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"No His body’s still in the death house"

Still He could feel the screa to squeeze past his teeth That’s where I was They thought I was dead They put , if you like We don’t cres We also have Nathan’s belongings--clothing, rifle, a radio? I suppose they’re yours now" The old ree, Christopher, but I’ve had ample time to examine you From the extent of your injuries and visible wounds--well, what’s left of the"

"Left of them?" Every time this oldto keep up "What do you mean, what’s left of them?"

In reply, the old man reached and peeled the sheet from Chris’s chest down to his waist "You have half a dozen wounds, three of which are quite serious This one"--the old ht side, just below his ribs--"was the worst: a through-andthrough that collapsed your lung Your difficulty breathing? Hannah said you had tracheal deviation" He touched a finger to his own knobby Adam’s apple "Your windpipe had shifted to one side That happens when air collects inside your rib cage instead of the lung And do you remember the pain in your belly? That was probably fro in your abdomen But look now"

Chris craned to peer down at his sto scar tissue, about as big around as a half-dollar, stared up from his abdomen, just below the shelf of his ribs My God He heard his sudden intake of breath The first time around, when he came tohe remembered the old man’s hand on his sto exit wound to the right of your spine From its location, I suspect you sustained a laceration of your kidney as well Yet that, too, is al at his left wrist as the oldas you proain, let meThere Look at your hand, Christopher"

At first, he thought there was nothing, but then his eyes picked out the half- froer down to his wrist He stared, duh his words were faint, nearly lost in the sudden buzz that filled Chris’s ears "As you can see, the thumb was nearly severed But here you are, almost healed All your wounds are in much the same condition"

"But how?" He turned his hand over, then made a fist It didn’t hurt at all "That’s not possible How can this be happening? Why am I still alive?"

"Can’t say" The old man threw up his hands "Is it the tonic? Or a mistake, as you say? A coy? Or is this only a ic," Chris uttural e incense that filled his nose And his hands, onA bolt of fresh fear burned a path through his chest "I don’t believe in ue that an eight-year-old slip of a girl finding the strength to hoist a seventeen-year-old boy onto a horse to be a touch miraculous That is, until you consider that the hu the tissues with adrenaline This increases blood flow, gives htened; it was an eave up her coat for you and should have been really cold But she never felt it because the saical mechanism also kept her warm So, see?" The old esture "Nowhen I woke up That wasn’t science"

"No, that was faith, like the grudafoos" The oldaround Chris’s chest on a leather cord "Ellie believed it would protect you Whether it did is iive, and in return, that gave her courage It gave her faith But all emotions are chemically mediated and may be manipulated Every drunk, every lover, any ecstatic mystic knows that There is no heart"--the old man palmed his own chest, then touched a te then?"

"I was calling on God to heal you," the old ht be time to wake up--and you did, rather spectacularly And don’t bother objecting I’m sure it was coincidence and no miracle There is only e don’t understand Of course, this"--he touched Chris’s stomach--"I don’t understand at all"

"I don’t understand any of this," Chris said

"Do you re, and for quite a while, too Days Your" The old man traced a circle in the air before his own eyes "They were ue tangled Dreams, all those dreaht before"

"Yes?" the old htlass froerous I saw Lena and Peter--andin his chest Lena God, in all that had happened, he’d forgotten about her She’d been with hione? And didn’t she know Jayden? Yes, she said she was in a group of ten kids, with Jayden So that roup

"Christopher?"

"I don’t want to talk about it," Chris said, hoping he didn’t sound as frightened as he suddenly was If Lena wasn’t dead, where was she? Could she have headed back to Rule? But Lena’s no good in the woods, not alone, and she was sick, pregnant She’d said that Peter was the father, so that ht back to Rule made no sense either, especially since Jayden was here So what had happened? Had she simply freaked out and run into the woods--and becootten to her? But then why didn’t they kill et at hied wouldn’t have cared if he was alive, barely alive, or dead Meat was ht to be in pieces, or bare bones

Regardless, saying anything about Lena noould be a h the sa about Alex wouldn’t have helped the little girl, and s ten tie here, and effectively a prisoner These people were not his friends Hannah had only proved he couldn’t trust them