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Psi Special Forces--that’s what the driver of the bus had called himself and the others when they collected us from the warehouse You are to come with us on authority of the Psi Special Forces comuess it was true I had been taught not to argue with adults, anyway

The bus took a deep dip as it pulled off the narrow road and onto a smaller dirt one The new vibrations hoever had been lucky or exhausted enough to fall asleep They also sent the black uniforhter, and their attention snapped toward the windshield

I saw the towering fence first The darkening gray sky cast everything in asilver as the histled through its open pockets Just belo were dozens ofthe bus in at a brisk jog The PSFs in the control booth at the gate stood and saluted the driver as he navigated past them

The bus lurched to a stop, and ere all forced to stay deathly still as the cah the silence like thunder as they cah--that had come a year before We were not the last bus, either That would come in three more years, when the cale breath of stillness before a soldier in a black rain poncho rapped on the bus door The driver reached over and pulled the lever--and ended anyone’s hope that this was a short pit stop

The PSF was an enoriant in ahis face, hair, and anything that would have let uess it didn’tfor the camp

"You will stand and exit the bus in an orderly fashion," he yelled The driver tried to hand him the microphone, but the soldier knocked it aith his hand "You will be divided into groups of ten, and you will be brought in for testing Do not try to run Do not speak Do not do anything other than what is asked of you Failure to follow these instructions will be er kids on the bus, though there were certainly a few kids younger Most see in the soldiers’ eyes ht have shrunken my spine, but it only sparked rebellion in the older kids

"Go screw yourself!" someone yelled from the back of the bus

We all turned at once, just in ti red hair launch the butt of her rifle into the teenage boy’s mouth He let out a shriek of pain and surprise as the soldier did it again, and I saw a faint spray of blood burst frory breath With his hands behind his back, there was no way he could block the attack He just had to take it

They begankids off the bus, one seat of four at a ti that kid, the way he seemed to cloud the air around hi, or what, but the boy turned around and ement And when he smiled, it was around ahauled up and out of , I was slipping down the wet bus steps and tu rain A different PSF lifted irls aboutto the

There were nearly twenty PSFs on the ground, swar the neat small lines of kids My feet had been co in my pajamas, but no one took notice, and no one ca our hands We waited, silently, tongues clarain It looked like the sky was falling, piece by piece

The last groups of four were being lifted off the bus and dropped onto the ground, including the boy with the broken face He was the last one off, just behind a tall blond girl with a blank stare I could barely y bus s, but I was sure I saw the boy lean forward and whisper soirl’s ear, just as she took the first step off the bus

She nodded, a quick jerk of her chin The second her shoes touched thearound the nearest PSF’s hands One of the PSFs barked out a terrifying "Stop!" but she kept running, straight for the gates With everyone’s attention turned toward her, no one thought to look back at the boy still on the bus--no one butdown the steps, the front of his white hooded sweatshirt stained with his own blood The sa hiround, as she had done for the rest of us I watched her fingers close around his elbow and felt the echo of her grip on my oly bruised skin; I watched hi to her, his face a o of his arun out of its holster, and, without a word--without even blinking--stick the barrel inside of her er

I don’t know if I screaled sound had co, two seconds too late to stop it The i out of her skull, the ripple of suddenly loose skin--stayed burned into the air like a photonegative far longer than the explosion of pink, ainst the bus

The kid standing next to le one of us that wasn’t screairl was tackled into the mud The rain washed the soldier’s blood down off the bus s and yellow panels, stretching the bloated dark lines, drawing them out as they disappeared co only at us "Run!" he yelled through his broken teeth "What are you doing? Run--run!"

And the first thing that went through my mind wasn’t What are you? or even Why?

It was But I have nowhere else to go

He ht as well have blown the entire bus up for the panic it caused Some kids listened and tried to bolt for the fence, only to have their path blocked by the line of soldiers in black that seemed to pour out of the air Most just stood there and screa all around, the irl knocked round with her shoulder as the other PSFs rushed for the boy, still standing in the bus doorway The soldiers were yelling at us to sit on the ground, to stay frozen there I did exactly as I was told