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Later Xhex would reflect that good things, like bad, came in threes

She&039;d just never had that particular experience before not with the three thing, but with the "good" part

Thanks to John Matthew&039;s blood and Doc Jane&039;s handiwork, she was up and around the night after the rollout with Lash, and she knew she was back to her norain And triet clothes and weapons

And spent about four hourslove with John

She&039;d also reat Blind King had invited her to coht with the Brotherhood In the wake of her initial shock, he&039;d maintained that her skills were ee, yeah, kill some lessers?

Great Idea She was so on board with that

And speaking of on board, she&039;d moved into John&039;s room properly In his closet, her leathers and hernext to his, and their shitkickers were lined up together, and all her knives and her guns and her little toys were now locked up in his fireproof cabinet

Their aether

Too frickin&039; romantic

So, yup, business as usual

Except well, except for the fact that she&039;d been reduced to sitting on this big bed, rubbing her sweaty palms on her leathers for, like, the last half hour John was having a workout down in the training center before their cerelad he was busy elsewhere

She didn&039;t want him to see her nervous like this

Because it turned out, in addition to a phobia about litch in her hardwiring: The idea of standing up in front of a ton of people and being the focus of attention during theirmade her want to voh After all, in her job as an assassin, the whole point was to re been an introvert by both circu herself back to the pillows, she leaned against the headboard, crossed her feet at the ankles, and grabbed the reed its duties with ad up the flat- screen and switching the channels until they flicked by quick as the beat of her heart

It wasn&039;t just the fact that there were going to be so many witnesses to her and John&039;s cere hitched s should have been if she&039;d had a nor dressed in gownsstreith fa presented to their intended by their proud fathers, and theirnoell as when the voere exchanged

Xhex, on the other hand, alking down the aisle by herself Wearing leathers and a muscle shirt, because that was all she&039;d ever owned for clothes

As the TV stations flipped before her eyes, the distance between herself and "norreat a divide as that of history itself: There would be no recasting of the past, no editing the peaks and valleys of her story Everything from her ht that had happened to her since she&039;d left that cottage all of it ritten in the cold stone of the past

Never to be changed

At least she knew that the wonderful male and female who had tried to raise her as their own had finally had a babe of their bloodline, a son who had grown up strong and eneration

All that hadof the else in her life, save for John, had not had a happy resolution God,stuff with John was such a revelation, alood to be true--

She frowned and jacked upright Then rubbed her eyes

She couldn&039;t be seeing as on the screen correctly

It wasn&039;t possible was it?

Scraht button on the rehost haunting the halls of his Civil War ators team as they seek to uncover"

The narrator&039;s voice faded fro as the camera drew closer and closer upon a portrait of a male with dark hair and eyes that were haunted

Murhder

She&039;d know that face anywhere

Leaping up, she rushed at the TV--but like that was going to help?

The camera panned back to show a beautiful parlor and then shots of the grounds of a white plantation house They were talking about so to try to flush out the ghost of a Civil War abolitionist who so rounds of where he&039;d once lived

Tuning in to the coain, she desperately tried to catch where the mansion was located Maybe she could

Just outside Charleston, South Carolina That&039;s where it was

Stepping back, she hit the bed with her calves and sat down Her first thought was to flash there and see for herself whether it was her forhost or just so a lot of noise

But logic overrode the impulse The last time she&039;d set her eyes on Murhder, he&039;dto do with her Besides, just because there was an old oil painting that rese up res in that old h that was a helluva portriat And terrorizing huht up his alley

Shit she wished him well She totally did And if she wasn&039;t convinced she&039;d be as unwelcome as the secret she should have told hiotten involved, she would have made the trip

The fact was, however, so that you could do for soiven him her address on the Hudson He knehere to find her

God, she hoped he was okay, though

The knock on the door brought her head around "Hello?" she said

"Is that a coot to her feet and frowned, thinking that sure as hell didn&039;t sound like a doggen "Yeah It&039;s unlocked"

The door side to reveal a trunk--as in a wardrobe trunk A Louis Vuitton wardrobe trunk fro it was a Brother--given the shitkickers and leathers showing down below

Unless Fritz had eschewed the vanilla lifestyle for so out of V&039;s playbook And put on a hundred pounds

The LV lowered enough so that she got a clear shot at Tohrment&039;s face The Brother&039;s expression was serious, but then, he wasn&039;t a Lite-Brite kind of guy Never had been and given where his life had ended up, never would be ever

He cleared his throat and then inclined his head toas up against his chest "I&039;ve brought you so"

"Uistered anywhere" She motioned for hiuns But thanks"

The Brother stepped through the ja was five feet tall and about three feet wide and seemed to be the kind to split wide down the middle

In the quiet that followed, Tohrain she had this odd sense that the guy knew too much about her

He cleared his throat "It is custo of a female for her family to proffer vestain Then slowly shook her head from side to side "I have no faeable stare of his was freaking her out and in a rush, her sy, ht This rief and pride and sadness and joy he was feeling were reasonable only if he knew her And as far as she are, they were strangers

To find the answer, she tried to penetrate hisinto his brain Instead of a read on his thoughts all she got was a scene from Godzilla vs Mothra

"Who are you to me?" she whispered

The Brother nodded at the trunk "I have brought you so to wear"

"Well, yeah, but the why is what I&039;rateful, butsuit "Why would you bother?"

"The particular reasons are not relevant, but they are well sufficient" Read: He wasn&039;t going to go into it "Will you let o for her on so many levels, but this was not a normal day or a normal mood she was in And she had the oddest sense that he was protecting her with all hisher from some series of facts that he feared would cut her to the core

"Yeah Okay" She crossed her ar uncomfortable "Open it"

The Brother&039;s knees cracked as he knelt in front of the trunk and took a brass key out of his back pocket There was a click and then he released the latches on the top and the botto

But he didn&039;t split it wide Instead, his fingers trailed across the trunk reverently--as his e

Concerned for his h, she raised a hand to stop him "Wait Are you sure you want to--"