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Speaker 1: Cool Zone Media book Club, book Club, book Club. It's

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Speaker 1: the Cool Zone Media book Club, and I'm your host,

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Speaker 1: Margaro Giljoy. This is the book club where you.

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Speaker 2: Don't have to do the reading because I do it

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Speaker 2: for you. And we are on chapter five of my book,

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Speaker 2: The Barrel will Send what it may, the second book

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Speaker 2: in the Daniel Kane series. And you could jump in here,

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Speaker 2: I guess, or you could go back a little bit

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Speaker 2: and listen from the beginning. The choice is yours. Okay,

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Speaker 2: where we last left our heroes, I'm going to do

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Speaker 2: the thing again where I read the last couple paragraphs,

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Speaker 2: although it's a sad last couple of paragraphs. What just

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Speaker 2: happened was that Heather died. What was the ora, Boris?

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Speaker 2: I asked, new start? Brent said. She choked up a

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Speaker 2: little on her words. She wanted a snake that eats

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Speaker 2: its own tail to remind herself that things go in cycles,

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Speaker 2: that it's never too late for a new start. There

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Speaker 2: wasn't anything to say to that, there's always time for

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Speaker 2: a new start, until one day there isn't holding each other,

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Speaker 2: try not to think about the world outside that bedroom.

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Speaker 2: We slowly let sleep come for us. Chapter five, Chapter

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Speaker 2: you came here to listen to rise and shine. It

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Speaker 2: was still dark out midsummer that far north. If it

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Speaker 2: was still dark out, then whoever the fock thought it

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Speaker 2: was time to get up was wrong. A soul is

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Speaker 2: on the move, and mister magic death door man just

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Speaker 2: left his house in his truck. It was Thursday banging

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Speaker 2: on the door being wrong. Give us a focking minute.

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Speaker 2: You've got thirty seconds meet us at the bookmobile. Another

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Speaker 2: beautiful day in the demon on her business. Is there

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Speaker 2: a coffee? Brynn asked, She was already standing, pulling on

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Speaker 2: her work pants and buckling her belt. No, Thursday shouted back.

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Speaker 2: Brynn was handsome. I knew that already. I mean I'd

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Speaker 2: had a weird sort of crush on her since I

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Speaker 2: first met her, But it kind of just hit me

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Speaker 2: again watching her pull the shirt over her muscled Torso

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Speaker 2: maybe I was delirious thinking about that instead of what

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Speaker 2: needed thinking. Maybe I'd rather be delirious. Thursday drove conspicuously

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Speaker 2: fast in the pre dawn light, taking turns far too

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Speaker 2: quickly for a clunky old bookmobile van. Doomsday had stayed

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Speaker 2: at the library to keep Vascillus from doing something stupid

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Speaker 2: Brynn was sitting shotgun and I was in the back

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Speaker 2: with the books shelves lined the walls with webbing straps,

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Speaker 2: holding in the mysteries and romances and sci fi like

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Speaker 2: how you batten things down on a ship, which was good,

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Speaker 2: even though we totally weren't going to flip over, definitely not.

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Speaker 2: I wasn't strapped down myself, though I was sprawled out

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Speaker 2: on a bean bag, trying and failing to find things

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Speaker 2: to hold on to every time we took a corner,

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Speaker 2: while I also tried to keep my wounded shoulders safe

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Speaker 2: for my vantage, I couldn't see out the window. All

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Speaker 2: I saw were the brief flashes of street lights and

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Speaker 2: head lights that fought against all that darkness. Not half

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Speaker 2: a minute later, we stopped the side of the van

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Speaker 2: slid open, and Vulture hopped in. He was panting, holding

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Speaker 2: his side graveyard. He said, she's at the graveyard. Take

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Speaker 2: this road another mile and then turn right on the

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Speaker 2: first road after you see some tombstones. What's up, I asked.

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Speaker 2: I saw a sola Lever house, he said, so I followed,

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Speaker 2: and at warranted, waking us up. Mister Miller left his

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Speaker 2: house shortly after Vulture said, dressed all in camo with

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Speaker 2: a duffel bag. Okay, that warrants waking us up. Wait,

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Speaker 2: Brynn said, they live on opposite ends of the town.

