Bo chewed on a piece of beef, delighting in the flavors of food that she hadn't tasted since leaving her town. She'd been living on dried provisions and whatever was sold in stalls on her journeys. More often than not, this kind of food was past its prime and tasted like either nothing or a foot. Somehow, Khan had managed to make a delicious dinner, and Bo wasted no time devouring her entire plate as well as a second serving.

"So what's your story?" Helga asked.

Bo swallowed her mouthful and wiped her mouth with the back of her sleeve. "I was kidnapped many years ago."

Helga raised her eyebrows. "Go on."

"He was wrong to do it, but while I was with him I learned that he'd never known love. He had no idea how to act around anyone, and I think it was his stupid way of having company in his empty house."

"A love story between kidnapper and victim?" Khan asked, giving her a sideways look.

"Something like that. His life was torture and I felt like I was the only thing that had ever offered him any kindness in the world."

"What happened?" Helga asked.

Bo shrugged. "Fear and hatred. We couldn't be together."

Khan sighed and shook his head. "Sad," he said with a frown. Helga remained silent, but Bo snuck a glance at her and saw a knowing in her eyes that Bo felt uncomfortable seeing. She quickly looked away.

"What about you two?" Bo asked, hoping to steer the attention away from her.

Helga inclined her head toward Khan. "This one has a limp that he claims ruined his life."

"Hey!" Khan protested. "If you say it that way it sounds like nothing!"

"It is nothing. You can barely notice it."

"Yeah, well a brace can do that for a person!" Khan said.

Helga rolled her eyes. "I think you just play it up to get the girls to pity you."

Khan narrowed his eyes and pointed his fork at Helga.

Bo waved a hand to break the intense stare-off. "Tell me about your limp, Khan."

With narrowed eyes directed at Helga, Khan cleared his throat. "I was born with a crooked right leg. When I was little, the orphanage put me in a brace to try and straighten it, so I wasn't able to run or play around like all the other kids."

"So tragic," Helga said.

"It was, for a kid," Khan retorted. "But, anyway, that wasn't what ruined my life."

Though he'd said it in an off-hand way, Bo could sense that hidden behind his banter with Helga over his limp was an actual wound over whatever it was he was about to reveal. She got the impression that Khan was the type of person to hide everything behind jokes and an attitude of unaffected glibness. It was a good defensive strategy. Bo knew all about it. If nothing bothered you, others would eventually grow bored with trying to find something that could truly hurt.

Helga twirled her hand in the air. "Well, continue."

"The orphanage that raised me eventually couldn't stay open as it was anymore. We had to find... alternate ways of finding the money to keep all the kids fed and clothed," Khan said. "So, the man in charge of the orphanage decided that he could use all the young hands as pickpockets out in the street. We were to steal anything and everything we could get our hands on. Only problem was that I couldn't run away from any problems, and my brace made it hard for me to blend in or sneak up on anyone. So I was relegated to begging, but even with a bum leg no one was interested in sparing any precious resource."

Bo twisted her mouth as she watched Khan's eyes. Though his face was still nonchalant, she could see the hardness growing behind his eyes.

"Well, all in all I was kicked out of the orphanage," Khan said, rolling his shoulders and stretching his neck to one side. Bo suspected it was to hide his expression from her gaze. "They couldn't afford to house a kid who couldn't hold his own weight. So out I went into the world as a kid with a twisted leg and no prospects. Not even able to sign up for militia."

"How'd you come to end up here?" Bo asked.

Khan huffed with no humor. "Dark days where I forced my leg to straighten out enough to walk on. I stopped... caring, then. I built up fear around me until all that was left was the void that I'd created."

"Adam rescued him from the militia when they wanted to arrest him for killing over a hundred livestock belonging to someone important," Helga cut in. "He even did it with his bare hands a rock. It was a bloodbath in that field."

