TWO
Having survived my verbal skirmish with Anderson, I supposed I no longer needed to work so hard at avoiding him. However, I’d already made a couple of appointments for the day to keep myself out of the house, and I saw no reason to break them. Funny how being turned into an immortal huntress and moving into a huge mansion owned by a god didn’t make the mundane cares of the world go away. I still had to go to the post office, and go grocery shopping, and get my hair cut. Ah, the glamour of it all.
The problem was the Liberi had a way of intruding on even the most mundane aspects of my life. After my haircut, I stopped by my favorite little French bistro to have a leisurely lunch while indulging in some people-watching from my seat in front of the generous picture window.
I’d been expecting to watch strangers, but before I’d even had a chance to place my order, I saw someone I knew crossing the street, headed my way.
Cyrus, the current leader of the Olympians, was Konstantin’s son, and you could see the resemblance in his olive-hued skin and coarse black curls. Cyrus, however, gave off the vibe of being an approachable human being, unlike his father, who looked exactly like you’d expect someone who calls himself a king to look. I’d met Cyrus a few times now, and he seemed like a friendly, personable kind of guy. If he weren’t an Olympian, I might almost say I liked him. But he was an Olympian, and he believed in a world order that was anathema to me.
I hoped that Cyrus just happened to be passing by, his presence nothing but a coincidence. Too bad I don’t believe in coincidence.
Cyrus finished crossing the street, obviously not caring about the indignant drivers who were honking at him. He smiled and waved at me through the window and made a beeline for the bistro’s door. So much for my plans for a quiet, uncomplicated lunch.
Either assuming he was welcome or not caring if he wasn’t, Cyrus plunked himself down on the seat across from me.
“Mind if I join you?” he asked with a charming smile.
“If I told you I minded, would you leave?”
Why I bothered to ask the question, I don’t know. Cyrus gave me a mock-reproachful look and helped himself to my menu. I considered getting up and walking away, but as I said, Cyrus is likable enough, and I harbored more than my fair share of curiosity about him. For one thing, I knew he and Steph’s . . . Well, I didn’t quite know what to call Blake. Boyfriend, I guess, although as far as I knew, they weren’t sleeping together. Blake, being a descendant of Eros, is apparently such a supernaturally good lover that any woman he sleeps with more than once will never be satisfied with another man. Anyway, it seemed that Blake’s unfortunate ability didn’t have the same effect on men, so he and Cyrus had hooked up in the past. Having seen the two of them interact before, I wasn’t sure how mutual—or how permanent—the breakup had been. Blake had described their former relationship as “friends with benefits,” but I suspected there was more to it than that. If there was any chance Cyrus would play a continuing role in Blake’s life, Steph had a right to know, and I figured I could try to work in a pointed question or two.
The waitress came over to take our orders. I guessed Cyrus was staying for lunch, since he ordered a croque monsieur, which is a fancy name for a grilled ham and cheese sandwich. I’d gone for a light soup-and-salad combo, resisting the temptation of all that butter and cheese. I felt virtuous and deprived at the same time.
“So to what do I owe the dubious pleasure of your company?” I inquired as soon as the waitress had retreated.
“Dubious pleasure?” He put a hand on his chest as if it hurt. “Why, you wound me.” He’d have looked a lot more wounded without the glint of humor in his eyes.
If he weren’t the leader of a bunch of rapists and murderers, I might have let myself relax and be charmed. I certainly liked his pleasant, easygoing demeanor a lot better than I’d liked that of any other Olympian I’d met. Which made it even more imperative that I keep reminding myself what he was. It would be easy to become unguarded with him, and that would be a very bad mistake.
“Look, I’m not making a big scene here because I refuse to let you chase me out of my favorite restaurant and because I know I can’t get you to leave. That doesn’t mean we’re friends, and that doesn’t mean I actually want you here.”
Cyrus’s grin faded, but there was no hint that my admittedly rude pronouncement had annoyed him.
“Sorry,” he said, and he sounded like he actually meant it. “I’m a dyed-in-the-wool wiseass and I couldn’t resist teasing you. But that was overly familiar of me.”
Yes, it was. But his admission made me like him better.
“I know we’re not friends,” he continued, “and considering our . . . differences, I don’t suppose we ever will be. But that doesn’t mean we have to be enemies.”
I frowned at that. “I’m not sure what you’re getting at. Assuming you’re actually getting at something.”
