”I looked at her, studied the dirty beggar outlined by the fire, and then glanced back at her. What a peculiar situation. A dirty, flea-ridden good-...or-nothing was offering badly needed warmth in exchange for ... fucking Cathy. Instead of telling him yes or no, as was her prerogative, she was looking at me with question in her eyes. She was asking my permission to do something I should have had no say in. Cat was an escaped slave, masterless, she was far past asking anyone’s permission for. The whisky was smoky and pungent and Daniel spluttered on it. “Sixteen year old Lagavulin Danny! Right off the Isle of Islay! One of the oldest distilleries in Scotland, you can taste the peat and seaweed in it! Petri Heil!”“Eh?”“Its German Danny, Petri Heil. Hail Peter. St Peter is the patron saint of fishermen and in Germany fishermen greet each other by saying Petri Heil. It’s a bit like us saying “tight lines”. It’s supposed to bring luck. When somebody says Petri Heil to you, you reply. She died of the virus. It was not pretty to watch."I've told you much of that. Everyone died and I finally left. I went back to my hotel and tried to decide what to do."I finally decided to return to L.A. There wasn't any particular reason for that. It was just a goal. I could change it."When I met you, I avoided any serious entanglement. I wasn't entirely comfortable with Tomas. He seemed to be unaware of the realities of our situation and seemed to not approve of us having even a friendship,. Especially since he described the douchebag who had taken his Jilly doll from him. She knew, but she wasn’t going to tell him. He could tell from the way the bitch had a little smirk on her face. She was just doing this to spite him, he knew it.When he tried to get pointed, and insist that she tell him where his Jilly was, a couple of cops, identifying themselves as members of the Amtrak Police Department, came up and asked him his business. Uniformed thugs working for the fascist government,.