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"We better go," he says tightly, glancing up at the sky The clouds thatthe stars "We’re exposed here"

Suddenly, Evan snaps his head to the left and goes all statuelike

"What is it?" I whisper

He holds up his hand Gives a sharp shake of his head Peers into the near perfect darkness I don’t see anything Don’t hear anything But I’ht," he murmurs He presses his lips to my ear "What’s closer, the woods on the other side of the road or the ravine?"

I shake uess"

He doesn’t hesitate He grabs my hand, and we take off in a quick trot tohere I hoped the ravine was I don’t kno far we ran till we came to it Probably not as far as it seemed, because it seemed like we ran forever Evan lowers me down the rocky face to the bottom, then jumps in beside er to his lips Scoots up the side to peek over the edge He motions to his pack, and I fish around until I find his binoculars I tug on his pant leg--What’s going on?--but he shakes off h, thu some kind of hunter’s code, like, Get down on all fours!

He doesn’ttime Finally he shiain

"They’re coloom toward the opposite wall of the ravine, which is much steeper than the one we came down, but there are woods on the other side, or what’s left of theles of broken branches and vines Good cover Or at least better cover than being totally exposed in a gully where the bad guys can pick you off like fish in a barrel He bites his lip, weighing the odds Do we have ti spotted?

"Stay down"

He swings his rifle off his shoulder and braces his boots against the unsteady surface, resting his elbows on the ground above I’ the M16 Yeah, he told me to stay down, I know But I’ for the end I’ve been there before, and I’ht stillness shatters The kickback of the rifle knocks hiht down Luckily, there’s a moron directly beneath him to break his fall Lucky for him Not so lucky for the moron

He rolls off me, yanks me to my feet, and shoves me toward the opposite side But it’s kind of difficult to move fast when you can’t breathe

A flare drops into the ravine, ripping apart the dark with a hellish red glare Evan slides his hands under e withinto the ith my toes, like some crazy bicyclist Then Evan’s hands on my butt for the final heave-ho, and I’ around to help him up, but he shouts for me to run--no reason to be quiet now--as a small, pineapple-shaped object plops into the ravine behind hiives Evan an entire second to take cover

That’s not quite enough tiure wearing fatigues appears on the opposite side of the ravine I open up with ure scra at the spot where he stood I don’t think he was expecting Cassie Sullivan’s answer to his invitation to party down post–alien apocalypse style

I empty my clip, slap home a fresh one Count to ten Maketo see when I do Evan’s body at the bottom of the ravine, ripped to shreds, all because I was the one thing he found worth dying for Me, the girl who let hiirl who never thanked hi her life but paid hi to see when I look down, but that’s not what I see

Evan is gone

The little voice inside my head whose job it is to keep me alive shouts, Run!

So I run

Leaping over fallen trees and winter dry scrub, and now the familiar pop-pop-pop of rapid-arms fire

Grenades Flares Assault weapons These aren’t Twigs after us These are pros

Outside the fiendish glow of the flare, I hit a wall of dark, then run smack into a tree The impact knocks ood distance, because I can’t see the ravine, can’t hear anything butin my ears

I scuttle forward to a fallen pine tree and huddle behind it, waiting for the breath I left back at the ravine to catch up withfor another flare to drop into the woods in front of h the underbrush

A rifle pops in the distance, followed by a high-pitched screae of autorenade explosion, and then silence

Well, it isn’tat, so it must be Evan, I think Which makes me feel better and a whole lot worse, because he’s out there alone against pros, and where airl

But what about Saht I’ll probably lose, or stay down to stay alive long enough to keep my promise

It’s an either/or world

Another crack! of a rifle Another girly screa theainst a squad of professional soldiers Outnu them doith the same brutal efficiency as the Silencer on the interstate, the hunter in the woods who chased me under a car and then mysteriously disappeared

Crack!

Scream

Silence

I don’t , terrified Over the past tenit: Howard,

You knohen I first saw you in the woods, I thought he was your bear

The snap and crunch of dead leaves and twigs underfoot A darker shadow against the dark of the woods The soft call of the Silencer My Silencer

"Cassie? Cassie, it’s safe now"

I heave ht and point my rifle directly at Evan Walker’s face

68

HE PULLS UP QUICKLY, but the look of confusion comes slowly