi snapped his neck, and now he’s lying on the floor of our office, entirely and utterly dead.

Alexi seems to blink himself back to the present, and his eyes come to mine with the most unfathomable look.

‘‘Are you okay?’’ He sounds normal, calm, stable, and yet my heart hammering in my rib cage and eyes fixed on the dead person on the floor tell me this is not normal by any standard. I cringe when he shoves the body aside with his foot ...