<div style="text-align: center">《 Owen and Clive 》<br/>
<i>Location: Highway 2 before KOA; stopped<br/>
Addressing: Miles , eachother</i>​</div><br/><br/><div class="bbImageWrapper bbImageAligned--left lazyload js-lbImage" data-lb-caption-extra-html="" data-lb-sidebar-href="" data-single-image="1" data-src="/proxy.php?image=https%3A%2F%2Fi.imgur.com%2FZ24LYoZ.jpg%3F2&amp;hash=69a474b3c8d6aef6dfc0bb2351632e6f" title="Z24LYoZ.jpg">
<img alt="Z24LYoZ.jpg" class="bbImage lazyload" data-src="/proxy.php?image=https%3A%2F%2Fi.imgur.com%2FZ24LYoZ.jpg%3F2&amp;hash=69a474b3c8d6aef6dfc0bb2351632e6f" data-url="https://i.imgur.com/Z24LYoZ.jpg?2" data-zoom-target="1" height="" src="data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP///yH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAIBRAA7" style="" title="" width=""/>
<noscript><img alt="Z24LYoZ.jpg" class="bbImage" data-url="https://i.imgur.com/Z24LYoZ.jpg?2" data-zoom-target="1" height="" src="/proxy.php?image=https%3A%2F%2Fi.imgur.com%2FZ24LYoZ.jpg%3F2&amp;hash=69a474b3c8d6aef6dfc0bb2351632e6f" style="" title="" width=""/></noscript>
</div>"Oh my god, Miles. I'm so sorry," Owen said in regretful sympathy. Not moments before, he'd been bitching about his wife and Miles had just lost his. Death was so rampant. He didn't want to ask how. Along with the sudden sorrow came guilt at the sort of thing Owen took for granted most days. He was lucky Shiela was at home, safe and healthy, waiting for him to get back. Owen had found every excuse he could think of to stall going home. He went with Clive for the distance, claiming he enjoyed the time getting to know his brother again, which was only half the truth of it. He and his brother had been close growing up, then spent nearly a decade halfway across the country until Owen's unplanned 'vacation' from his career. When his paid leave ran out and Owen still hadn't returned home, his wife flew out to collect him. It was likely what had saved both their lives. Owen doubted he could have survived without the quick thinking of his brother.<br/><br/>They'd disappeared for a while. Deep into national forest, while the world sorted itself out again. Now, there was some amount of predictability. They knew the communities that had made it, and many of those that lived out on the land and made the campground a waypoint. They never kept enough for someone to decide it was worth taking. Clive had always lives modestly, so the adjustment was easy for him. Owen took more time, having taken advantage of all the accommodations the city had to offer. The hardest part for Owen had been the isolation, but times were changing. People were adapting and developing trade ties and relationships. Owen thrived on nurturing those ties. It was an aspect of the new world that he was good at that Clive wasn't. It always took his brother time to catch up to new ideas, the same way it took time for Owen to adjust to living off the land.<br/><br/>Owen was about to say more when Clive shook his head, a hint for his brother to leave it alone. They needed to focus on the task at hand rather than get emotional. Miles seemed well in control, but Owen would feed off any grief and use it as an excuse to cloud his judgement. His brother, for all the years he'd worked around death, was sensitive to it and it seemed like he'd only gotten worse. As if he'd held on to every single case and couldn't let them go.<br/><br/>Clive put his fingers to his lips, indicating that he needed Owen to be silent. To watch his step as they followed along after Miles. For Owen, so unused to moving quietly, the task would take his entire concentration. It was dark and they would need to get close to have any idea of the people Hale cast out. He could make out the flames of a fire they had going. Owen noticed it too.<br/><br/>"Do you think they found the message and the lumber JJ left?" Owen asked quietly and Clive scowled. This was the first he'd heard of JJ leaving lumber or a message, but Clive hadn't done the run before this one.