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"I know that," I said He released ave me a warm smile

A quiet fell, undercut by the row up?" I asked, feeling as if I was taking a halass of the silence It sounded more abrupt than I’d intended "I ht s to call me a damn Yankee if I ad so nice," I replied with a s his ankle across his knee "I guess I’ll have to brave the insults then Saratoga, New York Went to high school at Saratoga Springs High then left for the bustle of the big city"

"New York City?"

He grinned "Cleveland"

This tienuine "Oh, my Culture shock!"

"In more ways than one"

I tucked my feet underneath a?" I knehat the ansould be Or rather, I knehat he needed to tellacross his face "My e My dad about five years later"

I made the appropriate syood an actor "Any brothers or sisters?"

"Nope I have some cousins I never see, but that’s about it"

Hunh I’d expected him to say that both his parents had been only children or so But maybe whatever caused him to have these fake memories also made him have no desire to seek out the rest of his mythical family

His memories are fake They have to be Is his personality fake as well? Is this the real Ryan? If he ever reard me in the same way?

I already knew the answer to that There was no possible way he’d see ht Except…somehow he’d acted with the instincts and abilities of his for Were those instincts always running in the background? Or was that a one-ti him about his past, but as the point? I had zero doubt that if--no, when--I verified this info it would all check out Whoever had taken the effort to insert this nuanced round would have surely taken steps to make sure the paper trail jived as well

Fuzzykins chose that moment to stalk into the room She leaped nimbly onto the end of the couch and stared balefully at Ryan

"When did you get a cat?" he asked He reached out a hand to give the cat a scratch, then yanked it back as Fuzzykins snarled and swiped at it with a claws extended

"It’s Eilahn’s" I quickly explained the circu the acquisition of the cat "Don’t feel bad She hates me too But she completely adores Eilahn"

"That’s pretty funny," he adht?"

I blinked, surprised both at the abruptness of the question and that he would want to know at all He didn’t like Rhyzkahl--okay, "hated" was probably a better word--and he didn’t usually want any reminder that I had any sort of contact or relationship with the deave a little shrug of apology "It’s a full ht--unless you already did for this ht" I eyed hiritted-teeth tolerance that barely ement I frohen it didn’t come "You seem oddly cool with this"

He placed both feet on the floor and exhaled "I did a lot of thinking while I was up at Quantico I didn’t like sos I realized"