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Moses finds a car that starts He lifts his brother and carries hi, and the wound on his leg stinks

Aht could, Moses says But what’s a leg? We still got three good ones between us

They drive back towards the citadel The sun is before the its decline over the hills

They are silent for a long time Finally, Moses asks Abrahae? Abraham asks

I reckon so

Abraham shakes his head and looks abstractedly at the road unspooling ahead of them

I don’t know, truth be told They knockedasworks Didn’t knohere I was – or how long I’d been under I puked on one of em

Abraham chuckles, which sends visible shivers up and down his body

Yeah, he goes on, I puked all over one of euts But you know I been gut kicked before – I kno to take it I got so in irl, too That Vestal She co or other, I couldn’t hear what But they grabbed her and drug her back You find her too?

Moses nods

I found her, he says

Abraham looks into the back seat, as if to ask without words where the girl is But he doesn’t speak it Maybe he can see that his brother does not want to be queried on the oes on, laid me out on the floor Then Fletcher caonna kill me a hundred different ways I told him it was a shame for him he could only really kill me once – since he seemed to have a lot of brainstoronna kill you – and he had a hundred different ways to kill you too That guy, he can get pretty creative on the topic of ht want to steer clear of him for a bit

He’s dead, Moses says

He is?

Uh-huh

You kill him?

Uh-huh

How’d you do it?

Pistol, Moses says and points to his own forehead to illustrate where the bullet went

Heneric side I bet he was disappointed Anyway, he left for a while, and I slept on the concrete – I don’t kno long, could of been a week

It wasn’t

I dreamed of the ocean Ain’t that funny? I dreaood I mean, it really felt okay in that dreaured I’d see you there too and then he’d kill us both but I was bound deterot it told

I guess I did

And he was there when I woke up, but it wasn’t like I thought He’d changed his ates and tossed ain he’d shoot ure that?

Moses shrugs

Probably it don’t signify nify somethin

Maybe he just spit you back out – didn’t like your flavour

Yeah, aze His body shudders, and he wipes his nose on his sleeve and looks out at the road again

So I walked far as I could, he says But e Boxed rave as any Reckoned you were dead already or would be dead tryin to fetch me back It seemed like the end comin to bear all around All I wanted was sleep Suck my last breath ridin a dolphin to the bottom of the ocean

Abrahaht ahead

Anyway, Abraham says That’s the soup to nuts of what I’ve been up to How bout you?

So Moses explains how there was a battle between the soldiers and the brigands, how he came down into the middle of it to find Abraham, how he saw the Vestal Amata but then lost track of her, how he killed Fletcher with a bullet to his brain, how he found someone he took to be Abraham but it turned out not to be and the ot urpped into the sky by fire, how Moses got to his feet and walked away, how the world was so empty, and the sky so sooty froe and chanced to look inside

I got your boots in the back seat, Moses says

You do?

Uh-huh

That bastard stole em, he said He looked like me, huh?

I couldn’t tell hioin by the boots

You let hiot hiain