"You don't have to come in."
"I know."
"I mean it. You can wait by the car. I won't—"
"Mason."
"Yes."
"I know I don't have to. I'm here because I want to be." I looked at him. "There's a difference."
He looked at me for a moment.
Then he nodded and pushed the gate open.
Stoneclaw was quiet in the way that places are when they've been quiet for a long time and have stopped expecting noise to come back. The main road through the territory was overgrown, grass pushing up through cracked asphalt, the tree line pressing in from both sides like it had been slowly reclaiming the space since the night everyone left.
Nobody had come back.
Nobody except him.
"How long since you were last here."
"The night it happened. I came back for one hour. Long enough to—" He stopped. "Long enough."
