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There was the body of the dad He was lying on top of a rock He’d fallen on it during his fight with Josie and he must have broken his neck, because his head was cocked to the side and he was looking up at the sky with an openat the sky He was dead
The earth was torn up in places, mishmashed with footprints and some dark brown-black slicks that were ht," the man said "Good luck to you then"
And he started to shuffle away
"Please," Niko said "We need to get somewhere safe so we can take care of our friend And we need somewhere safe to rest"
"Well, I can’t help you!" he spat
"But we’re so thirsty," whined Batiste
"And Max is so sick," Sahalia added "Please,him "Please, please, please"
"I knew I shouldn’t have corowled "I just came up to take out the trash, see? And then I saw the flares and I thought to et sucked into helping someone and it will be a strain on your resources’ But here I aht to hirimy sweatsuits Me, Sahalia, and Batiste with our faces uncovered, coated withNiko standing with his head hung Max lying,a bloody air ive you a day and a night That’s it!" he snarled "Some basic ht’s sleep But that’s it You have to swear you’ll go after that"
Niko stuck out his hand and said, "We swear" They shook
Everyone started thanking hied hirouched
He led us across the street, toward a sot now? Burns?" thewith Niko’s every jostle
"Blisters," Niko answered
The oldas fast as he could But old people walk slow He led us toward a house It was that pretend-English style, with the wooden beaht ere going inside, but instead, he kept on going
He went across his back lawn to a little building It looked like a garden shed A little too big for a garden shed, but that’s what it looked like
We went in and there were tools hanging all along the walls
"Come in," he crabbed at us "Shut the door behind you, for God’s sake This is a secret place"
I couldn’t read Niko’s expression through his air uy think ould be safe in a garden shed?
Then Mario bent over and picked at the edge of a rubber mat on the floor It looked like a welcome mat, sort of, but old and scuffed up
He lifted it and there, underneath it, was a metal handle sunk into the floor and a seam
He pulled up on it but he inded
Sahalia and I stepped in to help
"Hold on, hold on a o right on down the stairs They’re steep, soso you’re out of the way for the next person All right Go," he told Sahalia and me
We pulled up on the handle
It was really heavy for the first moment, then a hydraulic lift kicked in and it rose up by itself Up above, everything was grimy and dirty and dark, but pure white poured up fro, so used to the dark were our eyes
"Go on now!" Mario ordered "Get below"
We did not worry for a second that heus He had so clearly not wanted to help us Why would he be tricking us now?
As crabby and crotchety as he was, I trusted hiht to
He saved our lives and his name was Mario Scietto
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
DEAN
DAY 14
"I got a phared to Payton "We had some whiskey, but I drank it"
"I like youthe acadeet you in my squadron Would you like that?"
"Sir, yes, sir!" Jake responded
Payton turned to the cadets, ere still awaiting his orders
"Well, you heard h"
So how much respect did I have for Jake? Before this … meh Not very much I liked hiuy Everyone liked Jake Even when I hated his guts and wanted to kill hiot so lost and depressed and the fact that he’d left us? Well, he’d fallen really far in aotiate his way through this nightmare--he was kind of ony for uys If ere going tous
"Too bad you have no lights," Payton said "Kind of griot a lot of flashlights And, hey, you should see our cay With the fire going, it looked right It looked cozy and cheerful You could believe that it was our ca as they didn’t look for our beds
The cadets started co what they’d found Greasy found the chainsaws and the patched hole in the wall A thin, twitchy guy they called "Ji drinks near the Food aisle (and, yeah, his hands eirdly sh Zarember even found and reported on the oil stain on the linoleum and the tire marks from where the bus had stood before it left<ins class="adsbygoogle" style="display:block" data-ad-client="ca-pub-7451196230453695" data-ad-slot="9930101810" data-ad-format="auto" data-full-width-responsive="true"></ins>