Khan skipped over the part where he'd slaughtered animals with just a rock, but a feeling of unease washed across the table from him. "Adam showed me that I could come back from the pit I'd jumped into. I didn't have to wallow at the bottom, hating everything and everyone."

Bo's heart tightened. How many times had she wished Adam would believe that about himself? Perhaps he finally realized his own past didn't have to define him, and he was passing that lesson on to others who needed to hear it.

She glanced at Helga. "And what is your story?"

Helga grinned, but behind her smile was a wall that Bo knew she wouldn't be able to scale any time soon. Chances were, not even those in the Forlorn had made it over that wall. Bo knew she wouldn't be getting a straight answer, so it didn't surprise her when Helga replied.

"Let's just say it was man troubles."

And the story ended there.

----

Since there was no Adam to say whether or not Bo could join the Forlorn, it was left up to Khan and Helga to decide what to do with her as the dusk approached. Helga was for sending her out and contacting her when Adam came back, but Khan was firmly on the side of letting her stay with them. Bo had a sneaking suspicion that a lot of his support had to do with it being the thing that would annoy Helga most, but she still appreciated him being on her side. She didn't want to leave this place and risk losing contact with them. She had come so close to Adam, and she didn't want to lose even the smallest bit of ground now.

Khan ended up pestering Helga into agreeing to let Bo stay until Adam arrived, and so Bo was settling into the base as the sun set. Her stomach was full after so long of being perpetually half-empty due to the dangers of traveling in the desert. She was able to melt into the chair without thinking about bandits or wolves attacking her during the night. It felt like the first time she'd been able to relax in a long time.

Khan babbled on about something that Bo didn't know about, and Helga reacted to his story with rolling eyes and clicks of her tongue. They seemed to never get along, but in the sort of way that siblings were always bickering. Not that Bo had good experiences with her own sibling...

They were finally doing what Adam had told them to do before, and which had gotten them left behind in the first place. Helga dismantled the weapons while Khan cleaned the parts. They gave them to Bo to put back together after they figured out that was she was adept. It was a comfortable atmosphere, reminding Bo of home. Khan had rolled up his pants leg to reveal a brace on his knee, which he pulled off and tossed on the ground. He grunted and rubbed his leg with a grimace. Helga cast a look at his leg, but kept her mouth shut. This must have been his infamous limp. Bo didn't stare, as she knew the weight of eyes on your weakness.

They plowed through the weapons, but it still took a few hours before Bo was snapping the last piece into place on the last rifle. She handed it over to Helga, who walked off to put it with all the others she had carried away. Bo assumed they must have an armory somewhere, but she didn't think it would be useful to ask about it when they still didn't entirely trust her.

Khan rolled his shoulders and adjusted his weight in his seat. He'd been sitting with his bad leg stretched straight in front of him, but by the way that he kept squirming in his seat Bo could tell that it was hurting him.

"Do you want to go to bed? I can clean up from dinner," Bo said, getting to her feet and patting her hands on the side of her pants.

Khan's eyebrows rose and he smiled. "Really?"

"You shouldn't spoil him," Helga said, walking back into the room.

"It's just for tonight," Bo said, pointing at Khan. He nodded his head.

"Sure, sure! I'll take it!" He pushed himself to his feet, favoring his bad leg. As he walked across the room toward the doorway that led to the bedrooms, Bo saw the limp he had been talking about. It wasn't as pronounced as it must have once been, but he still rolled with every step. He wouldn't be much use if he had to run for a long time without his brace.

Khan had just raised the curtain between the rooms and was heading out of sight when a crackle of static stopped him in his tracks. Helga's head snapped up and Khan spun around.

Bo went on alert. "What is it?" she asked.

"Our radio. It shouldn't be working unless it's Adam," Khan said. He started back from where he'd come from, but Helga was faster. She lunged across the room to a shelf that looked as if all it held was junk. She rummaged around behind some scrap metal and a collection of lightbulbs until she came up with a radio.

"Repeat message," she barked into it.