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She’s studying my face, not sure yet whether to believeher what she needs to hear

"I’ Aramei peace"

Her eyebrows harden a little "But why?" she says "How can it have been right if I was supposed to infect her?"

Because I’ from my kind, Adria, I say to myself Because if you would’ve succeeded, you would’ve opened another gateway intoany human here would want

"Because it was your decision to make," I say instead, "and no matter what you were destined to do, you did what you felt was right and so that uely and looks off to the side

"But what about you?" she says withoutof her lap

Me? Ah, yeah, ht, for a while anyway, because I intend to et the hell outta here

"Nothing that sucks too oofy smile spread broader across my face "They’ll just rip away a few stars from my jacket and slap e I’ve failed It’s nothing I can’t handle"

The punishain…

She had started to smile, until the f-word

"You didn’t fail me, Harry Maybe they, whoever they are, consider you a failure because I didn’t do what I was ‘destined’ to do, but don’t you ever say you’ve failed me I’d be a psychiatric patient if it weren’t for you, or I ht be sniffin’ too much stuff from underneath the bathroom sink like crazy-ass Cecilia acts like she does Damn, Harry, I could be a slut if I ended up best friends with Tori I could have glittery hoe-bag clothes hanging in h

"I doubt you could ever be a slut," I say and then wrinkle one side of ht look hot in glittery hoe-bag clothes"

Her foot pops out froets serious again "There’s so to ask you"

"Shoot"

"How long ae exactly?"

I didn’t see that one co

I smile a close-lipped smile across at her "Well, I can say that you’re officially off the hook"

"What?"

I nod hard once "Yep! You haven’t been e technically since you…well, you know"

"Oh…," she doesn’t know really what to think about this news

"If Aramei were still…alive," I say and just cut to the chase rather than trying to tiptoe constantly around the dis to influence you to infect her"

Actually, I wouldn’t be doing that anyh I’ve recently made the decision to stray from my kind But Adria doesn’t need to know about any of that

She seeht for a moment "So, you’re here because of Daisy?"

My s now more in the corners of my eyes "Yeah, I’m here because of her, but you’re still my best friend and I want to do what I can to keep you safe"

Adria returns the s she doesn’t know that because she didn’t fulfill her so-called destiny that I’ood reason that it’s tiade Het a un and ride around in Death Valley with a new tattoo

Or,

Daisy, Ca so out of the ordinary," Daisy says "Adria, I think picking this place was a good idea"

Darin up at Daisy and she blushes I can always get her to blush

"Well, I’ at the waist to look up at Daisy, but then she just stands up altogether and crosses her arer we stay in here, the more I believe he intentionally left ht"

That’s exactly what Isaac did, but I’m not about to admit it to her and neither is Daisy Daisy and I share a knowing look

Adria notices

"That’s what he did, isn’t it?" Her face hardens disapprovingly

Daisy sly and says, "No, he’ll come back and when he does he’ll have a se from the dark, dank stone hallway that leads farther into the cave; a blazing torchfroe area where the rest of us are, the darkness ss up the passageway behind them Alex places the fiery torch into the ht to spread across the rooe with her legs dangling off the side

"This place is so y as she scans every inch of the area with an ugly wrinkled-up nose She hasn’t done ot here except complain about howher out "Really, like Black Plague, behead-a-Boleyn-girlher aring her legs back and forth