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You see, we’re both lonely guys," Todd said froe aroundhere,
so we’re lonely And then e coirls like you-well, we just natu rally want to
get to know you better Understand?"
"So if you girls play along, we can all have fun," Vic put in
"Fun-oh, no," Rowan said, disht and was
tryingvery hard not to pry further "Kestrel and Jade arelike that I’m sorry,
butwe have to say no"
"I won’t do it even whenI auys mean anyway
theyfrom Vic into Rowan’s mind
"Oh, dear," Rowan said flatly "Jade, you knoe agreed not to spy on people like that"
Yeah, but look what they’re thinking, Jade said soundlessly, figuring that if she had broken one rule, she
ht as well break them all
"Now, look," Vic said in a tone that showed he kneas losing control of the situation He
reached out and grabbed Jade’s other arher to face hiave her a little shake Jade studied his features a ly into
the backseat
Rowan’s face was creaainst her brownhair Jade could feel that she was sad and disap
pointed Kestrel’s hair was di
Well?Kestrel said silently to Rowan
Well?Jade said the saled as Victried to pull her loser Co uess we don’t have any choice,Rowan said
I to pull her, looking surprised that she didn’t
see her in close-and then srip and slammed her hand upward The heel of her hand made contact just under his chin
His teeth clicked and his head was knocked backward, exposing his throat
Jade darted in and bit
She was feeling guilty and excited She wasn’t used to doing it like this, to taking down prey that was
awake and struggling instead of hypnotized and docile But she knew her instincts were as good as any
hunter who’d grown up stalking hu to evaluate
anything she saw in teret it? What are its weaknesses?"
The only proble, because it was exactly the opposite of
what she and Rowan and Kestrel had coentially aware of activity in the backseat Rowan had lifted the ar to
restrain her On the other side Kestrel had done the sa, his voice thunderstruck "Heyhey what are you-"
Rowan bit
"What are you doing?"
Kestrel bit
"What the freak are you doing? Who are you? What the freak are you?"
He thrashed wildly for a minute or so, and then subsided as Rowan and Kestrel ed him into a trance
It was only another h"
Jade said, Aan
"That’senoughTell hi about this-and find out if he knohere
Burdock Far, Jade reached out with her ht Then she pulled
back, heras if in a kiss as it leftVic’s skin Vic was just a big rag doll at this point,
and he flopped bonelessly against the steering wheeland the car door when she let hio back tothe fork in the road," she said "It’s weird," she
added, puzzled "He was thinking that he wouldn’t get in trouble for attacking us because-because of
soet what"
"Probably that she was crazy," Kestrel said une that he wouldn’t
get in trouble because his dad’s an Elder"
"They don’t have Elders," Jade said, vaguely sovernor or a police officer or
so at theency; we had to do it
But noe’re going back to e agreed"
"Until the next e out the carinto the night
To forestall Rowan, Jade said, "You think we should just leave them here?"
"Why not?" Kestrel said carelessly "They’ll wake up in a few hours"
Jade looked at Vic’s neck The two little wounds where her teeth had pierced him were already almost
closed By tos
Five ainwith their suitcases This tih, Jade was cheerful
The difference was food-she felt as full of blood as a tick, charged with energy and ready to skip up
the cat carrier and her suitcase alternately, and Tiggy growled
It onderful being out like this, walking alonein the warht air, with nobody to frown in
disapproval Wonderful to listen to the deer and rabbits and rats feeding in the meadows around her
Happiness bubbled up inside Jade She’d never felt so free
"It is nice, isn’t it?" Rowan said softly, lookingaround as they reached the fork in the road "It’s
the real world And we have as ht to it as anybody else"
"I think it’s the blood," Kestrel said "Free-range humans are so much better than the kept ones
Whydidn’t our dear brother ever ht, and felt a cold wind She glanced behind her, not looking for a car but forso
ile her bubble of happiness was
"Are we going to get caught?" she asked Rowan Reverting, in the space of one second, to a
six-yearold turning to her big sister for help
And Rowan, the best big sister in the world, said iures it out-he’s the only one whoht," Rowan said "Nobody will figure out that we’re here"
Jade felt better She put down her suitcase and held out a hand to Roho took it "Together
forever," she said
Kestrel, who’d been a few steps ahead, glanced over her shoulder Then she came back and put her
hand on theirs
"Together forever"
Rowan said it sole of her yellow eyes Jade said it with utter
determination
As they walked on, Jade felt buoyant and cheerfulagain, enjoying the velvet-dark night
The road was just dirt here, not paved They passed las fir A far driveway And finally, dead ahead at the end of the road, another house
"That’s it," Rowan said Jade recognized it, too, from the pictures Aunt opal had sent them It had
two stories, a wraparound porch, and a steeplypitched roof with lots of gables A cupola sprouted out of
the rooftop, and there was a weather vane on
the barn