"Give me your best then." Duke settled into a comfortable lean against the sink in his kitchen and watched the pretty brunette stare at him.

"You called me troubled that night on you boat. Now I've been around in this town long enough to get an idea of what that means here." Callie began, not really knowing where to start. This was not something she did often, or ever. It broke the first Callahan rule that was drilled into her head as a child. But sometimes you got to risk big to win big. " I didn't one day wake up and could do what I can do. It's not like, so I know I'm not troubled. The term that is used is gifted."

"Gifted?" Duke asked, not understanding what that term meant.

"I was born this way, never been any different then I am now. I didn't have a normal childhood, and certainly don't lead a normal life as an adult because of being gifted. Wasn't enrolled in any schools, didn't stay long enough sometimes to get the paper work filled out. You read me right when you said I'm an professional runner, taught to be that way from birth." Callie said, as she shifted her body on the bar stool. She was uncomfortable telling him this, but he needed to understand the position he was putting them both in. Attention paid to her, might very well carry a death sentence for both of them. " We had to be, it's to easy to kill what's standing still."

"We?"

"My family, and those like us." Callie breathed out, and tried to quell the panic that was rising from the stomach to her throat. She tasted the bitterness of betrayer as she couldn't shake the feeling of selling out her family to a perfect stranger, not only putting her life in his hands but those of her families as well.

There were a lot of people who would pay, better then any delivery Duke could pull off for information that she had and could provide. Duke could make a nice tidy sum of money for turning her over to the right people, in till those right people put a bullet in between his eyes, that is.

" There are more of you?" he asked her, playing with the paper label of his beer. He had never really thought there would be more like her. Sure, he was used to the never ending line of troubled people who rolled through and about town, but there was something unique about Callie. He thought of her as one of kind.

"There are many family lines of Gifted." Callie told him, as she watched him move towards the stove, checking to see if his dinner was done. Duke pulled the slightly crisp veggies off the stove, take the bread out of the oven and began to dish up their plates. He dished out the mash potatoes, one big heap each on their plates. The last thing to go on the plate was their steaks. " This is where is get complicated, so if you don't understand you need to say something, okay?"

"Sure, will do." he assured her as he slid her plate over to her and placed his before him.

"Gifted people always breed gifted children without fail. Our DNA just over powers yours, just the way it is. Unless you start a process to breed it out." Callie began as Duke interrupted her.

"What do you mean breed it out?" he asked as he shovelled a mouthful of potatoes into his mouth.

"It's really a myth to give gifted parents a hope that their child will not be hunted down like a dog for their abilities. You take one gifted person, who creates a child with a non gifted person. Thus producing a child with a weaker level of ability. Then that child repeat this process till the gift is so watered down that it becomes useless. It's barely there, hardly recognized and not likely to be persuaded by the Five Families because you can't do anything with it." Callie moved her fork around the plate picking up one of the vegetables on her fork before running it through the mash potatoes and into her mouth. " The other kind of family line is one where both parents are always gifted. Therefore only producing a stronger gifted child. Those lines are few and far between as most families haven taken to watering down their blood in order to try to prolong their survival."

"Who are the Five Families?" Duke cut into his steak and took a drink of his beer. " Are those the people your hiding from?"

Callie ate more of her dinner before replying. She chewed the steak the best she could with her sore jaw and swallowed. "There they people who are going to kill you if you open your mouth about me. That is if I don't get to you first, and trust me you want me to get to you first. I can guarantee when they come for you, they won't kill you quick Duke. They're torture you to make sure they get everything they need from you. But we'll save all the fun stuff for later."

"Which family line do you belong to?"

"The Callahan's are one of the purest gifted blood lines around. Sure there have been some who have attempted the other path but there most scattered around the family tree." Callie drank a large mouthful of her juice and ate some more of her dinner. " Most have taken great pains to preserved the line, for all the good it did them. Most believe a stronger gift gives you a better chance to fight those that come for you."

Max had finished with his bone and moved into the kitchen to paw at Duke. Duke reached down and lay his hand on Max's hand to scratch behind his ears. Then he bent down low and reached into a cabinet to pull out a bag of Max's brand dog food and full up a large silver bowl. He then filled up an identical silver bowl with water and placed it beside it's mate.

Seeing him take care of her dog pulled at Callie's heart strings in ways she couldn't describe. Max was her one soft point in her life, the constant love and attention that made her feel human. Duke looked at her dog with affection and amusement. It made her want to spend more time with the crooked importer, then she knew better to.

"What makes your line better then the other one?" Duke wanted to know as he saw her glass was almost empty, and put the dog food away in the cabinet and turned around to walk to his fridge. He opened it and grabbed the juice he knew she liked. So he had taken to stocking her favourite fruity blend of juice, when he didn't like or drink it. It was just because he didn't being unprepared for a possible house guest, wasn't it?

"Neither is better then the other, they both have their disadvantages over the other. Just like they have their advantages. Take the pure line, their abilities are strong, they begin to manifest earlier in the child's life and often mirror a relative's ability. For example, my mama's a healer, takes other's injuries onto herself, I can mirror that to a certain point but it's unpredictable but my sister Morwyn is a spitting image on her. My brother Cale, he's took after my father, their were both illusionist or weavers would be our term for them."