“You’re ruining my soliloquy,” he said in mock annoyance, then shook his head and made a face. “I told you, dyed-in-the-wool. I’ll just issue a blanket apology now and hope it’ll cover our entire conversation. Konstantin did his best to beat the wiseassery out of me when I was growing up, but it never took.”
It was no surprise to hear that Konstantin physically abused his kid. From what Anderson had told me, Cyrus was Konstantin’s only surviving child, but there had been others. Others he’d distrusted so much he’d killed them. I’d spent a lot of years in foster homes, and yet I bet I’d had a better, happier childhood than Cyrus had. I found I couldn’t help smiling at him, despite my determination to be cautious.
“I’ll let you off with a warning,” I said. “But if you could get to the point without too much preamble, I’d appreciate it.”
He nodded, leaning forward in a way that signaled the fun and games were over and he was being serious. “I’m the first to admit that Konstantin won’t win any man-of-the-year contests. He certainly won’t win father of the year. But he is still my father, and even though he’s stepped down and removed himself from the public eye, I still consider him an Olympian. I talked to Anderson last week, and when I got off the phone with him, I had the impression we had both agreed that he would make it clear to his people that my father was not to be harmed.”
My years of working as a private investigator had given me both a good poker face and a nice touch of acting skill. I didn’t think my expression gave anything away, though Cyrus was watching me with great intensity. Funny how Anderson had failed to mention this “agreement” this morning when he’d tried to bully me into hunting Konstantin.
“I’m sure Anderson is upstanding and honorable at heart,” Cyrus continued without a hint of sarcasm, “but I find myself wondering if his hatred for my father might trump his honor. I wonder if he followed through with his promise to warn his people off. You, particularly, descendant of Artemis that you are.”
“If you think Anderson lied to you, then I suggest you take it up with him. No way I’m getting in the middle of that, and I’m not going to confirm or deny what he told us.” Cyrus looked like he was about to protest, but I cut him off. “I will tell you that I have no intention of hunting your father for revenge. That’s just not me. Does that make you feel better?”
He gave me a long, thoughtful stare. Trying to read me, I guessed. I’d told him the truth, even if I hadn’t exactly told him everything, and he seemed to read that in my face. He nodded and let out a little sigh.
“Thank you. That does.”
He looked honestly relieved, like he’d been worried about Konstantin’s safety. I knew there were all sorts of people out there, but I still had trouble understanding how someone could actually care about Konstantin. Fearful respect I could understand, but not affection. And yet I didn’t think it was fear or respect driving Cyrus right now.
“Anderson told me Konstantin killed all his children before you,” I said. “Why would you care so much about his safety? And what makes you think he won’t kill you, too, someday?”
Cyrus shrugged. “He’s my father, Nikki. I know he’s not a nice person, and I know he doesn’t have a good history with his children. But he’s still the man who raised me, and I think we both learned a lot from what happened with the others. I’ve made it clear that I have no desire to take his place, and while he doesn’t trust me completely, I think he at least for the most part believes me.”
“Um, correct me if I’m wrong, but you have taken his place. Haven’t you?”
He smiled blandly at me, and I understood.
“You’ve taken his place in name only,” I said. I should have known someone like Konstantin would never voluntarily step down. “He’s still pulling the strings.” I frowned. “And he’s okay with your decree that the Olympians not kill Descendant children anymore?”
It had always been the Olympian policy under Konstantin that when they discovered a family of Descendants, they would kill them all, except for children under the age of five, who would be raised to believe in the Olympian ideal—and would later be used as lethal weapons against other Liberi. That policy had been the first thing Cyrus had changed when he’d taken over.
Cyrus grinned wryly. “He doesn’t love it,” he admitted. “But since I don’t actually want to lead the Olympians, he had to make some concessions to get me to do it.”
I didn’t for a moment believe Konstantin had abandoned his quest to rid the world of all Descendants and Liberi who weren’t under his thumb, and in his mind, that meant killing children too old to be controlled. If he was letting Cyrus put a stop to the practice, that meant he thought of his son’s rule as nothing but a temporary inconvenience. I didn’t like Cyrus’s chances of surviving the regime change when Konstantin took back the reins.
“You keep playing with fire and you’re going to get burned,” I said, and Cyrus laughed like I’d made a particularly funny joke. I thought back on my words, but they were nothing more than a perfectly ordinary cliché, not funny at all. Whatever the joke was, I didn’t get it.