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Speaker 2: How'd you see them both? I set up a camera

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Speaker 2: outside mister Miller's house. Vulter said, what, Yeah, you just

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Speaker 2: take an old phone and set it up as a

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Speaker 2: surveillance camera. I set it to stream video to my

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Speaker 2: main phone, video whenever I asked her a detected motion.

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Speaker 2: Then I went to go watch a Solas place myself.

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Speaker 2: We must have gone that mile at a breath taking speed,

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Speaker 2: because Thursday yelled turn just as he jerked the wheel

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Speaker 2: and sent those of us in the back sliding into

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Speaker 2: one another. The books held, of all the ways to die,

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Speaker 2: I think being pummeled to death by trashy hetero romance

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Speaker 2: novels might be the worst or the best. Either way,

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Speaker 2: it didn't turn out to be my fate. We screeched

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Speaker 2: to a stop, which slammed us forward, and Thursday killed

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Speaker 2: the engine. I opened the side door and stumbled out,

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Speaker 2: desperate to stand solid ground. At the other end of

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Speaker 2: the short gravel parking lot, a nineteen fifties pickup truck

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Speaker 2: sat empty. We should split up, Thursday said, find her faster, Oh,

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Speaker 2: Walter said, pulling out his phone. I know where she is,

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Speaker 2: or at least her bicycle. He opened up an app

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Speaker 2: called find my Phone, and a map filled the screen

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Speaker 2: with a dot representing us and a dot representing presumably

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Speaker 2: some third phone he'd hidden on a Sola's bicycle. Where

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Speaker 2: do you get that many phones, I asked, I steal

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Speaker 2: them from people, Walter said. The graveyard was surprisingly large

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Speaker 2: for such a small town, and like the town itself,

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Speaker 2: it looked like it had seen better days. Most of

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Speaker 2: the stones were small and worn. Many were cracked or

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Speaker 2: tipped over. Huge oaks sat atop hills and cast moonshadows

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Speaker 2: across the haphazardly maintained lawn. Somewhere in all of this

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Speaker 2: was a back from the dead woman, and a magician

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Speaker 2: had pulled off the kind of miracles that people write

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Speaker 2: bibles about, who had also just killed Heather. Well, maybe

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Speaker 2: it wasn't fair to blame him for Heather. I wasn't

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Speaker 2: feeling fair. Whenever I got out of this alive and

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Speaker 2: not in prison, I was going to sit down and

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Speaker 2: have myself a well deserved panic attack. Thursday had his

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Speaker 2: gun held slack at his side as we moved through

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Speaker 2: the graveyard. Brynn had her baton out. Mine was lost

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Speaker 2: somewhere in Iowa, so I took out my knife. Vulture

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Speaker 2: stopped to take a picture of a tombstone with the

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Speaker 2: name Hardwood. We crossed to the very back of the cemetery,

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Speaker 2: where an iron fence separated lawn from forest. Several of

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Speaker 2: the vertical bars were missing, and Vulture led us through

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Speaker 2: the gap and into the trees. Not much farther, he whispered,

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Speaker 2: he was right. A muddy impromptu led us through young

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Speaker 2: pine trees to a small clearing. A red bicycle leaned

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Speaker 2: against a tree near us. Ten feet away, into light

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Speaker 2: of vultus phones flashlight. Aasla stood over two unmarked impromptu tombstones.

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Speaker 2: She still wore the same black slip dress, but she'd

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Speaker 2: paired it with sensible hiking shoes. Don't know how you

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Speaker 2: followed me, she said, without turning around. Cut wild flowers

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Speaker 2: and blues and red sat at the foot of each stone.

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Speaker 2: But you shouldn't have. Yeah, let me guess, I said.

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Speaker 2: It isn't safe, It isn't What are you doing here?

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Speaker 2: I asked, and she answered, I'm listening to advertisements uncool

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Speaker 2: zone media, unless, of course, she had cooler zone Media,

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Speaker 2: in which case she wouldn't have had to. She could

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Speaker 2: just skip the ads, but if she didn't have that,

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Speaker 2: she'd hear the ads much like you're about to and

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Speaker 2: we're back. What are you doing out here? I asked?

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Speaker 2: Her back was still to us, but she pointed at

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Speaker 2: each stone in turn. Loki, Damien, what happened to them?

