I'm scanning faces near the funeral pyre when an arm wraps around me from behind.
The grip is strong enough to disarm me, weak enough not to trigger my fight instincts. Calibrated. Whoever it is knows my reach and my reflexes.
"I thought you were dead. Or gone, like your father..."
The voice I was looking for. And the second half of the sentence ices my spine.
"Could you let go of me, please? This is strange."
I work my way out of Boris's grip and turn to face him.
He looks worse than the city. There's dried blood on the side of his neck that isn't his, soot caked into the lines of his mohawk, and one of his beard hairs is singed white at the tip from a near miss with something on fire. He doesn't apologize for any of it.
"Sorry. I... I really thought you were dead. Four days without coming back. That's usually a death sentence out here."
I need to calm him down. He is a mess.
"I'm alive. I'm fine. Sit with me. We have a lot to talk about."