Cyrus realized I didn’t get it and raised his eyebrows at me. “Playing with fire?” he prompted. “Getting burned?”
Nope, that didn’t clear things up a bit.
“You are aware that my father and I are descendants of Helios, the sun god, aren’t you?”
Actually, I’d never bothered to ask. For some reason, I’d kind of assumed they were descendants of Zeus because he was king of the gods. I wouldn’t have thought Konstantin, who puffed himself up with so much pomp and circumstance, would be the descendant of a god many people had never even heard of.
“I’ll take that as a no,” Cyrus said. He turned in his chair and tugged down the collar of his shirt so I could see the glyph that marked his skin, right where his neck joined his shoulders. It was an iridescent sun with long, spidery rays. If he wore a shirt with no collar, some of those rays would be visible, though only to other Liberi. I myself had a glyph in the middle of my forehead, and no mortal had ever shown any sign that they could see it.
“I’m still kind of new at this game,” I reminded Cyrus. “I tend not to think about who a person’s descended from unless I can see their glyph. Out of sight, out of mind.”
“Understandable,” he said, turning back toward me. “I’ve known what my father was, what I was, for all my life. I can’t imagine what it must be like to have all this thrust upon you all of a sudden.”
There was real sympathy in his words, and I had to give myself another mental slap in the face to remind myself he was one of the bad guys. He was just more subtle and deceptive about it than the rest of the Olympians.
The waitress returned to our table, bringing our food. I tried not to stare at his croque monsieur with naked envy, but it was hard when the bread was a perfect toasty brown and glistened with butter. My soup and salad would make a perfectly nice lunch, but Cyrus’s looked positively decadent.
To my surprise, Cyrus didn’t even bother to glance at his food. Instead, he opened his wallet and pulled out a twenty-dollar bill.
“Lunch is my treat, since I barged in on you so rudely,” he said, laying the money on the table and pushing back his chair.
“You’re not going to eat?”
He shook his head. “I’ve said what I needed to say. There’s no reason for me to disturb you any further.”
Then why did you order food? I wondered, but declined to ask.
“I’m sure they’d be willing to give you a to-go bag. Throwing away a croque monsieur is a crime against nature.”
Cyrus grinned at me as he stood up. “I saw the way you looked at my food when the waitress brought it. I have a strong suspicion it won’t go to waste. It’s been a pleasure.”
I watched him leave with what I was sure was a puzzled frown on my face. I’d been properly warned off, but I had the nagging suspicion that there’d been more going on during our conversation than met the eye. However, I couldn’t figure out what it was. And the croque monsieur was getting cold.
Cyrus was right; his food didn’t go to waste. It wasn’t until I was almost halfway through the sandwich that I realized Cyrus had specifically come to talk to me here, nowhere near where I lived or worked. No one knew where I was. So how had he found me?
The only explanation I could come up with was that he had tracked me by my cell phone somehow. Not something a private citizen would ordinarily be able to do, but the Olympians had so much money to throw around they could buy just about any service known to mankind.
I resisted the urge to dig my phone out of my purse and remove the battery. Cyrus already knew where I was right this moment, so there was no point. But I added a new task to my to-do list: buy a disposable cell phone.
There are some people who can chow down on butter-soaked ham and cheese sandwiches for lunch every day without gaining an ounce. I am not one of them.
Considering the radical changes my life had undergone recently, I’d decided to step up my workout regimen so I’d be in the best possible shape to fight off bad guys, and one of my favorite workouts was running in the woods. My overindulgence at lunch and the relatively mild weather meant this was a good day for a run.
I returned to the mansion and changed into my running clothes—nothing fancy, just a T-shirt and shorts. Sometimes my friend and fellow Liberi-in-residence Maggie went running with me, but after my meetings with Anderson and Cyrus, I needed some time to myself, so I didn’t go looking for her.
Being a city girl, I have very little concept of how big an acre is, but I knew there were a lot of them on Anderson’s property. Even just running up and back along the driveway was not an inconsiderable amount of exercise, but there were also tons of woods. Those weren’t conveniently furnished with running trails, though Maggie had told me that during the warmer months, Anderson brought in a tree service on a regular basis to keep the weeds and underbrush tamed. The result was that we had all the beauty of nature, without any of the inconvenience.
