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prisoner. That meeting was held without his participation, which he was okay with. The level of pain he had been in combined with the need to quickly assess the damage kept him out of the loop. Of course, it was more than a year since he handed off his part in the major decision making off to others in favor of his work. Settling into a permanent home meant a change in priorities.
    Which was why, several days after the near-disastrous run at the local marauders, Kell was little more than a fly on the wall during the discussion that would decide when and how they would go about meeting the people Emily had identified using Kell's criteria.
    The positions of the people in the room were mostly predictable. Laura said little, choosing to instead see what the various points of logic were before nudging the conversation with a sentence here and a few words there. Lee advocated caution and preparedness by means of necessary force—which by the definition of anyone who wasn't a Marine was actually overwhelming force. It wasn't that the young man was bloodthirsty; in fact the opposite. Lee was prepared to kill and strongly supported having the tools needed to make it happen, but preferred to avoid situations that put his people in danger. One of the first lessons he taught people on the training ground was that the best fight was one you could avoid having in the first place.
    There were several others participating in the discussion, but the most interesting to Kell was a man who went by the name Kincaid. He was close with Josh and Jessica, Josh's temporary death being the flash of inspiration which led Kell to ask all the scouts to find people who had clinically died and come back.
    Kell had met the man before, and while the quarters inside their compound were snug bordering on uncomfortable, had only seen him in passing outside of the odd feast night.
    He was certain why Kincaid was at the meeting, though Kell had no idea whether or not anyone else did. It was only because of the brief but tense days Kell spent with Josh after the man had died that he had been able to suss out what was off about Kincaid, who was rarely more than ten feet from the husband and wife.
    Kell was fairly certain the man was a sociopath. Kincaid was certainly capable of some of the behaviors Kell remembered from his college years, yet didn't fit an easy definition or stereotype. Many of his colleagues in the hard sciences scoffed at the idea of psychology and psychiatry being called science, but not Kell. They fascinated him enough to keep him dabbling in the literature for years after leaving school.
    The problem many scientists had with those fields could be found in the constantly shifting definitions and terminologies. Kincaid wasn't psychotic. He didn't break with reality. And he didn't fall into most of the highly granular criteria for defining a sociopath. If he was cold to most of the other members of the community, he was fiercely loyal and protective of Josh and Jessica.
    They had stood up for Kincaid when the former marauder had taken an amnesty offer from New Haven. Others weren't happy that he'd come to live there, so they had made it a point to show the man trust. Add to that the fearlessness with which Kincaid fought to defend their new home, and you might miss the fact that there was a void in him not present in most people.
    His moral compass was missing a direction.
    When the meeting was over, Laura motioned for Kell to stay, along with Kincaid. When she asked Kincaid to voice his thoughts on the meeting, Kell knew he was right about why Laura had asked him there in the first place.
    “They all had decent points,” Kincaid said, his voice just flat enough to make Kell's neck itch. “Lee wants to send an armada. Emily wants to take Kell by herself and sneak in. Perkins questioned whether bringing back samples would be worth the risks associated with the trip. Griner advocates waiting to see if other scouts fine more accessible subjects