Scare him off with ‘the talk’ before you’ve even known each other two weeks. Still, however awkward it might be, she knew they needed to figure ...t out. For some reason, it didn’t scare her as badly as she thought it would. Maybe in the back of her mind, she already knew they’d figure it out. Or she just hoped badly enough that they would. *** ‘Perdy, dude, what happened to your back?’ Alex turned and looked over at his teammate, Eric, gaping at the back of his shoulders. Grimacing, Alex faced. Power tingled in the pieces, memory of the god-forged blade's prowess.Stealing the sword's pommel may have been a good act, but Minx and Xera looted more treasure to pay the pirate ship we rowed to—the Golden Hunger. Thrak, with Minx's introduction, contracted the pirate Thyrna, a dangerous woman, to ferry us across the Nimborgoth. It was necessary for Minx, Xera, and Thrak to slip away from Raratha before the Doge discovered the theft. Sophia, Faoril, Chaun, and myself would have remained. She laid it out on my bed. I tell her that I just don’t feel like dressing up. She won’t let me just stay home in my jammies. I get a shower and put on the black mini dress, then head downtown to the bar. I get there and Sherry is with a couple guys; she introduces me, and I smile trying to be upbeat. We get a table and order drinks. I try to let Sherry know I am not in the mood to make conversation with men I do not know. After about an hour, I start to feel a little more in the mood to. I bent over and ran as fast as I could toward the shooter. Damn, that bullet crease hurt when I bent over!I was able to get within 75 yards of the shooter before the arroyo took a sharp bend in the wrong direction, so I was forced to stop. Luckily, there was a clump of brush between me and the shooter, so I was able to crawl out of the arroyo and toward him while being hidden by the brush.I was now off to one side of the shooter and about 65 yards away—plenty close enough for a good shot. I.