I went up and down the driveway once as a warm-up, then plunged into the woods, just deep enough that I couldn’t see the cleared land on which the house and its environs stood. Pine needles and leaves crunched pleasantly under my feet, and the air smelled of earth and evergreens. A brilliant red cardinal peeped from its perch on a branch above me, and I was far enough away from the road that I couldn’t hear any car sounds. The knot of tension in my gut released as I drank in the peace and solitude.
I was in the zone, my breathing steady, my legs carrying me at a comfortable pace without any conscious control, and I felt like I could run ten miles without being overly winded. I couldn’t, of course. Marathon running wasn’t one of my supernatural powers. When I came out of the almost trancelike state I was in, I’d be breathing like a racehorse and the muscles in my legs would burn something fierce, but for a few perfect minutes, I was transported.
My footsteps faltered when I heard a sound that most definitely didn’t belong out here in the woods of Maryland—a roar that sounded like it came from the throat of a big cat. The sound of that roar brought me back to myself, and I felt the brisk January air burning my throat and lungs as I panted heavily. My legs felt like a pair of tree trunks, rooted to the ground, and I bent over and put my hands on my knees, watching my breath steam as I slowly came to myself.
There was another roar, and I forced myself to stand up straight and look around. I have a very good, possibly supernatural, sense of direction, and even though there were no obvious landmarks around me, just trees, trees, and more trees, I knew exactly where I was.
In the woods behind the house, there was a large, grassy clearing. I wasn’t sure what its original purpose had been, but some of Anderson’s Liberi used it as a sort of practice field, where they could hone their powers without anyone seeing them. I had used the clearing for target practice, trying to learn the limits of my supernatural aim, which seemed to apply equally well to throwing and shooting.
I was currently about fifty yards from the clearing, and with the leafless trees and the lack of underbrush, I wouldn’t have to go very far before I’d be able to see whatever was going on there. The feline roar ripped through the air again, and I knew any sensible person would turn tail and run as far away from that sound as possible. But I’ve rarely been accused of being sensible, so I started forward again, this time at a brisk walk.
I knew who and what was in the clearing, of course. It had to be Jamaal.
A descendant of the Hindu death goddess Kali, Jamaal possessed a terrifying kind of death magic that almost had a will of its own and wanted to be used. The death magic had driven him half mad, though I suspected his temper had always been an issue, even before he’d become Liberi. Thanks to some info I’d gathered from serial killer Justin Kerner, Jamaal had learned to channel some of that magic into the form of a tiger. Summoning the great cat seemed to vent the death magic for him, so that he was no longer as volatile as he had once been. However, his control of the tiger was shaky, to say the least, which meant that when I heard the roar, I should have known better than to approach.
Curiosity was more likely to kill me than the cat under the circumstances, but I’d had the reluctant hots for Jamaal almost since we first met, and I couldn’t resist my urge to investigate.
I eased my way through the trees toward the clearing. I hadn’t heard any more roaring, so it was possible Jamaal had put the tiger to rest. I’d only seen the creature once before, during our final battle with Justin Kerner, and I’d been too distracted by my attempts to catch a killer to take a good look.
I caught a flash of movement out of the corner of my eye. I stopped in my tracks and turned slowly, noticing for the first time that the wind was at my back—carrying my scent straight to the clearing. Perhaps the tiger had been aware of me all along and its roars had been warnings I’d foolishly failed to heed.
It was peering at me through the trees, way too close for comfort. It was a beautiful creature, no doubt about it, with pumpkin-orange stripes and a magnificently muscled body. Paws the size of skillets sported claws that could rip a person open with one swipe, and the amber eyes practically glowed with intensity.
I stood still and swallowed hard. I had no doubt the tiger could outrun me in about two strides if it felt so inclined. I stared into those amber eyes, trying to guess what it was going to do. The tiger snarled, showing off an impressive set of teeth, and I quickly dropped my gaze. I knew dogs and primates took eye contact as a form of challenge, but I wasn’t sure about tigers. Of course, if this one was the embodiment of Jamaal’s rage and death magic, it probably didn’t take much to provoke it.
“Jamaal?” I called softly, afraid yelling would spur the tiger into motion. “A little help here?”
I didn’t know exactly where he was, but he had to be nearby. I just hoped he hadn’t completely lost control of the animal.
