I bowed to her. "I'm sorry that I had to kill him, Mother." I opened."So why did you then, you could have easily just incapacitated him?" It wouldn't ...ave solved my problem, though; he would not have stopped until one of us was dead. You saw what Steven did, and that was after I dispatched his chief lackey. The kid might not be good enough to tell how easily I blew through Squire Michael's guard, but someone will get it into his head that Steven needs to back off." I personally have no allies. She had seen with her own eyes what her father had done to her friend but she didn't know that Eloise truly didn't remember.Eloise, in fact, had some fleeting doubts. Yesterday after praying with Reverend Wilson, along with the feeling of peace and fatigue from her religious experience she had a strange tenderness between her legs. But, despite what Leena said, Eloise knew that she would have remembered if her minister had fucked her. And she knew equally well that he was a kind, Godly man who. “I know,” I replied calmer. “It’s just that compared to the amount of shit that has happened this year, my anecdotes are looking pretty pitiful.”She shrugged and took another drink of wine. “All the better,” she said. “Maybe some dull anecdotes with happy endings are all that we need right now?”“Maybe,” I said. “I’ve made the first part of Archer’s Lane free in response to the US elections, especially because it has such a happy ending and some readers might need that. So you might be right.. “I’m from Aria 51.” She looked up at his face again and saw he wasn’t surprised, his eyes held hers as her vision began to blur with tears at the thought of home.“How do you think you’re gonna get back there? That’s hell and gone from here.”“I know…” She sniffed and trailed off as she hid her face in her hands and began to cry quietly. She nearly jumped out of the chair as she felt his arm go round her shoulders comfortingly. She hadn’t heard him move but his arm supported her as she wept. She.