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“He’s been out for a while,” Quinn said

“What happened?”

“It seems he ran into Gaia outside of town Broke him up pretty bad”

Astrid twisted her head around and yelled at Lana, “Why aren’t you helping him?”

“Because he’s not going to die and this one is!” Lana snarled back

“We need him!”

“You all needed Brianna, too How did that work out for you?”

Astrid jumped to her feet and for aat Lana Lana did not flinch Sanjit moved smoothly between them

“Hey, hey, hey, come on Come on”

“You want to do so useful, Astrid, talk to your brother,” Lana said

Astrid recoiled

“I know all about Nemesis,” Lana said “I knohat’s on the line You asked e—well, let oes both ways It’s not pleasant, Astrid” She was barely squeezing the words out through gritted teeth “It’s not fun sliding up next to evilhearing in your head the voice of a thing that tried to enslave you To kill you It hateset that, Astrid the Genius?”

Astrid was taken aback by the venoed in just the short ti the face of so that she couldn’t really understand But the fear, the fear on the face of this tough girlthat she understood

“Lana, we can kill Gaia,” Astrid said

“And Little Pete can kill the gaiaphage,” Lana said “Little Pete is the power: you know it, I know it The gaiaphage is desperately afraid; that’s why it’s attacking It’s afraid of Pete It’s slaughtering people out of fear of Little Pete”