The people at Justice are losing their nerve, so it would be best to shut down and head back across the water.“I know you were brutally abused by th...ose sick freaks. You’ve caused more pain and anguish than was inflicted on a hundred Ross Thompsons. It’s time. Let it go now.”So we did.Jack and his crew went back to what they did before my call, and I flew home to Castle Wellington.Boarding Chasen’s “G” felt to me like I was visiting an old friend. The thought of heading home to Castle Wellington. It was going to be a perfect summer day with my love, we would run together and lie naked and sweat drenched on the warped jetty, the wood damp where we lay on it. I would swim and splash him, and Kieran would tease me and call me Sea Dog. And it would be perfect.But no.No, rudely awoken early with a summons, a message on smoked glass, demanding our attendance, both of us, so there was not even the pleasure left in the knowledge that he would be sleeping on and dreaming of me. There are not. Talia was a great girl, and she deserved to be happy. She reclined against the kitchen counter, quietly sipping her glass of tap water in the dark. After a moment of silence, Talia excitedly whispered:"She asked me to prom." Makes sense, doesn't it?" Yeah, but the thing is, if I go with her as my date, it means I'm gonna have to tell my parents that—that I don't just like boys."I watched as a million conflicting emotions zipped across her exquisitely beautiful face in the span of a few. Their problem was that birds and animals gathered the grain as well. So they had stations among the grain fields where a man or, more usually, boy waited with rocks. When a flock of birds or a deer came, he would shout, wave his hands, and throw the rocks. Usually, it frightened the animals away. That was something Thorn could do. After the first time, he took his bow and two arrows with him. When he was stationed near where the grain gave way to the forest, he waited while a herd of deer.