He followed the couple, his sneer hidden.

So pretty.

And Staley, like a good dog, following, as if it meant something. As if it meant acceptance, or mitigation, or salvation.

Of all the things he'd done to Staley, if only he could remember the truth. The truth was not in the man. That's where the original program had failed. The hidden man couldn't help but bleed over. Two could not inhabit one. In a man. What was hidden in them, though... that was something else. Something feral, something Pavlovian. Break the fragile veneer of the man, leash the Beast. Perhaps leash was too strong of a word: focus. Drugs. Blood. Pain. Focusing.

There were times he'd even "cured" Staley of his Blood Curse, when that wet, choking voice of his screamed purely, when it rasped sobs drily. The man was weak. Then he'd whispered to the Beast.

All the King's horses, and all the King's men, they hadn't been able to put Humpty back together again -- but he'd put Staley back together. Glued and taped that shattered shell whole back over the Beast within, hiding what he'd done.

Waiting.

When the woman left, he approached. It was time for the sleeper to awaken.

"Well, I, f-f-f-for one, am v-v-v-very interested to see what happens next."

Ith laughed as he spoke the trigger phrase.