”What’d you say?”

Brock was suddenly standing at my elbow. Somehow, the smell of him didn’t seem overpowering anymore.

It’s not. Here, it fits in. It doesn’t clash.

I shook my head, partly to clear it. “Nothing. I’m tired. It’s been a long trip.”

He looked at me for a few more seconds. “How’s the pain?”

I started, suddenly sure I’d lost the needle, and felt for it just below my right collarbone. Still there. Still there? I frowned. “There isn’t any pain.” I looked at him. “Not that I mind, but you said the pain would still be there.”

Brock looked at me, then glanced over his shoulder as Bhuto emerged from the gray-green scrub brush where he’d gone scouting and nodded. “I was wrong.”

I started to ask what else he might have be wrong about, but the look on his face (probably the cloud cover) made me think better of it.