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"Hey!"

The shout caainst the door, a hand or a lowered shoulder

Again, with a dull thu down He turned the handle the other direction, using the ht before the next blow ca his arms for balance Cole kicked the side of one knee to help the figure go down faster TheCole jumped on hi up in his throat as he pictured hi this uy’s back, hoping to strangle him from behind, but thehis chest instead He pulled hiony and kept trying to grab at the leg Cole had kicked

Cole threw one of his own legs over the guy, straddling his waist He kept his knees wide so the man on the bottoure’s legs to keep hi the weak efforts to fend hi for raw flesh The les--his face swaddled and obscured--et what he was trying to do; he could si his thumbs into the soft depression below the Adaainst theboth hands toward each other with his thumbs

He thought clinical thoughts This was just a task Sorabbed Cole’s wrists, but he didn’t have the leverage to do anything about the stranglehold His hands just re

A weak croak, muffled by the fur, escaped the ht of what he was doing Thehis thu to hear It sounded like theabout how cold he was even with all that fur around hiainst his palm as he waited for the life to eke out of thehi uish theheartbeat fro The rip around his wrists and fell away, his elbows striking theBoth hands rerasp soed to the floor, slowly like so inside still provided resistance

Cole o out in the sa out as soon as his attacker pulled away He waited until the muscles in his arms burned and his knuckles ached--only then did he take his hands away, his stoust

A few flakes of snow drifted in through the open door behind him Cole turned and realized how brazen and exhibitionist theout, he threw the door shut with athe rooles up to his brow and surveyed his victi He knehat he needed to do to delay his capture

He pulled the boots off first, and then thethe jerkins fros--more out of respect than e them off as well

The man’s body offered quite a bit of resistance, the heaviness of death forcing Cole to struggle with the pants As they cas were slathered in a purpleaside, he reached for the strips of fur around thesaved that for last He hated to look, but he needed to see what he was doing in order to untangle the covering

He lifted the man’s head to unravel the continuous strip of fur After the first wrap cales were on top of the rest, the rubbery strap helping to hold it all in place He pulled the goggles off andat theback froles into one of the jacket pockets and looked away fro of the ht He worked blindly, staring down thehis teeth with the nastiness and inti, he tried to lose hihs He wondered what their significance was He unraveledbehind the man’s neck, and he suddenly became even more fixated on the colorful bands of paint There was a pink line wrapping around each, right above the h the purple stain

So stabbed Cole in the chest before he was fully aware of it on a conscious level--the pri the awful truth first

Flashes of terrible awareness strobed through his brain: an i to look for Cole in that awful rooht before he died Thea nas occurred to Cole at once, ju In a split second, he knew He knew before he looked back to the man’s face just why those frozen, tear-streaked eyes had bored into his, he turned to face the ed the universe that he ht He could feel the world sing him up if he was

And he was

23

Walter snuck up behind the circle of s It was like an orchard of poorly dressed stu to and fro He squeezed past the outer layer, trying his best to ignore the easy pickings in such ato be plucked

He shook his head and waited for a shift in the crowd to create an opening, then he surged forward, getting out of the way again before they crashed back into each other The rowdyahead, loosening up as they groaned, their ar back in as they waited for the next blow

Taking his tirad-ually e of the circle, nearly on his knees he was stooping so low He finally got a good look at the participants, just as the fight seemed to reach its conclusion The lady Callite from the bubble--the one who hadon the floor, a bloodyhis hands to the crowd

"No h!" screa herself, flecks of blue foa out of her mouth Walter stared at her--a so much--and tried to read her lips

"More," it looked like she was saying She waved at the roaned

The crowd quieted down, sensing the shoas over The man above her shook his head "That’s plenty, Cat You don’t pay h for this"

Her head fell back to the floor as she struggled for so to end the spectacle, wanting to help her, but not knohy

Thefroh it, dropped a few pieces on her stomach, then stepped away The lady curled her fist around the change and seeo li into chairs scraping across the ground, hollered drink orders, and the crash of glass on glass in trashcans Walter hurried over to the lady, coht of her blood-covered forht of his mother, but shook the memory away as he crept to the lady’s side

Her face was a mess, covered in blood the color of deep water One of her eyelids cracked open; a bright eye swiveled around to study hirabbed a fistful of paper napkins, ignoring thehi to his knees and reaching out to dab her wounds

"Flank off!" she yelled at hi him back with incredible force

Walter hissed in alaro nuts in the pocket by his stoh to the woman to talk, but stayed out of arm’s reach