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"Should you really be walking on that?" I ask, jerking

"Use it or lose it, right?"

"No," I laugh "Not always So you can do Didn’t they take you to see so off my concern "Yeah And it’sht my medical kit with me "I’ll take a look at it for you later" Cade just nods, as though there’s no sense in arguing with this at all And he’s right There really is no point "Did they send you out to welco like that Carnie spotted so his sniper rifle out Thought I’d better co ho, though"

"Well thanks for that Being shot is very low on h to lastpain that slao I was lucky Very lucky My oounds could have been soyou," Cade tells onna freak out After you didn’t see her in Seattle, well…" He trails off, letting ine how she took ry Maybe she was upset At the end of the day, I hadn’t been able to face it, though I wasn’t ready back then If I’d have seen her at that point, when I was raw and overcoht have been able to listen to her I ive her But I don’t knohether I would have been able to accept her as ain She would always have been my blood, but the bond we’d always shared--ere so close before she disappeared--thatI would have been able to open up to again And that was the whole point

I wanted hto be pissed I’m here, do you?" I ask Cade

He shoots lance out of the corner of his eye "Oh, Doc, you have no idea how stupid that question is"

I don’t know if I should be offended, worried or reassured by that response Cade doesn’t seem to feel inclined to expand any further on his coether back toward the coet closer there are countlessrow around the inside perimeter of the fence So , but a horde of bikers wasn’t it

"You call this inconspicuous?" I say as I exhale

"No I don’t call it that" Cade smiles at me--a warm, friendly smile "I call it home I call it safe I call it necessary"

Safe Necessary Those concepts aren’t unfa shunted from pillar to post because it was necessary Because I wasn’t safe When things grew markedly safer and it wasn’t so important that we hid in the shadows all the tih We tried sleeping there one night and it just felt too weird Too alone, even with Zeth, myself and Michael to fill the place with sound We’d ency Rooe seht of Rebel as we arrive in front of a huge, ten-foot-high chain link gate--the only way in or out of the coainst aa toothpick over and over in his front teeth "Well, hello," he says, giving ht smile There’s no quick, sharp wit to hiely worrying This isn’t a side of hi, over-confident version of him that drives me crazy This quiet, reserved Rebel is new and unexpected

He pushes off froate in front of us "I can’t say I’onna have to kidnap you to get you here"

"You think Zeth would have let you?" I quirk an eyebrow at hi that passes over his face when I er A hard eh to decipher what it means

"Probably not, I’h to try and take so from your man, Sloane I like my body the way it is Intact"

He slaps Cade on the back, and then the other, where loud rockout into the courtyard

"I’ll coot eighteen pins in there He can barely ride anymore," Rebel informs me

"What? He should be in physical therapy, surely?"

"Oh, don’t you worry your pretty little head, Doc Cade’s receiving PT alright" There’s a sht not be able to see with his back to me, but I can hear it all too well There’s obviously a story behind that co to ask what it is "Soph’s in the bar I’ll show you where that is and then I’ll leave you two to it"