The tiger stalked forward, moving with sensuous grace. I scanned the ground in search of a rock I could use as a weapon, while keeping the tiger in my peripheral vision. Even with my powers, I didn’t think throwing a rock at it would even slow the tiger down, but anything was better than just standing there and being mauled. As far as I knew, the tiger couldn’t do me any lasting harm, but it could hurt me, even kill me, in the short term. The magic of the Liberi would bring me back no matter what happened to my body, but I’d died once before and hadn’t enjoyed the experience. I wasn’t eager for a repeat performance.
“Jamaal?” I called again, louder this time.
The tiger was close enough now that I could probably have reached out and scratched behind its ears. If I had a death wish, that is. I was shaking with the effort of restraining my primal urge to run, but I was sure that was the one thing I could do to make the situation even worse.
“I don’t think Sita likes you,” Jamaal said from behind me.
I hadn’t heard him approach, but then I’d been keeping my attention firmly fixed on the tiger, where it belonged.
“Sita?” I risked a glance over my shoulder, and saw Jamaal standing a few yards away, leaning casually against a tree.
“I thought a name from Indian mythology would suit her best,” he said, and even propped against the tree as he was, he swayed a bit on his feet. I realized he wasn’t leaning against the tree in an attempt to look casual—he was leaning on it for support. “The wife of the god Rama.”
I couldn’t have cared less about the origin of the tiger’s name. Jamaal’s face was gleaming with sweat, and his T-shirt clung wetly to his well-muscled chest. He looked like he was about to collapse at any moment. It was possible Sita would disappear if he passed out. It was also possible she wouldn’t, which would be bad.
“The name suits her,” I said, rather inanely. She wasn’t creeping closer anymore, but she was still giving me the evil eye, and the tip of her tail was twitching. In a house cat, that wasn’t a good sign. I didn’t know what it meant in a tiger, but I tended to think it was bad. “She’s truly magnificent,” I continued, “but don’t you think it’s time for her to go away now?”
Sita’s lips pulled back in a snarl, as if she’d understood me and been insulted. Maybe she had.
“Come here, Sita,” he called, and she obeyed, though she kept me pinned with her eyes the entire way.
Jamaal pushed away from the tree when Sita was an arm’s length away, and I saw his legs trembling. He was pushing himself too hard, and it was dangerous as hell. Sita might not be able to do me permanent harm, but if he passed out and left her to her own devices . . . We didn’t have any close neighbors—that was part of the point of the mansion—but the tiger wouldn’t have to go very far to find more vulnerable prey.
I bit my tongue to stop myself from editorializing. The last thing I wanted to do was get Jamaal’s back up while he had a lethal carnivore under tenuous control. So instead of urging him to hurry the hell up and put Sita away, I stood there and held my breath.
Jamaal reached out toward the tiger with a shaking hand, and she finally dragged her attention away from me. She closed her eyes and pressed her head up against his hand in what looked like an affectionate gesture. She followed that gesture by butting her head against his hip. I couldn’t say with any accuracy how big Sita was, but if I had to guess, I’d say she weighed around five hundred pounds, most of it muscle. Her gentle head-butt was too much for Jamaal’s shaky legs, and he went down.
“Jamaal!” I cried, instinctively taking a step toward him.
Sita whirled on me with a roar that made my bones vibrate, putting herself between me and Jamaal and crouching menacingly. But she didn’t pounce on me, and I had the feeling she was defending Jamaal, rather than attacking me. I wasn’t about to argue with her, and I stepped back slowly, trying to give her some space without making her want to chase me.
Luckily, Jamaal had only lost his balance, not passed out. While I stood there with my heart in my throat, he reached up and touched Sita’s flank. She gave me one last snarl, then disappeared.
For a couple of minutes, neither one of us moved. Jamaal lay on his back on the ground, his eyes closed as the sweat evaporated from his skin. His breathing was deep and steady, and I might have thought he’d passed out after all if it weren’t for his bent knees, which didn’t flop to the side as they would if he were unconscious. For myself, I continued to stand still, willing the adrenaline to recede.
Unfortunately, when I didn’t have the heady rush of adrenaline keeping me warm, I noticed that I was freezing. I was as sweaty as Jamaal from my run, and I was wearing even less clothing. It was a nice day for January, but it was still January. I shivered and crossed my arms in a vain attempt to keep warm.
