" No," said Katy firmly, "I'm not wimping out. I claimed to be a grown-up, and it's time I started acting the part. Let's go."Steve helped her to her ...eet, put his arm around her, and led her to her room. He gave her the same speech as he'd given Alexandra, except that instead of a clone of a sister, the alternative was a clone of the baby she'd been carrying at the time of the disaster.Katy looked thoughtful, then a bit scared, and finally she asked, "Do you think I can handle two? Both our. Seth elbowed his way through the mob, most of whom seemed to be in a holiday mood. He moved into the scrubby woods and past the piles of cleared brush where he had seen the New York soldiers disappear. He wanted to be as far from the fort as he could when those cannons fired again.By six o'clock everything was ready. Seth and the spectators on the Seventh Street Road along with the crowd around Lincoln watched portly Colonel Bidwell move his men forward at "trail arms." They kept their weapons. I understand now,” she said as she pulled her head back. Her feathers went up as she looked up to his eyes. “There are humans that want to have mates for life, but there are humans that prevent that from happening. This causes the humans that want a permanent mate to slow down and ensure that the ones that they find will follow that desire as well. I ... understand. This is why you date. I feel so sorry for you humans.”“Well ... it is a matter of life. As I said, don’t judge all of us based on. “They’d have killed you if you’d stayed.”Slowly, he helped me up and somehow we managed to stumble out of the hall and he half-carried, half-guided me down the road.He took me to his house as it was closer. We managed to sneak into his room without his Mam spotting us. I sat on his bed while he disappeared and came back with a first-aid kit.As he carefully, tenderly cleaned me up, we talked.“You can see why I can’t stay here can’t you?” he asked as I winched in pain as he swabbed disinfectant.