“You don’t want to know what I think,” he said, glaring at me.

“I don’t really care either,” I told him.

Then I flew off.

Childish of me to engage, more childish to leave the conversation that way. But I’d held back enough today. Playing nice with Defiant, holding back with Eric. I was fucking done.

Fuck me, let this be easy.

I needed to check on my people.

Stables were closest. I remembered the location from our little geography discussion, when we’d been distracting ourselves with a discussion on vantage points for viewing the Titans. Stable Hill had been one of the hills, and it thus followed the stables were close.

Dogs, dogs, and more dogs.

I saw Cassie outside, throwing the ball for a crowd of dogs. Chastity sat on a stool next to her, while four older dogs competed for the two hands that could pet them. An exceptionally skinny teen in grunge fashion and a seventeen-year-old who looked twenty-two, who wouldn’t have looked out of place amid celebrities at a high-class event, provided I looked past the bandages, and the bright red patch of skin at her neck.

I landed. Dogs immediately swarmed me, some barking, but most were friendly.

“Hey,” Cassie said.

“Heya. Kenzie around?”

Cassie jerked her thumb toward the stable interior.

“She brought all the dogs, huh?”

Chastity laughed. “This isn’t even close to all of the dogs.”

“Ahh.”

“Pretty miserable back there, huh?”

I wasn’t sure if she meant the camp or the fight.

“Yeah,” I agreed.

“Any word from Rain?” Chastity asked.

“I, uh, haven’t checked. Do I need to?”

“I wouldn’t,” Chastity said. “But you know your team better than I do. Right now Sveta, Tristan, and Rain are at one of the houses. Big white one near the end of the road, with the white stable, fenced in yard. They said, um…”

She glanced toward the stable door, then leaned forward, conspiratorially. I stepped closer.

“…Sveta and Rain are closest to Tristan, so they wanted to talk to him without the munchkin. Asked us to keep her busy.”

Betting five bucks she heard that, I thought. “If that’s it, I’ll hang back.”

“That’s good,” Chastity said. “They didn’t think it would be long. Byron gets a bit of a turn after they’re done, he’s going to spend time with Vista, Rain’s going to come here to hang out—”

I didn’t miss Cassie’s attention momentarily flicking my way.

“—and I don’t know what Sveta is doing.”

“Perfect,” I said, putting my hand on a dog’s head. Another dog nosed my hand out of the way, tried to get his head under my palm, and failed when a bigger dog wormed his way in. Tails were wagging all over the place. “Did Kenzie set up her workshop here?”