“What are you doing here, Nikki?” Jamaal asked without opening his eyes.
“I was running,” I answered, although surely he’d figured that out on his own based on how I was dressed. “Did you send Sita out to stalk me, or was that her own idea?” Jamaal wasn’t what I’d call the mischievous sort, and I doubted he’d have used Sita to scare me like that, but I didn’t much like the idea of a magical tiger with a mind of its own.
For a moment, I thought he wasn’t going to answer me, which was answer enough in its own way. Then he opened his eyes and levered himself up into a sitting position with an obvious effort. I almost reached out and offered him a hand, but I knew better by now. Jamaal was not the type to graciously accept help of any kind.
“My guess is she heard you running and decided to investigate the potential threat,” he said. “You might have noticed she’s a little protective of me.” He shook his head as if to clear it, and I noticed that the beads at the ends of his braids were a combination of orange, black, and white.
Jamaal was color coordinating with his tiger? I had to suppress a laugh at the idea, though I wondered if Jamaal was even conscious he’d done it. He had enough beads to wear a different color every day for a year; maybe it was just a coincidence that he’d chosen tiger colors.
“I can’t blame her for that,” I said, though I’d have been happier if he could teach her the distinction between the good guys and the bad guys. “But maybe you should go a little easy on your practice sessions. You know, stop before you’re about to drop from fatigue?”
He gave me a sour look as he laboriously dragged himself to his feet. “Venting the death magic was your idea. Don’t complain if you don’t like the results.”
Jamaal’s temper was a lot more stable now that he’d learned how to summon Sita, but he was still a pro at being surly. I tried not to take it personally, though I suspected there was something personal about it. And maybe it was time we got whatever it was out into the open. Ordinarily, I wouldn’t think to initiate a personal conversation when I was standing outside in January in a damp set of running clothes and Jamaal was so shaky on his feet he had to concentrate to stand up, but this might be my only chance to get him alone for a while.
“Are you still pissed at me for trying to leave?” I blurted, wincing a bit in anticipation of his response. At the time, I’d thought leaving was the only way I could protect both myself and Steph. Emma and Anderson had still been trying to make a go of it, and Emma had—for reasons that mystified me to this day—decided that I was after her husband. I’d been sure that Emma and I couldn’t coexist in the mansion, and that if it came down to it, Anderson would choose her over me. And so I’d decided I should make myself disappear.
It had seemed like a good idea at the time, though I realized now that deciding to disappear without talking it over with anyone, or even saying good-bye, had been taking the coward’s way out. And I was pretty sure I’d hurt Jamaal’s feelings, though he’d never admit it.
Jamaal blinked, as if confused by the abrupt change of subject. “What are you talking about?”
I didn’t for a moment believe he didn’t know. He just didn’t want to talk about it. Like most men I knew, he wasn’t a big fan of talking about his feelings.
Actually, he wasn’t a big fan of talking, period. He was the strong, silent type personified, but I didn’t think that was particularly good for him. Even living in the mansion with seven other people, he managed to hold himself aloof, and I thought the isolation, self-imposed though it was, exacerbated his difficulties with the death magic.
“It was wrong of me to try to sneak away like that,” I said. “I was afraid that if I let anyone know I was leaving, someone would try to talk me out of it.” I’d been equally afraid of how I’d feel if someone didn’t try to talk me out of it, but I wanted to talk about Jamaal’s baggage, not my own. “And I was afraid I wouldn’t be able to force myself to leave. I—”
Jamaal shook his head, making his beads click. “Don’t make something out of nothing. I don’t care whether you stay or go.”
I couldn’t help flinching at his words, my heart clenching unpleasantly in my chest. I shouldn’t have let it get to me. I knew he cared, whether he admitted it or not. And yet the words still hurt.
Jamaal sighed and wiped some of the drying sweat from his brow. “Sorry. Didn’t mean it like that. Just meant it’s your decision, not mine. Now I need a shower and a nap, and you need to get inside before you turn blue.”
He didn’t wait for my response, turning his back abruptly enough that he almost lost his balance again and heading toward the house with a ground-eating stride. I considered running after him, trying to get him to stop and talk, but I didn’t like my chances of success. And yeah, I was still feeling pretty stung.
Trying to act as if none of what had happened had gotten to me, I resumed my run. I doubt I managed more than a couple hundred yards before I gave it up as a lost cause.