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Grey hesitated "What do I want a gun for?"

"In case you feel like, you know, shooting yourself"

Grey was too stunned to reply The last thing he wanted was a gun Soun on him, they’d send him back to prison for sure When he nacio placed it on the bedside table

"Give it so your feet like I did It gets harder the longer you wait Now look at the fix I’nacio aze a final time around the roo" He took a long breath, blowing out the air with puffed cheeks, and angled his face toward the ceiling "Funny thing is, I really don’t see what I did to deserve this I wasn’t so bad, not really I didn’t s It was just the way I was built" He looked at Grey again; his eyes were filnacio, it’s just the way you’re built"

Grey had no idea what to say Souessed this was one of those tinacio’s face reminded him of some of the cons he’d known in Beeville,they were like zo but the past to dwell on and, ahead, an endless stretch of nothing

"Well, fk it" Ignacio sniffled and rubbed his nose with the back of his wrist "No use co about it now You make your bed you have to lie in it Think about what I said, okay? Be seeing you, Grey" And with a wash of light froone

What toti like a bald tire on ice Part of hi He reviewed the facts to give his mind a point to fix on He was on a bed The bed was in a motel, a Red Roof Thehe hadn’t gone far The light in the s saidHe didn’t appear to be injured Sometime in the last twenty-four hours, maybe more and maybe less, but probably not o from there

He drew himself up on his elbows The room reeked of sweat and smoke His jumpsuit was stained and torn at the knees; his feet were bare He gave his toes a wiggle, the joints cracking and popping Everything see

And co better? And not just better-a lot better The headache and dizziness were gone His vision had cleared His liy His uht as rain

He swiveled his feet to the floor The rooh for the beds, with their brown-and-orange coverlets, and a little table with a television But when he picked up the reot was a blue screen with a sound like a dial tone He flipped through the channels; the network affiliates, CNN, the War Channel, GOVTV-all were blued out Well, didn’t that just figure He’d have to tell the h as far as he recalled he hadn’t paid for the rooo, when he’d first arrived at the co to his gut like a rock Whatever else was true, he was in a heap of trouble You didn’t just up and leave He reone AWOL, and how pissed off Richards had been Who was not solance from the man made Grey’s bowels twist

Maybe that’s why the sweeps had all run off Maybe it was Richards they were afraid of

His thirst hit him then-a mad, crazy thirst, like he hadn’t had a drink in days In the bathroo the water strea to make yourself sick if you drink like this

Too late; the water hit his sto he kneas on his knees, clutching the sides of the toilet bowl, all the water co up

Well, that was dumb He had no one to bla for the cra in the stink of his own voooey, yolk-like glob, no doubt the undigested renon He ing: a faint, nearly subaural whine, like the sound of a tiny led to his feet and flushed the puke away On the vanity he saw a little bottle of mouthwash in a tray with soaps and lotions, none of it touched, and he took a swig to clear the taste in hisinto the sink Then he looked at his face in the ht was that so a joke on him: an elaborate, unfunny, improbable joke, in which the mirror had somehow been replaced by a , and on the far side stood a e to reach out and touch this i he actually did it, thehis ht, and then he said it: "What the fk?" The face he beheld was slim, clear-skinned, attractive His hair brushed over his ears in a lush ht; they actually sparkled Never in his life had Grey looked so good

So else drew his eye So his head upward Two lines of syhly circular in their arrange to his jawline, the botto the curve of his collarbone The wound had a pinkish color, as if only lately healed When the hell had this happened? As a kid he’d been bitten by a dog once; that hat this looked like A surly oldfro that was his, until the day he’d bitten Grey on the hand-no good reason for it; Grey had only ed him to the yard Two shots, Grey recalled that clearly, the first followed by a yelping squeal, the second di’s naht in years

But this thing on his neck Where had it co of deja vu, as if the recollection had been stored in the wrong drawer in his mind

Grey, don’t you know?

Grey spun froy?"

Silence He returned to the bedroom He opened the closet, knelt to look beneath the beds No one

Grey Grey