However, the ease of conversation and camaraderie I was seeing between Kat and Sally had never been there with Sarah and Sally. Even Myrna had never c...mpletely let her guard down with Sarah and it made me wonder what the difference was in this friendship."Earth to Jon! Earth to Jon!" What, can't a man even think in peace around here?"When I saw the looks I got from both of them, I realized I had stepped in it again. Dammit, couldn't a man have a private thought without making someone mad at. She always thought they were normal people and she would have easily trusted them with her daughter but now they were acting like some mad rapists who wanted to destroy Melanie.She took a step towards her daughter only to be seized by Patrick, Amber and Tess. Katherine was beside herself. She made a frantic move to escape their clutches and rush to the aid of Melanie but the trio of teens easily overcome her resistance. They soon had her pinned down to another mattress.“Don’t worry about your. Mark this entire smuggling ring, along with a large depot of smuggled goodies, toast! Assuming I made it home alive, a few folks might actually be happy with me!On the other hand, I was a good thousand miles or so away from Chicago, somewhere in Western Montana if my guess was even half accurate, and there would be a lot of very angry Deseret wizards and soldiers hunting my ass down. Not to mention that I had to find Bel!With everything within five square miles a heap of rubble, I had slightly. I left home when he was seven any only saw him maybe twice thereafter.I decided to see my brother first as he lived just off the main highway on the way to my sisters.He spotted me in the driveway and ran up to open my door. A gentleman I thought.Once inside he offered me a glass of wine and grabbed a beer for himself.We did the standard chit chat and trying to catch up on several decades takes longer than a few hours.He knew I was roughly a year into my transition and I was happy he was not.