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"So tellfor the last time"

"I was captured And tied up And dey all caet me excited, but I told dem no I told dem no! And den Kirsten came and talked to me And she talked and talked and talked And she toldt me she wouldt help me find Nina And she wass very nice to me And when I cried, she put her arms around me and put her body on me Dat was not ly

Kirsten backed away from him a couple steps It was a wiseit a little

I decided that I’d heard enough

I held up my hands to calm him down "Fine I’ve heard what you have to say Now I need to finish thison staying here at Haven?"

Hisseconds he just stared at me

"Are you serious?" he finally asked

"Yes I assuo there"

"Bodo is alelcos on the matter, but her eyes were a different story She clearly wanted hi dare I want to be here I want to be with you," he said, crying again He angrily swiped the tears froht now, I’d like this , please just … find soo, Bodo" Peter had walked up just in time to hear the last of e’d said "I’ll coarden in ano secret of the fact that he was furious He tried to slam the front door, but the piston in the door didn’t allow it We all watched as he disappeared into one of the hallways to the right of the reception desk

I looked back at Kirsten, deter Bodo into the conversation

"I’m so sorry," she said

"Never mind that" I looked at Peter "What did Jenny say?"

"She’s totally into it She’s already talking to your code reader," he said to Kirsten "I hope that’s okay"

"It’s fine And now for the gift" She walked over to her stack of belongings One of her people had set so Kirsten pulled out a box with holes in it and a s back to us "You need to build hiof food" She put the sack in my hand "You’re the bird’s food stop He’ll come here to eat and then back to my place to sleep Make sure you always keep his coop full of food"

"Where do I getyou some But eventually you’ll have to harvest your own"

"What do they eat?"

"Corn, seeds, nuts, fruit, insects … you can find a lot of it in the wild The Native Americans will help you identify it"

She put the box down on the ground at our feet and opened it very carefully, putting her hand inside When she pulled it out, there was a gray bird wrapped inside her fingers, its wings folded up tightly to its sides She stood and held it up for us to see "Here is the leg band" She took the bird’s leg in her hand and stretched it out for us to look at The ring was plastic and bright red "The oes on a piece of paper folded up inside here Use the code Don’t send anything in plain English Jenny will learn it and the abbreviations we’ve co techniques in just a few minutes Chances are this bird will need a few trial runs before he gets it just right So expect to see one of us around for the next week or so"

I nodded "This is very generous of you"

"Nonsense This is all about survival The more of us there are, the safer we’ll all be from the monsters Your job will be to train the people south of here when the time comes We haven’t identified anyone we can trust there yet"

"Maybe soed "Maybe You have a lot of work to do before that happens We’ll be around"

I gave her a weak s the earth omen warriors"

"Bet your sweet ass ill" She put the bird back in the box and stood again, placing her hand on my shoulder "About Bodo I know you don’t want to talk about hi to just say this I want him, if you don’t I’ children, and he’s practically a child himself, so he’s fun to have around But his heart is with you It was just parts of his body I possessed for a short period of time"

"That really doesn’t make me feel any better"

"I don’t really care either way if it does, to be honest I’ you how it is, so that if Bodo comes to me in the end, it will be because everyone knew the truth of things"

"But don’t you know that you could never trust him if he did come to you? You’ve already seen that he lies"

"I don’t need to trust a man to have him by my side I think it’s unreasonable for you to have expected hiroup of wo Really insulting, actually"

"No insult to you Not at all It’s an insult to eneral Cold hard scientific facts here that you can’t dispute They think about sex a thousand times a day It’s a drive they almost can’t control It doesn’t take "

"But he never had sex with you, and you wanted hi froh time to wear him down I would have eventually, you know He loves you … but he is a ard, do you?"

"Why should I? What have they done to deserve it?"

"There are so"

"Well, when you meet one, you introduce him to me and we’ll see"

The idea made me sick I’d already accidentally introduced her to ht would be faithful, and now I kneell that had worked out