mall-caps;">IT'S ONLY cript;">FOREVER, NOT LONG AT ALLShe couldn't force the face of the Winters' man onto her brother, who had killed him so readily. It would be easy to give the child away, to give him to his family, to send him back to the dogs when he wouldn't belong in her world. It was dangerous for him to stay. It was dangerous. It was dangerous for so many. But she couldn't explain that to Sage — they were different morally, and what was seen as mercy by Talitha might have been seen as cruel by the odd, hippy child.
That was what the problem was. She gazed out over the waters that lapped the rocky, sandy shore and accepted all the words her cousin said without complaint. There was no reason to complain, there was no justification. Simple differences did not make the world bad. Sage's presence did not make the world bad. Talitha wondered, however, how fair it was for Sage to stay when things were obviously different than her less closed mind. She claimed belonging, that Talitha felt she did not belong simply because they were different, that it wasn't fair. "We believe different things because you don't belong, Sage. Have you looked around yourself? Do you see how those with power act? Halo, Ezekiel, Gabriel...Hybrid. Cotl. Me. Our beliefs follow the same paths. Even my brother, who grew up differently than I did, follows a similar path. And you are so, so different from the rest of us." Sage was kind, empathetic, considerate. Friendly. So strange on the face of Inferni, though she understood Ezekiel's reasoning for keeping her there, for keeping her in a place of power. It made Inferni look good.
But was it fair to Sage?
"It's easy to go. I've done it before, many times. But the more you stay, Sage, and the more you let this place kill you inside, the harder it will get until you are just like me or just like Halo and the rest of the world will have no desire to see you. You speak change, but change won't happen. I hate to think you'll finally break." Talitha loved Inferni, but Hell had many faces and none were so obvious as the skull-lined world of the coyotes that she clung to in desperation.
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