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"That&039;s Bella&039;s old house," Xhex said after she took form in a meadow beside John Matthew

As he nodded, she looked around at the pastoral spread Bella&039;s white farmhouse with its wraparound porch and its red chiht, and it see but exterior security lights on

The fact that its outbuilding had a Ford F- 150 parked in its gravel drive and s that were glowing seemed to make the sense of desertion even more acute

"Bella was the one who first found you?"

John made an equivocal motion with his hand and pointed over to another little house on the lane As he started to sign and then stopped himself, his frustration over the communication barrier was obvious

"Someone in that house you knew them and they put you in touch with Bella?"

He nodded as he reached into his jacket and brought out what appeared to be a hand it froe had been carved into the hide

"Tehrror" When he touched his chest, she said, "Your name? But how did you know?"

He touched his head, then shrugged

"It came to you" She focused on the smaller house There was a pool in the back and she sensed that his memories were sharpest there, because every tirid fired up, a switchboard with a lot of circuits flaring

He&039;d come here at first to protect someone Bella had not been the reason

Mary, she thought Rhage&039;s shellan, Mary But how had they met?

Odd that was a blank wall He was shutting her off froot in touch with the Brotherhood and Tohrave hiered the symbols, she marveled at the relativity of time Since they&039;d left the h they&039;d spent a year together

God, he&039;d given her more than she&039;d ever expected and now she knew precisely why he&039;d been so helpful as she&039;d flipped out in the OR

He&039;d endured a hell of a lot, having not so h it

The question was, How had he gotten lost to the hu had been his whard when he&039;d been a pretrans--that hat his papers had said when she&039;d first met him in ZeroSum She&039;d assumed his mother had died, and the visit to the bus station didn&039;t disprove that but there were holes in the story Soot the impression were deliberate, others of which he didn&039;t seem to be able to fill

With a frown, she sensed his father was still very much with hiuy

"You&039;re taking me to one last place?" she murmured

He seemed to take a final look about and then he poofed off and she followed him, thanks to all the blood of his that was in her syste ree that his emotional superstructure actually started to cave in on itself With force of will, however, he ration in tihted

Once your grid collapsed, you were cooked Lost to your inner demons

Which made her think of Murhder On the day that he had learned her truth, she could remember exactly how his eirders that were the basis ofbut a crumbled mess

She had been the only one who hadn&039;t been surprised when he went insane and took off

With a nod to her, John walked up to the formal front door, put in a key and opened the way in As a draft ushered out tothat this was another structure that was e rotten inside, unlike John&039;s forht in the foyer, she nearly gasped On the wall, to the left of the door, was a scroll proclaie that this was the home of the Brother Tohrment and his mated shellan, Wellesandra

Which explained why it pained John so much to be here

Wellesandra&039;s hellren wasn&039;t the only one who had saved the pretrans from the projects

The female had mattered to John A helluva lot

John walked down the hall and flicked on hts as he went, his e pain When they came to a spectacular kitchen, Xhex went over to the table in the alcove

He had sat here, she thought, putting her hands on the back of one of the chairs on his first night in this house, he had sat here

"Mexican food," shethem But then Wellesandra"

Like a bloodhound following a fresh trail, Xhex tracked what she sensed of hisYou felt full for the first tiateful you didn&039;t kno to handle it"

When she looked across the way at John, his face was pale and his eyes a bit too shiny and she kneas back in his little body, sitting at the table, all curled into hi overwhel tiht her head up and she realized Qhuinn was still with theible shadow around hi any longer This was the end of the road, the final chapter in John&039;s story that pretty ht her up-to-date And unfortunately, it o back to the mansion where no doubt John would ain

She didn&039;t want to return there, though, not yet In her ht off, so these were her last few hours before she got on the vengeance trail and lost this soft connection between her and John, this profound understanding they now had of each other

Because she wasn&039;t going to fool herself: The sad reality was the powerful tie that linked theoing to snap once the present came back into better focus than the past

"Qhuinn, will you excuse us, please"

The guy&039;s misot traded between the on his heel andout the front door

After the slah the house, she stared at John "Where did you sleep?"

When he swept his hand to a corridor, she ith him past many rooms that had modern fixtures and antique art The combination made the place feel like an arther head into the open doors of parlors and bedrooms

John&039;s crib was all the way at the other end of the house, and as she walked in to it, she could only iine the culture shock Squalor to splendor, all in the change of a zip code: Unlike the crappy studio apartment, this was a navy blue haven with sleek furniture, a marble bathroom, and a carpet that was as thick and full as a lass door that led out onto a private terrace

John went over and opened the closet, and she looked over his strong, heavy arers

As he stared at the shirts and fleeces and pants, his shoulders were tight and one of his hands was curled into a fist He was sorry about so he&039;d done or the way he&039;d acted and it didn&039;t have anything to do with her

Tohr It was about Tohr

He was regretting the way things had been lately between them

"Talk to hi You&039;ll both feel better"

John nodded and she could sense his resolve sharpening

God, she wasn&039;t quite sure how it happened--well, thewas the fact that once again, she found herself going over and hugging hi her cheek between his shoulder blades, she was glad when she felt his hands covering hers

He communicated in so many different ways, didn&039;t he And so what you meant

In the silence, she drew him back to the bed and they both sat down

As she just stared at hio there?" When he nodded, she looked hi out I can sense it There&039;s a gap between the orphanage and that apart"

Not one facial muscle moved or even twitched on him and he didn&039;t blink, either But the tells of aup his reactions were irrelevant She knehat she knew about hi to ask And I&039; to press"