Aware of his intent gaze, Sam wondered if she resembled his wife. How galling it must be, she thought, surrendering your masculinity along with your l...ved one to a charlatan. A child-rapist, Sam reminded herself. How young were some of the girls he’d claimed? The report hadn’t elaborated, stating only that he took numerous underage girls for ‘wives.’ Twenty of them, all told.“I gotta warn you,” Dave said as they approached the gate.“Uh-uh,” Truck warned. “That ain’t our business, Dave.”“Fuck it. I'll spare you a description of an orchid show. I'll just say that as flower shows go, it wasn't as bad as I'd imagined (it 'grew' on me). There are some fairly impressive looking orchids, and several of them are called "Dracula [various somethings]," which is pretty cool. Mackenzie loved it, which was the main point.I spent the nearly two hours internally chatting with myself, partially listening to Mackenzie rave over the various flowers, and making my way through crowds of mostly middle-aged. I might not be able to do anything to keep something bad from happening to the boy I'd adopted but at least I'd know I did my best if I was with him.I soon realized that we were being taken to either the worst or best place I could hope to see someone like my boy go to. I recognized the cross on the door of the otherwise nondescript building. The people who ran this place would be either extremely good or extremely bad. For the most part there seemed to be no telling which it would be until you. “This is why I like you, warrior,” he remarked. “You say the most amazing things and keep me guessing how you’re going to react next. Here you are, fighting to live the entire night, and the moment I grant you an extension on your life, you refuse. Please, explain.” He waved his talons.Hiryu frowned, insulted that the demon considered him mere comedy, but replied seriously, “Living at the insistence of someone else is not really life at all. Caught, unable to escape, slowly eaten, death.