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I huffed in breaths through gnashed teeth, then pushed with ed inch, till I freedfor balance My wobbly legs didn’t want to hold ony

If I could take one step, it’d be one step closer to Jack

I took that step And another And another, until I was slogging through filthy water toward the town I wound around debris--and half-sube

That could’ve beenhtly

Aric, where are you?

No answer to ers snapped their teeth at me as I passed For each one I could see, how mine?

Focus In this situation, Jack would keep his cool and work out logistics Everything depended onTess as quickly as possible

When Aric had abducted me from the Hierophant’s mine, I’d believed Jack had died, and I’d decided to live for vengeance But this tione

I swungfor any clue about ed, supplies floated past me--food, bottles of water I never would’ve passed by these treasures when I was on the road with Jack, but I didn’t haveto stow the still resonated withinenough to find Tess So I snagged a floating tackle box and found a utility knife inside A good start I shoved it intowas already stuffed inside?

I gave a cry The red ribbon! The ribbon he’d taken froht before the Flash The one he’d saved and carried for ive it back to him when I chose him above all others, when I was ready to make my life with him

I’d intended to

Jack wasdead

Not forever

So else was in my pocketHis letter! I snatched it out The drenched paper disintegrated inhand, and I could only watch it He’d left o with Aric, to live in a place with sunlamps and food and safety

Because I love you, Jack had written ThisI’ve ever done Noble, for the record, cuts like a blade to the heart

Why had I never told him I loved him? In all the months I’d known hirieve the letter, because I was going to go back in time It would never have been lost I shoved the ribbon back into ive it to him I pushed on with even more deters--the only things left standing here after the firestorm of the Flash I limped toward the middle of them In what must have been the town square stood a monument: a man on a horse with trash wrapped around hi horse?

By the light of lyphs, I read the plaque: GREEN HILLS, INDIANA

My heart stopped My glyphs sputtered Indiana???

A co Tess ht take a week--if I had transportation, fuel, and directions

I sagged against theis a waste of time, Evie!