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"I mean, hello," I said, eyes still on the sleepwalker His ability to respond at all was incredible Maybe he was a chian in someone as actually awake and not sunk deep into a trauht clear, and he uided through his new life The huone, and I knew abstractly that I should be , not really, apart fro a company that could afford to buy hundreds of hours of advertising tione, and if one of
Even more abstractly, I knew that I wouldn’t have been able to remain this calm if Nathan had been at risk--if Nathan had possessed a Syet it out of him as quickly as possible But this wasn’t Nathan This was a stranger, and whoever he had been before was already gone
The sleepwalker continued to look at lazed blue eyes He ob of spit escaped, running unfettered down his chin
"I’ainstto hurt you We’d like to help you, if you’d be willing to let us--" I reached h to startle, but hopefully close enough that he would be able to recognize my offer of support as what it was
The sleepwalker’sto remember how to form words Then, in a low voice that was only barely above ato pull my hand away That hen the sleepwalker moved
Like many of the sleepwalkers we’d encountered, he was fast: soht and human mind had removed the normal limitations imposed by the body He didn’t know that he needed to be afraid of hurting hi with an inhuman speed as he latched his hands aroundto pull away It was an autoht for the sleepwalkers thatin the other apartments on the floor, and it was louder than I would have believed possible, given the torn-up state of my throat The sleepwalker cla, and I could feel the bones in rabbed hty tug and I sturip
"Let ain to jerk myself free
"Saaaaaaaaaaal," responded the sleepwalker, and pulledthe skin ofI had ever felt before or wanted to feel again: intensely painful, and al This couldn’t be happening It didn’t make sense, and soit aside in favor of the pounding sound of druain, and for atorn in two My shoulders ached The sleepwalker’s teeth dug deeper into o
I whipped around as best I could to stare at hi The sleepwalker yankedinto ainst the bone, and then Nathan was squeezing past us both and running down the hall, one hand fu as he shoved the key into the lock, and I shovedto break his hold on my wrist I didn’t expect it to work It didn’t really need to It just needed to distract hiot the door open
The dogsjust inside for us to return Nathan kicked the door inward, and Beverly’s long, lol echoed out into the hall, followed by the sleek black shape of Beverly herself rocketing for the sleepwalker’s knees Beverly was a black Lab that we had acquired when her original oent into conversion; it had been her barking and growling that alerted us to the fact that so with hi about the che an invasive takeover upset them Beverly took that hate to a new level
The ht not have known much about pain anymore, but that didn’t make him immune to the laws of physics Beverly sla in confusion as he struggled to keep his balance The gash inThanks to the way his teeth had broken through skin and , and Minnie was barking fro everywhere So ht of it actually helped a little Itaway fro to keep his attention on ered forward, ar frorabbed hiht The motion made the open wound inhi froate hiain I swiveled, and shoved