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"You have sys?" I asked "Besides the possession?"

She nodded but didn’t elaborate "Any answers I get froained for, and it’s not worth it"

"She knohat you are, and she won’t help you? How could afrom me" Hallie picked up her toast "She always does I don’t knohat it is this tiood It won’t be loving, or in et answers from her Get thelass since the night at Lafitte’s

She exhaled "I’m ready when you are"

"Then let’s take it upstairs"

I puther with a curious expression and a mouth full of toast

I set up my laptop, an external drive, and notebook on Hallie’s vanity

It was the first time I’d actually been in her rooe and relentlessly neat, with toe shoes hanging fros on the wall I didn’t understand why she needed so s and tutus

She had every ga a couple of throwbacks, like an Atari console and a Sega Genesis A tall wooden shelf held hundreds of movies in various forms, Blu-rays, DVDs, even some VHS tapes I tapped one and raised an eyebrow

"Not everything has been released in the ital collection would blow your mind"

"I collect music the way you collect movies" I opened the minimizedon s?"

"My physical collection would blow your mind It’s a sickness But I like to read, too"

"So do I Real books When I was younger, my dad used to take me to the bookstore on Saturdays Garden District Book Shop at first, but then Octavia Books" Melancholy sneaked into her voice "I could spend hours in that place; it was so open and full of light They even had a pet dog that lived in the store Those were the good old days"

Nohen she wanted to leave her house, she had to climb down the side of it

"Maybe you could take me there sometime"

"Maybe" She shook off the sadness and leaned over ainst hten hts One, if I turned my head a fraction of an inch, my lips would line up directly with hers, and two, she knew it

I scooted the stool closer to the vanity to geto"

Hallie

Dune was easy to tease The good kind of easy, though He felt safe and right I sa a pattern could form, the push and the pull between us Not where my brain should be

"Let’s start with the basics," he said, scrolling through a list of docuht now I’d prefer that you tell me stuff, not that I tell you stuff"

"We both have infor and too ridiculous, perched on the tiny stool that e in an exchange"

"So you’re going to just blindly open up and giveI ask for?"