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"What do I have to do, Bex?" I yelled, following her down the other side of the hill and into a s "Tell me what I have to do or say or prove"

I stood shaking, my hands balled into fists as my best friend opened her mouth to speak but couldn’t find the words

She turned slowly and started to walk away

"The Circle needs me alive!" I yelled, and watched her stop, but she didn’t face me "They would have killed you, Bex They would have killed anyone but ht But me…they need me alive"

"That’s funny"--Bex turned--"because you look half dead fro out

Chapter Thirteen

My first thought was that I rong In spite of everything--the sound of a rifle on that hillside see to hear I told myself that the tree limb behind me had always been shattered The loud noise was just a door sla toward us on the wind

It wasn’t really a gunshot

But then I was on the ground with Bex, sheltered behind a log, breathing in the rich, pungent s to , and I kneasn’t a dream

It Wasn’t A Drea cae that they’d found me I’d run halfway around the world and lost all memory of the journey, but they’d foundthroughto her palms, and the dirt bit into my skin as she squeezed "Cam, how far?"

"A hundred and fifty yards"

Had my mother heard the shot? I couldn’t be sure The trees were thick, and Bex and I had run farther than I’d thought, and we found ourselves on the other side of the ridge, the cabin and lake hidden from view by the rise of the hill behind us We hadn’t bothered with co devices that Liz had spent hours perfecting last spring were all back at school

When another shot rang out, piercing the trunk we lay behind, I knew that help may as well have been a million miles away

"That was closer," I said

Bex’s eyes ide as she nodded "They’re co"

Sure, we had decent cover there, behind our log, but that wouldn’t last for long

"The Box Square ested

"The Brennan-Black technique?" I countered

But neither option held any hope against a trained sniper with a clear line of sight, and we knew it

"Stay here," I said, and started to er--her reflexes even faster than I remembered--and I didn’t have a chance to break free

"Are you crazy?" she snapped, pulling me down

"I’ll circle around behind him Or her Or them And then--"

"Are you bloody crazy?" she asked even louder, just as another shot rang out I could see in her eyes that ere thinking the sao" I shook my head "I can outflank them and come around from behind I’ll be fine They won’t--"

"Cah I didn’t think that was the tiain, slower the second time I looked at the place she’d been and did the mental math

"Heto his left" I was right; I knew it And yet there was so in Bex’s eyes as I spoke Somehow I knew she was a whole new kind of afraid

"And that means…" I started, but I couldn’t find the words "And that ain, but instead of the lessons of Joe Solomon, I heard the words I’d chanted to myself over and over for almost a year They need me alive They need me alive They need me alive

"Cam," Bex said, her voice low and steady, "itatThe woods were quiet and still And that hen I heard the rew louder and louder, and my heart rate slowed The sunsee me Her eyes ith terror And I knew that ere in so, there was no cover for ten yards in any direction We weren’t sitting ducks yet, but the shooter was up and ained a line of sight

We had to move fro for my best friend’s hands

"Yeah?"

Another shot rang out

Seventy-five yards

"I’ister the words, I kicked and sentend over end, down the hill

A split second later, I followed