His neck was stiff from lolling to the side, propped as he was on a hard wooden bench. He blinked heavily and remembered. It was late afternoon. He was sitting in Bill and Aggie Carter’s living room, in what he considered the most public room of the house. He remembered choosing the spot out of courtesy rather than comfort. He had slept in this house before, but he still felt like a stranger, a relative newcomer to the scene.He looked up to see Aggie smiling down at him. “Come on, Terry. Let’s get something to eat.”Terry nodded blearily, and got to his feet. His first movement demonstrated that it wasn’t just his neck. His entire body was stiff, verging on soreness, and he got his first taste of the letdown that comes from the end of a hard mission. He had been wound up tightly for days, and only now was his mind stepping down from the heightened state of awareness and adrenalin, revealing the fatigue underneath.He followed Aggie into the kitchen, where she had already prepared a meal and arranged it on the kitchen table by the broad window overlooking the crop fields of Teeny Town.
