"I know…" Grant sounded tired. It was the first time I had heard genuine emotion in his voice. "I've been dwelling on it every minute since it happened. I misjudged, and that mistake left a man to die. I left a fellow Hunter to die alone…"

Was he crying?

"Grant, it's okay, everyone makes mistakes."

"I don't… Sorry. I've got to go. See you in the morning," Grant said. I moved away from the door as fast as I could remain silent, and made it about ten feet before the door opened. I spun around, as if I had been coming from the other direction.

Grant was in fact wiping his eyes as he closed Julie's door behind him.

"Evening, Grant."

"Pitt." He nodded, then walked quickly in the other direction, his pride not able to show weakness to a rival. Especially a rival whom he had accidentally condemned to a horrible death, but I could tell by looking at him that it wasn't an act. He really was torn up by his failure. Torn up, and hurting.

I didn't feel so smug anymore.

Grant stayed the night. I still didn't like the man one iota, but it was rather nice to have one more person to pull guard duty. While it was dark, it did not do us much good to have somebody on patrol outside, so instead, we all clustered in one suite of rooms centered around Ray Shackleford's little prison. One person was awake at all times to walk the hall. The sensors had been rigged to alert us if anything bigger than a rabbit came within twenty feet of the house. We could have moved that perimeter back, but the number of deer in the woods would have been setting off alarms all night long.

Julie had taken extra precautions with Ray's room. She had put motion detectors all around his bed. If he even thought about making an escape we would all know.

Personally, I didn't think we had anything to really worry about. Nobody outside of Julie's immediate circle of friends and family knew about the home. The Heart of Dixie Historical Preservation Society was an effective front, so even if the Feds did have somebody leaking information to Lord Machado, they didn't know about this place.

I turned in for the evening. I put my armor on the ground next to the bed, weapons sitting on top. If I needed to find them quickly in the dark, it would not be a problem. I even left my pants on in case I needed to move in a hurry. My watch wasn't until 2:00 a.m. I heard Holly's boots echo in the hall. All of us were close enough that if anything bad happened, we would all know. The only people who slept far apart in a situation like this were the suckers in the horror movies.