It's interesting that more and more the story seems to be entertaining the idea that maybe, indeed, the kid's a world-weary cold-blooded killer full of lies who is naturally disposed to be calculating, and that maybe he's also a relatively good-natured kid who really has desperately been needing non-conditional attention and affection, and that there need not be a contradiction between the two, though of course conflict arises because of it.
It does sort of leave a pall of sadness over everything that our protagonist came in too late to actually avoid the kid having grown up abused and jaded to all evil, though.