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And then nothing

And then the end

The pain is still so fresh and I feel tears gathering in h back a sob and paw attoto throw rief

“Co her ar up with our Kindles”

I snort “Yeah, as if we both haven’t got a heap of work to do over the winter break”

“Hey,” she laughs, giving e with you, h sentence structure and syntax and diction and all those other horrible terood time”

“Oh, shut up,” I say, laughing along with her “You love English lit Do you kno I know, Fi? Because you never stop talking about it”

She giveslike loons It feels so good to glide down the road,me back down to cold reality

“I can’t wait for you toback to her side of the car “He’s going to love you”

“You’re rin

“Well, duh,” she says “One is a cuddly Great Dane cross with Dalmatian, which if you think about it is the coolest breed ever invented The other is … Dad”

“I thought you said he’s a great—”

I cutmy lip

The last thing I want to do when being invited to stay for several weeks is pry into their familial relationship But I can’t help but think it since the only thing I really know about Saul Sykes is that he raised Fiona alone – and did an a job – and that he’s a retired For academy

“He’s an a into the silence “It’s not that It’s just that he can be a little… I don’t know Gru person, but he doesn’t exactly have what you’d call people skills”

“Well, I’ll try my best not to piss him off”

“Oh, it’s not like that,” she hurries to say “The worst he’ll do is just stay in his study watching old racing tapes and hanging out with Jasper You never know … if we’re lucky, he ht crack a smile”

I turn to the giant iate that wouldn’t look out of place in a Gothic ht black iron with a silver wolf’s head carved into the top of it