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I sat, enveloped in warh to chase away the ice built up on ;kon Several people I knew had gone to see hifinn was one of theic vanished, snuffed out, like a candle by the draft A ic was down, the necklace wouldn’t constrict Roderick’s neck any further, but we couldn’t see Håkon without it

Voron, my adoptive father, had alarned me that friends would ed a bond, and that bond , uardian, took that a step further and added lovers to that ban When you loved soainst you

Neither of the loved in return her I liked ed fro off his hand, and tossed it into the garbage can we kept up here for the tier stalking through the forest, quiet and confident I liked to watch hio was threatening the ozone layer as it was

Curran sat next to me and put his left arhtly possessive edge to the kiss

"Through the Guild and no"

"Hm?" he asked

"You were about to ask how I know Dagfinn and if we ever were ot suckered by the Guild into bringing him in twice He anted for the fines and destruction of property"

Curran grimaced "No, it never crossed finn He’s undisciplined idiot Give ed and leaned closer against him "This is fucked up"

"Yes, it is Can you think of any other way to find Ivar?"

"No Maybe Doolittle can try re tech?"

Curran shook his head "I asked He says it will kill the boy He says we have thirty six to forty eight hours, depending on how long the ic ill be the boy’s last"

Two days before Roderick with his owlish eyes died, choked to death

"Do you reo a detachment of PAD disappeared? Eleven cops, armed to the teeth? It was in the papers?"

"Yes"

"That was Håkon"

"Is that his nafinn so he wouldn’t freak out Whoever we take will die If we don’t take anybody, the boy will die"

"We explain it and ask for volunteers" Curran drew me closer "Those are the choices we make"

"I’m tired of those lousy choices" If you put all the people I killed together, their blood would h it and I had no desire to

If Curran asked for volunteers, the Pack would cough some up I would have to look at their faces, I would witness their deaths, and then I would have to tell their fa Curran survived

The thought pissed me off We’d do it There was a child on the other end of that equation, so yes, ould grit our teeth and do it But it ot my hands on it She knehat the collar did, and she deliberately chose between her husband and her son

"Can Håkon be killed?" Curran asked

"No The Cherokees have tried for years All they can do is contain him on that hill If he’s destroyed, he just reasserowled "I don’t want to do this"

"I know," he said

"Do you think less of me?"

"No" Curran stroked my back "Like I said, these are the choices we make, and sometimes every choice is bad, and then you sit by yourself and remember all the horrible shit you had to do and have done, and you deal with it It will eat you alive if you let it"

I straightened and touched his cheek "Well, you don’t have to sit by yourself anyht ers curved into a fist He looked predatory "I wish I could rewind to that second and crush her skull before she put the necklace on the kid"

"I knoish there was a way to get to her"

He looked at ht about it If we approached Forney’s house at night"

"Curran, we can’t break into the house of the DA The fallout for the Pack would be enor his jaw He hated to have his hands tied and so did I "But if we use someone outside of Atlanta for the DA job"

"It’s a bad idea Even I know it’s a bad idea"

He looked atabout it

"No," I told hiet us a witch hunt in a hurry He knew it and I knew it No, there had to be another way Some here the boy survived and our people didn’t die

I sighed "I envy navigators sometimes All they do is sit in the Casino and drink coffee, while the bloodsuckers run into dang-"