Duke frowned at the past tense she was using when describing her father and brother. "Your father and brother were illusionists, like magicians?:

"They could make you see something that wasn't true." Callie pushed around her vegetables on her plate, before scooping some up and into her mouth. " The sky is blue right? They could make you believe it's purple by making you mind see it as that. They push the images into your brain on a deeper level you that it's imprinted there."

Callie shifted her gaze to the floor, and stilled herself. It still hurt to talk about her father, the feelings that stay dormant for so long swelled to the surface. " I was fourteen when they came for him. His blood was strong, his grandfather was one of the best Weavers of his generation. He could make you think that the sky was pink instead of blue. That rocks were coins, leafs were hundred dollar bills. His cousin on his mother's side sold us out. When one the Five Families come, they only give you two choices. You work for them for the rest of your life or in till you pledge your child or children to take up your remaining contract or they kill you and yours where stand."

"There not much on giving options, are they?" Duke hated the way her voice hitched when she spoke of her father. He could see the pain etched on her face, knew that she was trying to hide from him and he had an idea of what this was costing her. He thought he knew what she was going to say next, and he hated hearing it come out of her mouth.

"We were in Texas, it was summer so it was hot as hell. We tried to stay out of city's as much as possible in those days. To many people to keep a eye on. We had rented a house, on the edge of a cattle farm bout fifty miles from a small town. Most of my older siblings, had cut out a few years earlier so it was just Addison, Nordin, Cale, Shawny and me. My mother was in the kitchen, my father in the front yard cutting the lawn. We were running in the back field, that was the only thing that saved us." Callie paused taking a drink of her juice. She could remembered it like yesterday, the way the heat pressed into her. The sound of the gravel crunching beneath the tires of the black SUV's when the pulled in. The sight of multiple men in department store suits surrounding the house, and coming out of the forest behind the yard. Funny how years old memories stay fresh to torment us later on. " Callahan's don't bow to the Five Families, it's a rule. My father died that day, he let them kill him so that my mother had time to run."

"He must have loved you very much. I'm sorry." Duke walked around the counter and reached for her.

"I'm not." Callie shook her head, battling down the tears that threaten to spill over onto her cheeks. " It taught me something I'll never forget. Children don't belong in this life, too hard, too unforgiving and too much of a damn risk. He would have lived if he was alone. But he died and I killed my first man that day. I left my family not long after that, maybe a year or so."

"Jesus Callie, come here." Duke didn't know why he had this need for her, need to comfort to wipe away the unhappiness in her eyes. He didn't understand this behaviour of his, it baffled him. This wasn't an act, a con to reach the prize at the end. This was true genuine emotion, something he had avoid for years. " Let me hold you."

"No, I need you to understand what you are doing Duke." Callie pushed him away and stood up. " I'm not some girl that got herself into trouble with some small time fish. I'm the shit, for life. The people who are looking for me, they will kill you. After they spend days, weeks torturing you for information. You will break, you tell them everything weather you know it or not. And they will kill you. Whatever you are doing here, or trying to do here it's not worth it. Your life is not worth trying to help me."

Duke watched her pace in his cabin, her heart shaped face was riddled with a combination of fear, pain and sadness when she spoke to him. He let her walk away from him, and held his hands at his side, letting her words sink into him. This was bigger and worst then what he had originally thought when he started to black mail her. " I know you don't know me well, Callie but there is something you should know."

"That you're an idiot? Got that clear, Crocker." Callie gave him a weak smile as Max walked over to her and sat down. He rested his big head against her leg and pawed at her for attention like he always did when he sensed she was upset. She knelt down and rubbed her face into neck and sighed.

"That may be true sometimes, and this may be one of them but I don't run. Your pretty isolated here, and Haven's got it's fair share of different people. You'll blend in, I bet. I know you want to bolt, your scared and your past experiences with created a life aren't good but I think it would be a mistake for you to turn and run."

"How so? Settling gets you only one thing, dead. Like my brother Cale. He got tired or running, wanted a normal life. He got a wife, had kids and they found them. Murdered my brother and his wife and took their kids. A convenient gas leak covered up the dirty mess. Five years is what he traded his life for, five fucking years."

" I can help you, protect you. I have contacts." Duke assured her moving towards her. She stood and moved away from Max, backing her self into a corner in effort to get away from him. He moved in on her slowly waiting for her bolt. She darted left around him and he snaked his arm around her waist and pulled her to him. " Let me be there for you."

Duke didn't mention that his contacts he was speaking of were one on lone FBI agent and a snarly local detective that he thought would shoot him rather then look at him. He had his fair share of crooked contacts but he didn't trust them with this or with her.

"Duke, you won't need to wait for someone to come kill you, I'll kill you if you go shooting your pretty mouth off to Parker and Warnous." Callie warned him as she tried hard to relax in his arms but it was hard. It had been a long time since she let anyone touch her that way.

"Audrey has connections that can help you, she can help you if you let her." Duke told her as he loosen his arms, in effort not to make her panic. He ran his hand down her hair, stroking it in a way he hoped would comfort her before resting it on her back. " But why don't we leave that for another night, huh? How about I take you and Max up to my favourite spot?"