Mark and I hadn't really spoken—not properly—since Jackson Township fell.
In the aftermath, when the surviving members of our group had found each other in the chaos and the grief, I had reached him briefly. Said what you say when you're relieved someone is still breathing. He had responded in kind, still in his sharp and impolite tone but that tone had told me everything I needed to know about the conversation we weren't yet ready to have.
I'd let it go. There had been too much else demanding attention, and Mark wasn't the kind of man you could push into a conversation before he was ready for it. You could only make yourself available and wait.
Besides it wasn't like I was faring mentally any better to comfort him. Jasmine's death was still today hitting me hard after all.
