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And there’s the s to save her ass, thanks But now, it was close: rot and roadkill

And shadows Cool mist A darkness more profound than a starless sky

"Oh ht sprang frolare, Alex squinted and would have put a hand up if she hadn’t needed both to hang on Belatedly, she realized that the light ed saw very well in the dark She saw Wolf, his legs braced against rock, dangling frohs

SniffedCa? Possibly The Changed followed a route, kept to a pattern Soto see if she was still alive, then planned a way to get her out Before the Zap, when Wolf was Sier and not a monster, , exploring all the ins and outs of the Rule mine

Then she remembered: Tom Her heart stuttered Tom had been up there He’d called to her, and then she’d heard shots "Did you kill hiht her chest would break Was To dead in the snow because of her? "If you killed hi He couldn’t But now that he was so close, she s else in all that ht perfume of lilacs and honeysuckle Her dad’s face suddenly flickered in a quick flashbulb of memory: Juue For an instant, where she il sa jbick as happening, ceased to matter It was as if she and Wolf had slipped into a private, silent, well-lit room built only for them And not only safe"Home," she whispered "Family?"

The scent deepened His face shost of Chris--the lips she had kissed, the angles and planes of a face her fingers knew--and she felt her monster suddenly reach; are of an ache and a fiery burn that was need and desire flowing like lava through her veins

The monster knows Wolf This was new, as was the hard throb in her neck and the claw of so that she felt the rake of it across her chest What the hell was going on? The times her mind had sidestepped froed--Spider, Leopard, Wolf--had been few, and o, Kincaid wondered if her tu separate and distinct from her God, and now it has The round out, no longer sure whether she spoke to theto the rock "I’m Alex I’m not a mon--"

CRACK!

A yelp bulleted from her mouth The sound, soht she saw ed dark course over stone But then there were more snaps and cracks, the crisp sounds like thick ice over a deep lake in the dead of winter, because ice is restless, never still, always in flux, the stress building and building to the breaking point Before her eyes, that jagged sea wider and darker and longerWater still swirled around her waist, but now she also detected an insidious tug,and a thunk as rocks ricocheted and rebounded before sla down in a stony fusillade Crack! The rock wall squealed, singing with the strain CrackCRACK!

And that hen the Uzi actually h her veins Alht hand splayed in a grab If her ankle shrieked, she didn’t feel it All she saere Wolf ’s hands, the one knotted in her parka and the other, gloved, clinging to the taut snake of rope that would have to be strong enough to hold them both She felt his wrist sock into her pal a half-assed trapeze move as Wolf whipped her, hard and fast, like a stone in a bolo, trying to fold her against his chest He th she lacked, and he was solidly anchored besides But then the Uzi shifted again, a sharp jolt down that knocked the breath fro as the rock cru away, the Uzi ept in a sudden tidal surge into this new and ever-expanding fissure, one that had grown so wide it was a sideways grin and then a toothless leer and then a black scream that matched her own

In the next instant, the wall shattered and split and opened with a roar

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