​     "No," Gramps replied. "Only Azure specialist use healers. Why? You take a hit?"

     "A couple." Trevor raised a pant leg so everyone could see the ugly burns he had on his calf from the wounds he'd taken back in training where there were healers.

     "Oh my God, Trevor!" Abby gasped. 

     Cathy paled at the sight. 

     Alison looked like she might get ill. 

     Great, Trevor thought. I was hoping she was getting all sexually excited by my muscles and shit, and now... 

​      "Trevor, for goodness sake, doesn't that hurt?" Abby asked. 

     Trevor shrugged. Yeah, it hurt like a house on fire, really, but a lot of Trevor's training concerned how to deal with physical discomfort, so he knew how to both let the pain play itself out and disregard it at the same time. And the wounds weren't that bad. They'd cauterized themselves immediately, so they weren't messy. He wished he'd never brought the whole subject up, now. The only reason he did in the first place was because, if they really were going into battle that day, and it sure looked like they were, he needed to be 100% if at all possible.

     Niki nodded in the direction of Abby and her family.

     "We all going?" she asked. 

     "They're staying home with the child," Gramps said. 

     "I'm against that, actually," Adam said. He didn't like being separated from his son.

     "Stay if you want," Gramps said. "Nothing's going to get decided here, though." To Niki and Trevor, he said, "We've had this argument a hundred times over the last two days." Then, to Abby, "Okay? Have we had our little visit?"

     "We haven't finished our coffee," Abby said. 

     Gramps sat with his arms crossed, jaw clenched. 

     "Oh you can be such a baby sometimes," Abby said, "Get out of here, then. Scoot."

                                                 CONTINUE