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The woods here ild, croith nearly i into the snow, she shucked in the rifle, then swarowing so close together their branches twined She gried her wounded scalp--and, oh hell, the medic pack was still under the spruce No tih, she wor she’d have to coax the ani in S this way

Casting one anxious glance back, she saw no bright red gu the way Okay, this has to do, because, honey, we are out of tiap, she put an arm around the animal’s neck, tucked her feet under her bottoht they ht be invisible--if they stayed absolutely still This really could work Hunters sat in blinds all the time; they perched in trees for hours And fifty yards was half a football field A lot of distance in which to get herself lost Many people overlooked the obvious and what lay in plain sight every day S about that There was no real wind here, not even a breeze But she kept thinking of Darth, and then the wolf tote important there

There was a heavy thud, and then another A snap then crack of branches and brush, the crunch of snow Not being very subtle, but ht they didn’t need to be The cheed boy was everywhere now Yet the scent from that man in black, the eye in that red stor over his odor: definitely old, that same fustiness of ool socks, but also saturated with a stench of polluted gray-green water reeking of burned urine and foao River after a storave her, she couldn’t seebra, because she couldn’t assign a face to that dreadful odor, knock it down to size,in the dark of a haunted house where what you iined was always soher jaws, she bore down, trying to force back the fear threatening to swaet free of her body and run run run Calm down, you have to try to stay in control It wants you to bolt, show yourself

She closed her eyes On the screen of her lids, the go-go push-push was like blood pounding through arteries: the red storh her eyes, in herthe o-go go--

"Where are you?" The sound was so sudden she nearly vaulted out of her skin She pressed her lips together so tightly they tingled Under her ar was still as death Don’twhich of theed the ani clickity-clickity-click Raue between her jaw, she bit down to stop the noise and focus Don’t bolt, little bunny; that’s when the hunters get you, when they see the flash of your little white cotton tail

"I know you’re close I can just feel your edges" Even shouting across half a football field’s worth of woods, the voice carried a certain mellow, authoritative reassurance that made her think of that actor who played Lucius Fox in the Batman movies "My name’s Finn What’s yours?"

That answered a question This wasn’t read-your-mind telepathy, which would’ve been just too voodoo for her anyway However he’s doing this, he can’t find ht She remembered those bizarre shifts in perspective, that sense of distance collapsing--and that had happened to her before, hadn’t it? When she was on Blackrocks, about to jump: an out-of-body experience the doctors said was a temporal lobe hiccup provoked by fear and fueled, maybe, by her baby chick of a monster

SoFinn was an epileptic? Or tookbut artificial, like those Changed with their che--because it had to be a drug She just knew So how did this work for hi: the voice was no closer, and the red stor, calculating the probabilities

Just as i stronger So that altered, engineered Changed couldn’t smell her either Could be a couple different reasons for that

Or hter The animal’s ears swiveled like a bat’s, but that was the only ether

"Why are you still alive?" Finn’s push-push a different about you, isn’t there? And about that boySimon? Maybe I’ll pick hiht she was going to go all girly, Finn had another thing co the shrinks tried to teach you was hoall off the monster, put it in a box, lock the door

"Come on," the red storm said "I know you’re there" Oh bullshit Then you’d stop talking and your bloodhound boy would’ve already found ry, a kind of ht herself What had he said? I feel your edges

Okay, there was soe hen you hit so to find your way around a wall You only knohere it ends when your fingers hit thin air Maybe the red storm found her by the obstacles she threw up to protect herself

"What’s your na red push-push, like the sweep of radar, trying to get a fix "Come on, I can help you" Push-push "We have a lot in common, can’t you see that?"

She didn’t see it, and now she couldn’t let hie When he pushes, don’t push back The idea of doing nothing scared the living daylights out of her It woulda stain She remembered Peter’s bookshelf, and Dune: that o through me, over me She knealk away She’d done that the day she’d left for the Waucaht she knew she couldn’t win So walk away froes to feel

But would that work? Wouldn’t the et out? Even if it didn’t, the lockbox was like a drop of black ink on white paper If the red stor her eyes again, she stilled herhad frozen to a statue by her side There’s only night, and no stars

Go dark

Don’t move

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"Take the shot," Jayden chanted "Come on, Chris, take the shot!" "One more second," Chris said "If she surfaces too close"

He and Jayden were standing a good thirty feet froed shelf was too unstable and ht crumble In the

water, at least fifty feet further out, the Changed boy was still there,

but Ellie was not His first shot was meant to startle Ellie had been

too close, and he’d been afraid to try for a kill shot So he’d fired high;

saw the boy flinch away at the rifle’s whipcrack and his hold on the