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34<br />
I STAYED WITH HIM till dawn. Sitting with him like he sat with me in the old farmhouse. He brought me to<br />
that place against my will and then my will brought him to this place, and maybe that meant we sort of<br />
owned each other. Or owed each other. Anyway, no debt is ever fully repaid, not really, not the ones that<br />
really matter. You saved me, he said, and back then I didn’t understand what I had saved him from. That<br />
was before he told me the truth about who he was, and afterward I thought he meant I had saved him<br />
from that whole human genocide, mass-murderer thing. Now I was thinking he didn’t mean I saved him<br />
from anything, but for something. <strong>The</strong> tricky part, the unanswerable part, the part that scared the crap<br />
out of me, was what that something might be.<br />
He moaned in his sleep. His fingers clawed at the covers. Delirious. Been there and done that, too,<br />
Evan. I took his hand. Burned and bruised and broken, and I had wondered what took him so long to<br />
find me? He must have crawled here. His hand was hot; his face shone with sweat. For the first time it<br />
occurred to me that Evan Walker might die—so soon, too, after rising from the dead.<br />
“You’re going to live,” I told him. “You have to live. Promise, Evan. Promise me you’re going to<br />
live. Promise me.”<br />
I slipped a little. Tried not to. Couldn’t help it:<br />
“That’ll complete the circle, then we’re done; we’re both done, me and you. You shot me and I lived.<br />
I shot you and you live. See? That’s how it works. Ask anybody. Plus the fact that you’re Mr. Ten-<br />
Centuries-Old Superbeing destined to save us pitiful humans from the intergalactic swarm. That’s your<br />
job. What you were born to do. Or bred to. Whatever. You know, as plans to conquer the world go,<br />
yours has been pretty sucky. Almost a year into it and we’re still here, and who’s the one flat on his<br />
back like a bug with drool on his chin?”<br />
Actually, he did have some drool on his chin. I dabbed it up with a corner of the blanket.<br />
<strong>The</strong> door opened and big ol’ Poundcake stepped into the room. <strong>The</strong>n Dumbo, grinning from big ear to<br />
big ear, then Ben, and finally Sam. Finally as in no Teacup.<br />
“How is he?” Ben asked.<br />
“Burning up,” I answered. “Delirious. He keeps talking about grace.”<br />
Ben frowned. “Like ‘Amazing Grace’?”<br />
“Maybe saying grace, like before a meal,” Dumbo suggested. “He’s probably starving.”<br />
Poundcake lumbered over to the window and stared down at the icy parking lot. I watched him<br />
Eeyore-walk across the room, then turned to Ben. “What happened?”<br />
“He won’t say.”<br />
“<strong>The</strong>n make him say. You’re the sarge, right?”<br />
“I don’t think he can.”<br />
“So Teacup’s vanished and we don’t know where or why.”<br />
“She caught up with Ringer,” Dumbo guessed. “And Ringer decided to take her to the caverns, not<br />
waste any time bringing her back.”<br />
I jerked my head toward Poundcake. “Where was he?”<br />
“Found him outside,” Ben said.