There wasn't a whole lot of love lost out here in Austin. It surprised Sam, if she looked at it close, because there wasn't a whole lot of love to go around in the first place and hating each other or just plain not knocking together well was difficult when there were only so many of you to go around. But Cal and Pete was friction and Sam had forgotten it just then, her mouth tightly drawn and white.
Sam hadn't seen the Hellhounds as anything destructive. She hadn't seen them as anything other than people, for all Cal's running the divide between the settlement and the Dog Park. There was more to worry over in the people sick with hankering after a drug than the Hellhounds who wanted to live their own damn way. She'd considered it, first off. Running away to folks who didn't try to make the edge out here gentle any.
She shook her head mutely at his suggestion. No. Maybe it was fear, and maybe it was just sick stubbornness but she expected Cal to get in touch if he was alive. And if he wasn't... Her stomach roiled over unpleasantly, and tried to drop down to the tips of her boots. She wasn't gonna reach out and find out her damn self.
"If no one's saying he's killed his damn self," she said, her breath an exhale that shook a little even if the words were steady, "Then gotta focus on those who did. Kay?" She looked up at Pete. "You got folks who are running the front lines who could have gotten hurt in this mess?"