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He took another draw fro, not because he was particularly thirsty, but because he was done with the conversation The facts had been shared, and he had tried to be honest without talking too ly he had been when he’d been there

As the silence stretched out, he risked a glance at Saxton--

His breath caught The ust or fear

"Co and I want to clean you up Sit"

--

When Ruhn continued to just stand there, Saxton went over, took the ed hi obbling because his hands were shaking

That ht as he walked to the sink and started the water to war free a couple of paper towels from a roll mounted on a dowel, he tried to coh

No wonder the ht behind the restaurant--that blank stare had beenwith the Brotherhood for this long and hearing their stories of being in the field? Saxton washad been the fact that Ruhn had disappeared into some other part of himself and had had to be all but pried off his prey

A wild animal unleashed

Saxton tested the rush of water with his forefinger It ar a little soap onto the Quicker Picker Upper, he got the toet and then turned back around Ruhn was staring into the ht

One did not have to guess where the one in hisused as veins and no doubt sexual outlets for the fighters? Kept in a stall? All for the er, not knowing at any given hour whether he was going to be sent back into the ring to be beaten or killed And along the way, he had to have been injured and learned to live with loneliness and pain

It was too sad to even conte over, he expected Ruhn to look up When he did not, Saxton put his hand lightly on theover "Oh! I’ed the paper towel roll "Here I’ve got it"

Unraveling a bunch of the Bounty or whatever it was, he threw the stuff down and let its absorbency work its er under Ruhn’s chin and brought the male’s face around "That’s it"

Ruhn flinched when he made contact, but Saxton was pretty sure that was more because, for him, reality was a jumbled-up mess at the moment

"This is quite a cut," Saxton murmured as he went to work on a laceration over Ruhn’s brow "And it’s getting more swollen by the moment Maybe we should take you in to have Doc Jane or Dr Manello look at this"

"I’ve had worse"

Saxton paused "Yes I’ off the dried blood, he wished he could say the right thing, the proper thing…anything that could possibly relieve some of that decade There were no words, however

But there was a re?" he asked tightly

Ruhn shook his head "There was a revolt by the fighters about a year after I left They got thehtered the boss The coro" He cleared his throat "I went back, you see Not once, but a couple of ti to…make sense of it all Ultimately, I failed"

"I don’t kno you could"

"As I said, I did it for my family That is the only peace I have ever found" Ruhn exhaled long and slow "But you know, I also regret that I let my sister down Maybe if I had been home, she wouldn’t have fallen in with that violentbefore he ot out, I tried to find her, but she’d left no trail My parents knew that he was dangerous--I think he must have relocated her as a form of control I hate that she died without me there to save her"

"You did what you could," Saxton said sadly "At the end of the night, that’s all any of us can do"

He went back to the sink as left of the roll and got soain, he made sure he wiped all the soap away The rest of as on the , and you couldn’t clean that up