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“Oh, no. Oh, no.”
No, no, he hadn’t made a grab for Taylor, had he? He hadn’t kissed her, surely? The memory was so hazy it could almost have been a dream. But pieces of it were too immediate and real. Especially the memory of her fingertips on his chest.
“Oh, no,” he moaned.
He swallowed two ibuprofen dry. They didn’t go down easily.
Holding his head, he went to the kitchen. Sat down at the little table. He’d had meals here with his mom. Not a lot of days, because she’d be up at Coates, working.
And keeping a worried eye on her other son.
Caine.
Caine Soren, not Temple. She had given him up for adoption. They had been born just a few minutes apart, fraternal twins, him and Caine. And their mother had given Caine away and kept Sam.
No explanation. She’d never told either of them. That truth hadn’t come out until after the coming of the FAYZ.
And no real explanation for what had become of their father. He was out of the picture before Sam and Caine were born.
Had it just been too much for their mother? Had she decided she could handle one fatherless boy but not two? Eeny meeny miny moe?
He had a new family now. Astrid and Little Pete. Only now he didn’t have them, either. And now he had to ask himself what he had done to deserve it, his father’s disappearance, his mother’s lies, Astrid’s rejection.
“Yeah,” he muttered. “Time for self-pity. Poor me. Poor Sam.”
He meant it to sound ironic, but it came out bitter.
Caine probably had a pretty good case of resentment, too. He’d been rejected by both birth parents: two for two.
And yet, Caine still had Diana, didn’t he?
How was it fair? Caine was a liar, a manipulator, a murderer. And Caine was probably lying in satin sheets with Diana eating actual food and watching a DVD. Clean sheets, candy bars, and a beautiful, willing girl.
Caine who had never done a single good or decent thing was living in luxury.
Sam, who had tried and tried and done everything he could, was sitting in his house with a raging headache, smelling vomit with a pair of ibuprofen burning a hole in his stomach lining.
Alone.
Hunter brought his kills to the gas station any day he had some. Today, bright and early, with the sun just warming the hills behind him, he had walked down from his hillside camp carrying four birds and a badger and two raccoons and a bag of squirrels. He forgot how many squirrels. The bag felt heavy, though.
It was a lot to carry. If you added it up it was probably about as heavy as carrying a kid. Not as heavy as a deer though—those he had to butcher and carry down in pieces.
No deer today. And he had not yet butchered Old Lion. That was a big job. He wanted to keep the skin in one piece, so he had to take his time.
He would wear the lion’s skin over him when he had dried it out. It would be warm and remind him of Old Lion.
Hunter carried the squirrel bag slung over one shoulder. He roped the other animals together and draped the rope over his other shoulder. He had to be careful about that, though, because of the thing on his shoulder.
That kid named Roscoe was coming. He was pushing a wheelbarrow. He didn’t look very happy. Every day Hunter came it was either Roscoe or this girl named Marcie. Marcie was nice. But Hunter knew she was scared of him. Probably because he couldn’t talk well.
“Hey, Hunter,” Roscoe said. “Dude, are you okay?”
“Yes.”
“You’re all clawed up, man. I mean, jeez, that has to hurt.”
Hunter followed the direction of Roscoe’s gaze. His shirt was ripped exposing his stomach. Two claw marks, deep, bloody, just begi
