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They’d stopped at Jess’s first The house was eirls’ bedrooms cleaned out Yet the floors in Jess’s house were intact This was not the case with two other houses on the same block that he knew had been occupied the last time he was in Rule The only difference between those houses and Jess’s was that Jess had a root cellar and basement Every house without one or the other showed sie: floorboards pried up or sies and axes, open drawers, crap on the floor, broken dishes, the backs of cupboards staved in with hae that had been the Landrys’ kitchen He thought he understood what had happened here Whoever was left in Rule had gone around ripping up houses on footings to look in crawl spaces and behind walls for supplies that had been squirreled away Then each house had been X’ed froaze lingered on the

s certainly had gone downhill here in a-- A faint squee and then a shuffle from directly overhead At the sound, his eyes darted to the ceiling He knew it That ghostly flash of a face hadn’t been his ilad he’dstarted getting antsy Looking up at Jayden, he ai, then lifted his chin in the direction of the front hall Nodding, Jayden turned a quiet about-face, hugged the left wall, and padded for the front door, with Chris only steps behind Pausing at the bottom of the staircase, Jayden leaned in for a quick peek, then darted across to take up position in a doorway that led to a for past the understairs closet, Chris paused at the newel post, tapped his chest with a forefinger, then turned to aim at the stairs He had a briefto clear this house, then considered that soood Changed was a dead one

Unless it’s Lena, a sht? For her to follow? So what if she got here first?

No way, he thought right back Lena knows Jess, not the Landrys She has no reason to be in this house

Unless she’s running an end around, the voice said You drop north, so she circles, tracks you by scent, andwhat? He was overthinking this Lena hadn’t shown herself at all in the last four days He wondered now if she’d followed Maybe he and Jayden weren’t enough of a draw

Can’t worry about Lena now He just hoped that whatever was up there wasn’t arainst his shoulder, he followed his weapon in a slow creep up the stairs, keeping to the right, away froht and left, and he ju his rifle around, clearing each slice of the pie To his relief, he had wall to his back the whole way Make it to the corner, clear left, then pivot, et the hell out of the stairway What they did next depended on howvaulted froht, he brought his rifle around, but he was off-balance The cat barreled into his chest, dug in with its claws, spat, and then launched itself, using hiboard, to catapult itself the rest of the way down the steps With a yelp, he jerked off a wild shot, then staggered as his heel snagged He fell backward, his head cracking a step hard enough to bring on a shower of shooting stars, and then he atching his boots whip past as he turned a somersault and caromed down the steps

"Are you okay?" Jayden’s face, chalky with alarm, swam into view "You could’ve broken your neck Cat scared the hell out of me"

"Uh," Chris croaked He could only lie a ht shoulder hurt where he’d collided with hardwood, but he thought it could’ve been worse Propping hiainst a swirl of vertigo, then ob of red foalad that’s all it was" Propping his own gun against the wall, Jayden helped hiives ed in all sorts of crap It’s probably crapping all over the place"

"Sure" Shaking his head clear, he looked around and found his rifle, which had jumped from his hands to slide a few feet froroan, he bent "We should anyway," he said, flicking the safety "Even though we’re inside, soht’ve heard the shot and come to check--"

At his back, the door to the understairs closet sla, "Chris! Look out look out look--"

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"This is dumb," Ellie muttered, darkly, one hand hooked under Mina’s collar and the other clutching her Savage Huddled by her side, Mina only shuffled but didn’t break her stance Any sound she ht have made--and she wouldn’t, no matter what Chris said, because Mina was trained to be quiet--was stifled by the loop of a leash cinched down around her snout Ellie crept forward, aimed a peek around the corner of the woodpile three yards over, but saw only the garage nestled in the woods and the far corner of the house into which Jayden and Chris had gone what seenawed her lower lip, tried to think of what to do, how long to wait She could feel the dog vibrating under her hand Mina wanted to go, get in the fightif there was one Ellie still wasn’t sure Oh, she wasn’t stupid That gunshot had been very h that she understood what it was Yet there was only the one: no return fire at all No shouts or screams either, which, even with miles between her and the house, she’d probably hear because it was so creepy-quiet