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Speaker 2: The same thing that will happen to you, Sebastian Miller,

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Speaker 2: I asked, I had seen magic close up and personal. Still,

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Speaker 2: though it was hard to be afraid of some man

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Speaker 2: while I had my friends at my side, armed and

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Speaker 2: on guard. She turned to look at me. I doubted

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Speaker 2: that she could see us because we had a light

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Speaker 2: on her. She nodded, her blonde hair hung loose over

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Speaker 2: her black slip and alabaster's skin, and just for a moment,

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Speaker 2: I thought we were talking to a ghost. She was real,

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Speaker 2: though she was alive, which was scarier. Are you working

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Speaker 2: with him?

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Speaker 3: I asked?

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Speaker 2: Loki came to town in December, she said. Instead of answering me,

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Speaker 2: they rode in on a salt truck that had picked

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Speaker 2: them up hitch, and they showed up with a whole

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Speaker 2: suitcase full of stolen books and one hell of a

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Speaker 2: grin across their face. Said, we'd never believe it. They

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Speaker 2: showed us the Book of Barrow, and yeah, they were right.

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Speaker 2: We didn't believe it, didn't believe it was real. She

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Speaker 2: sat cross legged there in the mud, resting her head

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Speaker 2: against the stone she'd called Damien. So they said they'd

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Speaker 2: prove it. Bacillisen. Heather tried to talk us out of it,

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Speaker 2: but you don't talk Loki out of doing things. Loki

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Speaker 2: talks you into doing things. So we went out with

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Speaker 2: snow chains and snow shoes and snow boots and snow

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Speaker 2: everything to a backwood spot where Damien once saw a bear.

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Speaker 2: Figured we'd catch it hibernating, shoot it, bring it back

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Speaker 2: to life. What could be easier?

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Speaker 1: I said.

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Speaker 2: He found us the first night. We barely made it

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Speaker 2: three miles from the trailhead. He got us while we

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Speaker 2: were asleep tranquilizers. I think, I go to bed in

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Speaker 2: a tent. I wake up in a dark place, warm, damp, dark,

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Speaker 2: gag in my mouth, shooters, muffs over my ears. Then

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Speaker 2: I'm unconscious again. Then I'm awake that cycled who knows.

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Speaker 3: How many times.

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Speaker 2: Oh god, Vulter said, Oh God, he didn't torture me.

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Speaker 2: I think he wanted us out cold the entire time.

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Speaker 2: But I know that he killed me. It was so

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Speaker 2: delirious the whole time. Yet when he killed me, when

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Speaker 2: he put a needle in my arm and killed me,

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Speaker 2: I knew. I've never been more certain of anything in

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Speaker 2: my life. I knew I was dying. Then I was

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Speaker 2: awake months later. Why did he let you go? I asked,

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Speaker 2: Movement Thursday shouted. He held his gun in a two

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Speaker 2: handed grip, tracking something through the trees. Brian dashed into

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Speaker 2: the darkness, not toward the movement, not away from it, parallel.

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Speaker 2: A crack, not as loud as gunfire, pierced the air.

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Speaker 2: Thursday fired in response, and deafened us. Don't shoot, don't shoot.

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Speaker 2: It took a while before the words registered, but Sebastian

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Speaker 2: Miller came out of the trees and into the glow

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Speaker 2: of Vultra's flashlight. With his hands above his head, a

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Speaker 2: rifle held loose by the barrel, he wore camo head

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Speaker 2: to toe. Hunter's camo, the kind with actual pictures of trees,

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Speaker 2: and leaves printed on it. It had to be him.

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Speaker 2: I barely recognized him from his own photo, not that

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Speaker 2: he looked different, but that his face was so forgettable.

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Speaker 2: It was like face Camo, being as unremarkable looking as

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Speaker 2: all about. I turned back to a sola. Her head

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Speaker 2: lulled from side to side, and she dropped forward with

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Speaker 2: a confused look in her eyes. Her face struck the mud.

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Speaker 2: Two running strides, and I was next to her, my

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Speaker 2: hand feeling for a pulse for the second time in

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Speaker 2: less than twenty four hours. If she's dead, you're dead.

