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fire, I filled them in on the most recent visit from the senator. After he started to come regularly, I'd felt it was best that they knew. If I disappeared one day, I didn't want them to think I'd abandoned them.
    "What's that?" Dark asked, looking at the back of my pants where I'd forgotten I'd shoved the bracelet case. I dug it out and tossed it to him. "Token from the senator."
    He lifted it out of its velvet and dangled it in the air.
    "Whoa, those are high quality," Dodd said. Even with just the light from the fireplace the warm glow of the rubies showed the silk of the large stones. "I knew it."
    "You knew what?"
    "That's it, I get your next fresh fruit ration," he said to Dark.
    "Knew what?" I repeated.
    Dodd sat smugly while Dark explained. "Dodd bet me the senator had a thing for you."
    "No , he doesn't." I hoped.
    "Oh, yes , he does. I, of all people, know what a man after some tail is like," Dodd said, laughing boisterously now. "He's not stopping by to just chat with you this often if he doesn't want in."
    I ignored that he was laughing at my expense. It was the first time I'd heard him laugh at anything in months and it lightened my mood.
    That was until they started their Cormac game.
    "If Cormac was here, he'd kick his ass," Dark said, more to Dodd than me.
    "He wouldn't have to. He's so badass the senator probably wouldn't come visit her at all," Dodd replied.
    I kept my face toward the fireplace as they continued the, if Cormac was here game. I'd been listening to it for months and it seemed to get worse with each passing day. Cormac's pedestal was getting higher, and the taller it got, the thinner my patience ran.
    I turned and headed toward my room, to escape from the game, not wanting to hear any more about how the almighty Cormac would've handled it when I wanted to spew the ugly truth that he'd abandoned them. He was probably lying on a beach somewhere warm, having the time of his life.
    I knew I was getting a bit carried away in my delusions , but it had been three months. He was either dead, the thought still feeling like a fist around my heart, or doing something he deemed more important than all of us. Either way, I wasn't optimistic.
    I'd almost made it out. And in five minutes from now, I was going to have wished I'd left the room just a few seconds earlier and avoided what was about to come next.
    "Jo! When do you think he'll be back?" Dark asked.
    I sighed and turned back to them. Maybe I should just tell them now. I couldn't keep this lie going forever. They'd eventually succumb to the suspicions as the time grew longer and longer. I was getting more and more questions about when. Why was it taking so long? Even if I could manage to stop myself from counting the days, someone would remind me of how long he'd been gone.
    But I saw their hopeful faces and I lied. "I'm sure he's doing everything he can to find a suitable place." A suitable place on the beach with a cocktail and a hot little chickie serving it to him. I turned to leave again but Dodd stopped me.
    "I bet you're sorry that you guys didn't get together sooner, huh? All that wasted time while you were figuring things out and then he had to leave."
    I felt it coming, the sanity and calmness I kept locked tight around my natural instincts started to strain and crumble under the pressure. And I snapped. I couldn't do it anymore. I couldn't keep up this charade and protect him with my lies.
    I walked back into the room and stood in front of the couch where they sat. I decided to get it out as quickly as I could.
    "He didn't leave to find a new place for us. He just left." Their jaws dropped. They'd been deifying him and Cormac didn't deserve that. He'd abandoned them, just like he had me. "He never went to find a better place. I lied. I made it up to keep everyone calm."
    "I don't understand," Dodd said.
    The logic I'd told myself a minute ago had seemed so sound until I watched their faces go from shock to devastation. I still longed for