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"Help" She injected as much fear and pain into that little whimper of a word as she could It wasn’t such a stretch "I’m shot Please don’t hurtThis isn’t going to work She listened, straining above the thu so badly her teeth stuttered Sweat, oily and as thick as the blood seeping into her right boot, spilled over the shelf of her eyebrows to burn her eyes "Help" She threw in a long grind of a groan for good measure "I’m hurt Please, help me"

A second later, from somewhere below, she heard the distinctive rasp of a boot over stone A clup Then another clup

Coed? She couldn’t rehtly around the Sig’s butt, the ridged grip digging into her paler "I’m hurt"

Another clup And another

"Please Helpso hard into the silvery gloo, I’er slid into view She felt her breath catch as the barrel of Tori’s shotgun--just the tip--hung there a ain because she didn’t want him to look her way The sound of his boot on stone reached her again, just that single step The shotgunup, away frole He had no choice because of the tower’s geo down for a shot

Heart ra in her chest, she watched the barrel bob as he took another step and then another First, his hands came into vieait, wait--then the hump of his forehead, the jut of his nose--wait, just another second--and then he was only three steps below her--wait, wait--and she saw shoulders, his chest, how his head iveling, his face ballooning to a gray oval--almost, almost--and then she heard his quick inhale the instant he realized he was looking in the wrong place at the wrong tiainst stone as he tried swinging down but couldn’t--because he was a tall boy with a long gun trying to turn in a too-tight space

"Ahh!" The sound was er

And this ti’s headache still pulsed in his teeth His vision was fuzzing around the edges, but as he shouldered open the door and stepped fro huffed out in relief The village hall triggered a lot of bad ees, all of the the walls; the Council eyeing him owlishly from their raised bench in that bat cave of a courtrooht sanctuary

Probably that post-trauloves, he stoht to left as he waited The others were still inside, offloading their loot Located belowground and through a double set of iron doors, the basement jail here they stored what remained of their food and feed as well as stockpiles of fuel, high-grade fertilizer, and aed even more was how much they didn’t have The jail ide and deep, equipped with ten four-person cells, five to a row One huge iron cage--probably once a drunk tank, from the faint, steeped-in odor of old vomit--dominated the wall at the very back This here they kept their fuel stores: propane tanks, red plastic cans of gasoline siphoned from stalled cars, fuel oil, premix Of all their supplies, their fuel situation was the least dire si, fired up a chain saw, or headed out for a nice country drive anymore All that combustible material made him nervous, too No one had asked hiot careless, or a spark flew Couldn’t you use premix or fuel oil and fertilizer tocells, only three held food, and of those, one was devoted to dog food: cans of wet, twenty-pound sacks of dry kibbles While not exactly barren, the steel shelves in the re cells weren’t fully stocked either What had looked so aht, dark cubby of the Landrys’ pantry hidey-hole ht jars he’d hauled now huddled in a forlorn little knot, surrounded by a lot of e had counted the cans of condensed soup on the shelf abovejust to see

Thirty cans The thought sent a shiver down his neck That would last forty hungry kids about three uards also kept a very careful tally of every single can and jar, every sack of kibble So just hoere they supposed to sneak out food, reat escape? Hopeless He er We’ll never find enough--

So snapped The sound was very brief, crisp, firecrackershort Greg stiffened, his ears suddenly tingling, aware of just the faintest echo bouncing off brownstone That had been a shot Headache forgotten, he turned in a full circle But frolad that’s" Then Pru ’s face "What is it?"