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Speaker 2: Thursday said, hear me out. Sebastian said, she's alive. I

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Speaker 2: said her pulse was strong. Then I found the dart,

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Speaker 2: a simple tranquilizer, a round projecting from her shoulder. He

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Speaker 2: was a pretty fucking bad shot. No one aims for

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Speaker 2: a shoulder. He was aiming center mass and hit high right.

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Speaker 2: I pulled out the dart, kill him anyway. Vulture said,

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Speaker 2: hear me out what Thursday roared, Well, maybe you should

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Speaker 2: try these goods and services. He said, That's not what

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Speaker 2: he said. That's what I said. Here's a bunch of.

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Speaker 3: Ads, and Rebecca, one of you, asked why I'll let

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Speaker 3: her go.

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Speaker 2: I let her go because I'm not a monster. I

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Speaker 2: won't keep a girl prisoner in my basement forever. And

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Speaker 2: I didn't think I had it in me to kill

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Speaker 2: her twice, but I should have. Why is that, Thursday asked,

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Speaker 2: I don't know how much you know about any of this.

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Speaker 2: Sebastian said, magic, resurrection, everything, but it's dangerous, real, real dangerous.

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Speaker 2: You came here to kill her because you actually bothered

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Speaker 2: finishing the fucking book, I accused him. You got to

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Speaker 2: the good part with the apocalypse, and you had what

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Speaker 2: resurrector's remorse? You could say that, he said, But listen,

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Speaker 2: I've got everything under control. This will all be over soon,

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Speaker 2: back to how it was, the world no closer to

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Speaker 2: its end. Kill him anyway, Vulture repeated. Bryn appeared behind Sebastian,

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Speaker 2: struck him with her baton. He stumbled, and she was

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Speaker 2: on him. He was half again her weight, and she

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Speaker 2: got him to the ground without a problem. Be gone,

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Speaker 2: he shouted. His words, cut through the air, louder than

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Speaker 2: I thought they ought to have a flash of light

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Speaker 2: caused my vision to stutter. A series of bangs deafened me,

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Speaker 2: and he was gone. Fuck Brent said, lurching to her feet. Fuck, fuck, fuck,

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Speaker 2: I'm going to kill that man. We got a Sola

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Speaker 2: to the van and drove back to the library in silence.

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Speaker 2: Two doors down from a Solas squat, the shiny black

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Speaker 2: suv was parked in front of the still operational bed

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Speaker 2: and breakfast fence. Don't stay at bed and breakfasts, do they?

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Speaker 2: Thursday pulled the van up alongside the curb next to

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Speaker 2: the library. Our bikes were back, presumably Vulture had grabbed

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Speaker 2: them the night before. Someone's got to get Gertrude. I said,

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Speaker 2: oh fuck. Thursday said he would kill her, wouldn't he.

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Speaker 2: I'll go. Brynn said, I'm coming with you. Thursday said,

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Speaker 2: good luck. I said fear of missing out and protectiveness

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Speaker 2: argued in favor of me going too. But if Brin

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Speaker 2: and Thursday couldn't handle it, having me along wouldn't change that.

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Speaker 2: Vulture reluctantly passed Brynn his phone and opened up a

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Speaker 2: map with Gertrude's house pinned on it. Vulture had been busy.

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Speaker 2: Brynn and Doomsday took off on bikes. Vulture and I

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Speaker 2: carried a Sola into the library and up the stairs

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Speaker 2: to lay her down in her old bed, where she'd

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Speaker 2: lived with her since murdered partner, the bed she'd consciously

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Speaker 2: avoided ever since her return. Still, we had to keep

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Speaker 2: her safe, as safe as we could, safer than we'd

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Speaker 2: kept Heather. Vasilis was sleeping in the living room when

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Speaker 2: we came in. Doomsday was absorbed in a book, sitting

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Speaker 2: with the window in sight and her handgun on the

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Speaker 2: table next to her in easy reach. What happened, she asked,

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Speaker 2: standing I'd been a bit jealous that she'd gotten to

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Speaker 2: stay at home, but she moved like a woman three

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Speaker 2: times her age, exhausted, presumably from the effort of researching,

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Speaker 2: standing guard and consoling our host, Frank dard I said.

