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story.”
    There was a lot more to it, but Jessie didn’t like thinking about it, let alone talking about it. It was bad enough she lived through it night after night in her dreams.
    “ That what happened to your hand?” Tanya asked.
    Jessie clenched the three fingers on her right hand into a fist subconsciously. Fortunately for Dustin, he was on her left side. “Yes,” she admitted.
    “ Oh, I’m, um, sorry,” Tanya said.
    “ I knew it,” Dusty whispered, so quiet that only Jessie could hear him. He turned to glance at her, his eyes wide and a smile on his lips.
    Suddenly nervous, Jessie glanced around and then looked to Tanya. “Tanya, help your brother, I need to scout ahead a little.”
    Seeing the suspicion in the gymnast’s eyes, Jessie sighed. “You’ll be able to see me the entire time, just be ready to get down or move faster to me if I motion for it, okay?”
    Tanya nodded and made her way over to help Dustin. Jessie handed him off then moved ahead, pulling out her pistol again and making sure that they did not catch up to her. She looked around as she walked, but found herself paying attention to nothing. Her words kept going over and over in her mind, reminding her of what had happened. She shook her head a few times, but found she could not focus.
    Nauseas again, she found herself bending over a dusty rock and dry heaving little more than phlegm and bile onto the hard backed ground. She was glad to see she had digested her breakfast, at least.
    On her way back to her feet Tanya and Dustin were suddenly at her side. “Are you okay?” one or the other asked. Or perhaps both did, she was not sure.
    She nodded. “Ate something bad,” she lied. “Coming back to haunt me.”
    “ You’re soaked,” Tanya said, seeing the sweat that had drenched Jessie’s top and was running down her body.
    “ Fuck!” Jessie spat out, tasting her vomit and wishing she had a beer to drink. “Come on, we’re fucked if we’re stuck out here at night.”
    “ Why?” Tanya asked her as she started to walk away.
    “ Cold,” Jessie said. She grimaced as a pain shot through her stomach, either from the contortions caused by vomiting or something else she could not be sure. “We’ll freeze to death.”
    “ It doesn’t get that cold,” she protested.
    “ Dry, high 30’s or low 40’s, without clothing it gets cold.”
    “ We’re not naked,” Tanya protested.
    Jessie looked down at herself and did a double take. She really was drenched with sweat. Cold because of it too, even though it had to be near ten or eleven in the morning and it should be getting uncomfortably warm out. She was glad her top was dark blue instead of white, but even still her nipples were making obvious dents in the wet fabric. “You want to loan me a jacket then?” she asked.
    “ Oh, good point,” Tanya said.
    “ So let’s go,” Jessie said gruffly, and started out again.
    Tanya and Dustin looked to one another, both thinking many thoughts but neither willing to voice them. After a brief moment, he nodded towards his sister. With a nervous smile, Tanya nodded back and they started after their erstwhile rescuer. Dustin was almost certain he knew who she was, but her acting was just good enough to leave him unconvinced. Besides, she looked a mess. Beautiful, sure; but a sweaty and dirty mess. All the movies he’d seen starring Jizzy Banks she was wearing makeup, had her hair styled, and was drop dead gorgeous. Jessie looked a lot like her, but she acted different. She talked a lot, unlike the one he’d seen in the movies. He’d heard a rumor that she’d lost a finger in an accident, but he had never once seen one of her movies that showed it.
    Still, that shadow of doubt kept his lips sealed. That, and he figured the longer he kept silent, the better his chances of seeing more of her and being closer to her.
    With the sun rising through the red haze overhead, they trudged onward through what had once been the California