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“He’s been given permission to destroy. ”
“He’s been given permission to live. ”
Just then my phone began to buzz heartily against my hip bone. I popped it off its plastic clip and pressed a light on the side, revealing my caller’s number. I didn’t recognize the digits. “Let’s start walking back to the road, while I see who this is. ”
I flipped the lid and held it up to my face, assuming the rear of our short train as we began to push our way back towards open ground.
“Hello?”
“There you are. Don’t you ever answer this thing?”
I held the phone away from my face and glanced at the display. This was his third attempt. I’d never noticed the first two.
“Sorry. We’ve been busy over here. How’s the date going?”
“It went fine. She’s here now. Say ‘hi,’ Becca. ”
In the background, someone gave me a disinterested “hi. ”
“Yeah. Um. Why are you calling me? Where are you?”
“I’m at the battlefield. ”
“What? Why? Why did you take your date to the battlefield, you creep?”
He laughed. “Because it was profitable. ”
“Oh, do explain. ” Ahead of me, Benny pushed aside a tree branch and it snapped back into my face. I caught it on my wrist and pushed ahead, following the bobbing lights. “It’s Jamie,” I told them.
“I’d gathered,” Benny said, not looking back. “Watch out for this one. Is this the way we came?”
“I think so. Got it, thanks. We should be almost back to the road. ”
“Where are you?”
“We’re at the Bend still. Why did you take your date to the battlefield?”
“Because I’m being paid to. We went to Tony’s for supper—”
“Ooh, good pick,” I interrupted.
“I thought so, yeah. Anyway, we were there and this guy sneaks up behind me. It’s that reporter—the one who was looking for us yesterday. He offered me fifty bucks if I’d come out to the battlefield and let him interview me for an exclusive. This is his phone, by the way, in case you were wondering about the number. ”
“I was, thanks. So you agreed to go back out there for fifty bucks? What are you, crazy?”
“No. I held out for three hundred. ”
“Three hundred?”
“He was paying out of his own pocket, man. That was all he had in his wallet after paying for supper. ”
“Good of you to leave him that much. ”
“I do what I can. ”
A creeping discomfort worked its way into my head as I dodged a stump and ducked another leafy branch. “Jamie, I don’t think you should be there. I’ve got a bad feeling about it. ”
“We’re not—” He stopped, and it sounded like he was answering a question asked by someone else. “We’re not anywhere close to where we were, the other night. We’re not out by the house or anything. We’re over by the Tower again. There’s a news SUV here, and a cameraman, and that Nate guy. ”
