"Damn! I didn't know I had one. It's probably all lies and exaggerations. Who are you?"

"You can call me Miss Tea. If I find out that you're tolerable, I'll let you call me Mike."

"Mike?" One of those? Here? "I had a brother we called Mikey."

"For Michel." That was a hard "ch." "He didn't come back?"

"No. It broke my mother's heart." She gave up. She'd already lost my father and hers, and some brothers, to the terrible beast of war.

Mike turned a little less hard-ass. Very little. Like almost every human in Karenta she shared the experience. "You were luckier."

"I was. Most of me made it home."

She looked me straight in the eye. "And now you're stalling so I'll go up the steps first. So you can be behind me and watch my ass."

"That hadn't actually occurred to me, but now that you mention it, sure, I'll be a gentleman and let you to go first."

"Living up to expectations so far. Enjoy the show. It's the best you'll get around here."

Did I threaten her somehow? Was she a secret agent of the redheaded Tate? "I'll do that. It's a sin to ignore what the gods generously set before us."

"And me without my work boots." She started up the stairs and laughed mockingly as she went. And, hard as she might have tried, she could not help putting a touch of flounce in her step. "And you said you were taken. Hypocrite."

"Are you my conscience?" I was a tad flustered and confused. So I did try to lean back and enjoy what the gods set before me.

I began to suspect that Misty was not entirely disinclined to have her assets appreciated. And that she considered her behind to be the best of those. And I thought she might be right, seen from where I was standing.

11

They had Morley stashed in a second-floor bedroom at the back of the house. I stuck my head in long enough to make sure he was breathing. He was lying on his back in a big, comfortable bed. He had bandages all over. He was having trouble breathing. A punctured lung?