"More likely than you think, place like Mathis," he reasoned himself more quickly towards the loophole of freedom here. "Ain't that what we're both here to do? Where were you goin, I'll head that way with you, maybe we'll run into Malcolm- he's around here somewhere." He glanced over.

"Unless you'd rather not go lookin' for him and are headin' somewhere else." Good luck making sense of what he's swinging at here - he didn't know if the siblings were doing well or were tense and he wasn't looking to fan any flames.

Metaphorically speaking, anyway.