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if he’s
just settling in.
    “I feel like one of the bears in the
Goldilocks story, only this one should be called the Redilocks story,” Cory says to them as
they enter the small cabin.
    “What?” Simon asks him.
    “Somebody’s been wearing my clothes.
Someone’s been sleeping in my bed,” he answers, gesturing toward
Paige.
    Simon laughs. Cory grins slightly, showing
his dimples a lot more this time since his shaggy beard is gone. He
swipes a hand through his wild hair and looks at her.
    “I sleep here with Simon,” she explains,
although she isn’t quite sure why she feels the need to do so.
    “In my bed I see,” Cory points out and turns
his back to her.
    “You weren’t here. Maybe you can sleep in the
house,” Paige suggests tightly.
    Cory turns back to her, dangling one of her
lacy white bras from his index finger, “This definitely isn’t
mine.”
    Paige glares at him and in haste snatches her bra from his
finger.
    “No, it’s cool, sis,” Simon offers,
oblivious to their interaction with his back turned. “We don’t want
to kick Cory out. We can all stay out here. There’s plenty
of room . I’ll just go get one of
the twin mattresses from the basement for you. We’ll set you up in
here with us.”
    “I won’t necessarily be here a lot at
night anyway, so it won’t matter
much,” Cory says, drawing their confused stares.
    “What do you mean? Why not?” Simon asks.
    “I’ll be gone a lot. Working,” he
replies.
    This makes no sense to her, but she
doesn’t care. Good. She’s glad he won’t be around much. She wonders
if she should suggest right now that h e be gone a lot during the day, too. Or perhaps
she should wait a while to share that idea.
    “Doing patrols? Yeah, we still do
those. Gotta keep a good watch on
the place,” Simon concludes. “I’ll just run up to the house and
grab that mattress. Be right back.”
    Her brother blasts back through the door with
more energy than she feels tonight.
    “Not patrols,” Cory mumbles after Simon is
gone.
    Paige is leery of him, to say the least. She
goes to the far corner of the cabin and sits on Simon’s bed.
    “I’m not leaving this cabin, asshole,” Paige
starts angrily and crosses her arms over her chest. “I’m never
leaving Simon again.”
    “I didn’t say you had to, sass-mouth,”
he retorts and barely looks over
his shoulder at her.
    It’s like he doesn’t care enough to
even look at her when he speaks, as if she is insignificant. She watches warily as he crosses
to the dinner table, which is only big enough to hold four chairs.
He picks up an empty gun clip and starts jamming ammo into
it.
    “Why are you loading that clip?” she asks
hesitantly.
    “Not a clip. This is a magazine,” he
answers.
    Paige would like to club him over the head
with whatever gun it came out of. She still hasn’t learned much
about guns and shooting them or self-defense. The men have been too
busy to work with her and Talia.
    “So? Why are you loading it full? Did you
load those other three, too?”
    “Yep,” he answers, still not looking in her
direction.
    He screws a silencer onto the end of it.
    “Why? Are you expecting company?” she asks,
her impatience at his noncommittal answers growing. The sun will
set soon, which causes a dull amber glow to filter into the room
through the two west-facing windows.
    “Look, beanpole, if I wanted to play twenty
questions, I’d ask Ari to come out here and bug me,” he
retorts.
    He slings his rifle over his shoulder. What
an ass! She doesn’t think any of the men would find his crass
behavior and name calling funny. He grabs his backpack next. Then
he pulls on a pair of leather boots. These ones look different than
the scroungy shoes he had on earlier. They look like the military
boots that the Rangers wear. He must’ve retrieved them from under
his bed where she’d seen boxes of his belongings stored there. She
hadn’t snooped. She hadn’t felt the need. Now her curiosity