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from him, he'd promised himself.
    And all of those memories carried him to the dark figure.  
    "At last you've come to me," the stranger who felt familiar said, and a wave of warmth and acceptance swept over Danny. He dropped to his knees from the joy of it.
    A gentle hand touched his head, moving down to caress his cheek before offering to help him up. Danny lifted his trembling hand and slipped it into that promise of family. "I've waited my whole life for you," he said as the masculine fingers grasped his palm and pulled him to his feet.
    The acceptance of the stranger filled him, and Danny knew how wrong he was to think of him as anything less than home. This man was everything he'd been missing. This man he could trust. This man was his friend.
    "What do you want me to do?" he asked, joy welling up inside of him and catching on his sob of gratitude.  
    "No, dear child. It is I who wish to help you."

    *   *   *

    Between the hard bed, the cold cell, Cooper's grunts of pain every time he tried to turn over, and me not being able to reach across our connection to soothe him, I found myself up and restless long before my fellow inmates. So of course, I made plans.
    Sometimes the paranormals' arrogance where non-paras were concerned was a cause for joy. And while pretending to be only human might be a pain in the ass, a knife in your boot and another strapped to your calf under your jeans is a joy forever.  
    When Knox woke up, he rolled over and looked into my cell, blinking against the artificial light from the torches along the back wall. "What good will that do?" he said after a moment. "The main door is locked from the other side."
    "During the war, cells full of prisoners were sometimes shot right through the bars," I said, delicately feeling for the second pin of the lock on my door with the tip of my smaller knife. "I'd at least like a fighting chance."
    He got up with his blanket over his shoulders. Padding barefoot to the bars separating our luxury accommodations, he watched me with interest. "Since you're standing here telling me that, how would you know?"  
    "Rescue mission." I carefully lifted the second pin up to the shear line and then held it in place with the top blade. "A mixed group of Weres and practitioners took some of the kids my friend and I looked out for."
    "What happened?"
    "Along with about a dozen adults, two of them had already been shot after the Weres involved were through with them. Once we got the surviving prisoners out, my friend and I went back and I had a heart-to-heart with them about the virtues of not messing with anyone under my protection. The streets around the jail were a little smelly until their bodies finished decomposing, but they made great 'don't mess with us' signs."  
    He swallowed and wrapped his blanket tighter around his shoulders. "How do you do it?" he asked after a moment, his voice quiet. "How do you forget and trust again?"  
    "I don't," I said, feeling the next pin lift into place. I slid my knives deeper into the lock, the anticipation of feeling the tumblers turn tingling through me. "I have to constantly tell myself that there are good and bad people everywhere. Look for the good ones and shoot the rest."  
    The bolts on the other side of the cellblock door clanked and churned as I lifted the last pin. Damn . Pulling out my knives, I slipped them back into their hidden sheaths, promising myself I'd try again later.  
    I had just settled onto my cot when the cellblock door opened and Rosalind came striding in with the teenager from the day before, and an older man who carried a leather duffle bag. He had a slight build and straight gray hair cut short, and conveyed a level of authority that even Rosalind seemed to respect. He was also human, based on the couple of scabbed over cuts and scrapes on the backs of his hands.  
    He went right to Cooper's cell. "Open it," he commanded, the lilt of an English accent in his voice.
    "Dr. Barrett," Cooper said,