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Speaker 2: Doomsday shot a look at Vulture, not me, he said,

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Speaker 2: I don't even own a dart gun. Yet he was

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Speaker 2: mister Miller, he was going to kill her again. How

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Speaker 2: long is she going to be out, Doomsday asked, again,

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Speaker 2: looking at Vulture. I don't know, because I've never tranquilized

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Speaker 2: a human. Then he thought for a moment, I have

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Speaker 2: never tranquilized a human with a dart, nor have I

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Speaker 2: tranquilized an unwilling human. I also don't know what agent

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Speaker 2: he used, and I basically have no idea. Screams broke

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Speaker 2: into the living room from the bedroom not long Vulture

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Speaker 2: answered authoritatively, I think he killed all three of us.

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Speaker 2: As Soulas said, she was sweating, maybe from the heat,

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Speaker 2: but probably from the drugs or just outright fear. I

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Speaker 2: think he killed one of us to resurrect me. I

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Speaker 2: think I was the test subject. Then he killed whoever

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Speaker 2: was left to bring back Gertrude. Now, fuck, I said,

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Speaker 2: I couldn't come up with a better way to comfort

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Speaker 2: someone had been through worse than I would have imagined possible.

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Speaker 2: You know what I've spent all this time thinking about,

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Speaker 2: instead of thinking about things like how do I get better?

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Speaker 2: Or how do I kill that man? What really keeps

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Speaker 2: me up at night? What's that I asked? We were strangers? Really,

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Speaker 2: I don't want to crowd her. I sat on the

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Speaker 2: bed about a foot away from her. Doomsday sat on

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Speaker 2: a chair next to us. I don't know which of

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Speaker 2: them died for which of us. I don't know if

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Speaker 2: Loki died to resurrect me or if Damien did. It

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Speaker 2: doesn't matter. I know that I don't think anyone's soul

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Speaker 2: has joined mine, but it it fucks me up. Barrow

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Speaker 2: stands by the gate and he let me slip out

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Speaker 2: into the land of the living when it opened for

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Speaker 2: when it opened for who. I put a tentative hand

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Speaker 2: on her shoulder. She jerked and I almost pulled it away,

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Speaker 2: but she grabbed my wrist and held my hand against her.

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Speaker 2: I haven't touched anyone in three months, she said, not once,

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Speaker 2: not since before I died. Oh, honey, Doomsday said. She

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Speaker 2: stood up from the chair, sat down next to me

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Speaker 2: on the bed. Do you want us to hold you,

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Speaker 2: I asked. She stared at the ceiling for a moment,

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Speaker 2: then nodded. We laid down on either side of her

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Speaker 2: and held her, and she cried. Nothing like the hacking,

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Speaker 2: fearful sobs we'd heard from Vascillis the night before. She

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Speaker 2: just cried. After a while, I did too. She'd killed

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Speaker 2: me if I told anyone, I don't doubt. But I'm

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Speaker 2: pretty sure Doomsday did too. We need people. It's not

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Speaker 2: really giving up our freedom to be close with people,

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Speaker 2: because freedom only exists in relation to other people. I

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Speaker 2: thought I needed to be left alone. I just needed people,

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Speaker 2: good people like my murderous witch friend or this dead

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Speaker 2: stranger Outside the window, the sun finally gracefully rose. Half

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Speaker 2: an hour later, the library door opened and shut, and

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Speaker 2: several pairs of feet tromped up the stairs. Hey, Thursday shouted,

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Speaker 2: we're back. More shuffling as someone presumably Thursday, walk through

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Speaker 2: the whole of the apartment. At last, he opened the

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Speaker 2: door to the room we were in. Where's vacillas? Dun, dun, dun.

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Speaker 2: That's a cliffhanger. You got cliffhanged. That's a terrible phrase.

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Speaker 2: Don't use that. But if you want to know what

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Speaker 2: happens next, one of your options is to wait till

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Speaker 2: next Sunday. Another option is to go get the book.

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Speaker 2: Those are some of your options. Anyway, I'm gonna go

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Speaker 2: play with my dog. See y all later bye. It

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Speaker 2: could happen here as a production of cool Zone Media.

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Speaker 1: For more podcasts from cool Zone Media, visit our website

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Speaker 1: cool zonemedia dot com, or check us out on the

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Speaker 1: iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts.

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Speaker 1: You can find sources where it Could Happen here, updated

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Speaker 1: monthly at cool zonemedia dot com slash sources. Thanks for listening,