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“I knohere that is” It was a good fifteen-minutes’ walk on the other side of the settlement “I have a roommate called Cadence and our cabins are nowhere near each other”

“Aurora Rae, I’ to breakit”

“They don’t know you well” It would take a lot more than that

“I’ht now They want ht to pack a weapon They want nant”

Which meant “Oh shit”

He yawned again “The good news is the building site is close to the forest drop site Any sign of the signal jammer?”

“No, but I have a plan” That plan involved letting herself into HQ and doing a thorough room-by-room search, followed by the nursery, the school and every other building she hadn’t already checked out, including wherever the hell Orrin lived

Whatever expression she’d been wearing lad to see you What have they done to you?”

Stick together He’d been worried too “You need to get clean and rest We can talk later How long do we have before they separate us again?”

“Till Sunday afternoon e go back to the site” He squeezed her hand “Walk me home, Aurora Rae”

Since she was on corner duty half of Saturday, that wasn’t a lot of tiht and she wasn’thim walk fifteen minutes in the dark She took him the five minutes to her cabin

He blinked at the blue flowerpot “Novel idea of a cow skull”

?

??Your cabin is too far You can stay with ht” She pushed the door open—there were catches but no locks—to reveal Cadence sitting crossed-legged on her yoga mat

“Hi, this is Zack” She dragged him inside, pulled the pack he wouldn’t let her carry off his shoulder, and duht”