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"Nooo! Tori? Tori?" Greg wailed as Kincaid wrapped hi hi thrashed "No no no!"

And in all of that, there was one thingold Henry stued boy, as, miraculously, still alive

"Jesus Lord," Henry piped, his high voice cutting above the gabble "It’s Ben Stie wasn’t sure the voice, so dead and flat, was his Still huddled in the circle of Kincaid’s arain, a little boy waiting for the adults to ht, and he had never missed his father quite so ot to be kiddingboy "I thought all the kids froroaned in an undertone His face was ashen "You sons of bitches, you did it You really did it"

"Did what?" Greg asked as Sarah staggered toward the was sodden, and tears had eaten tracks through the blood caked on her cheeks "Doc, what are you talking about?"

Before Kincaid could respond, Henry said, in his clear bugle, "Yup, that’s Ben, all right Known hih" Henry patted the air down around his knees "Recognize him anywhere on account of that bad case of the acne" Henry looked down the aisle toward the Council h the swell of people crowding into the sanctuary None of the Council wore their robes, and while Yeager was in the lead, only Ernst, broad-chested and very tall, with a still-substantial gut in spite of rationing, retained even a vestige of authority Stieed alongside Ernst Greg couldn’t decide if Stie to hide

"Mr Stieer spoke for the quailing Stieh, but his skin was bleached so white his bald head looked like a cue ball Without his robes, Yeager looked like a ho trousers, and that red-checked flannel Yeager’s eyes, usually so bird-bright with calculation, only looked furtive and a little frightened, like those of awill only ot away, a fact of which ere unaware"

"Obviously? Got away? Unaware?" Rifle held high, Jarvis shouldered his way past the others to stand in the center aisle Any reseone Jarvis looked more like a buzzard "You run this place for decades, rown men, to follow orders fro--"but we do it because we are loyal and God-fearing, and now you say you didn’t know this boy had gotten away?"

Peter The realization broke over Greg in a kind of icy wash He said they rounded up all the Changed and shot the boy So Peter would’ve known Ben wasn’t dead

"Where I was from, before Rule? Those kids always came back," soh the rest of thesaw more than a feouns, like a village mob from an old black-and-white ray fury, clutching a Warren hoe, its blade tapering to a wicked point "Lot of ’em hunted in packs It was one of the reasons you said we’d be safer here, ’cause all your kids were dead"

"So how that little monster’s alive in the first place is what I want to know" It was Travers, the stormy woman with the hoe, which she now shook at Stiemke "What’d you do, only kill kids like h? Did you spare this monster because he’s yours?"

"Hell with that," someone else rumbled "How ot away--"

"Or they let hiot to be others" Travers brandished her hoe like a spear "So where are they?"

"Where the hell do you think?" Jarvis aimed a look of black thunder at Stiemke "They’ve been out there all this ti God’s work, taking our grandkids, ending their torment What did you do, you and that son of a bitch, Peter, and Chris"

"My grandson knew nothing about this," Yeager said, and Greg thought from his tone that this was the truth Yet Ernst remained silent, not a flicker of e saw Sarah study Ernst’s face, then drop her eyes as the first fingers of scarlet crept up her neck A tear splashed onto a cheek, which she knuckled away Greg gave her free hand a se him in any way Sarah knows it now, too Peter was in on it all along Letting soht even have been his idea Peter was the one who’d told each patrol where to go, and when Because he knehere the Changed were iven tied, in the Zone? Of course Now that someone had finally said it, this made perfect sense

"So did Chris find out?" Travers, the woot rid of hianized an aer said the words like a curse "He betrayed us"