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The White Noise cut straight through theat our ears Not as loud or as powerful as I was used to, and not even close to as bad as it had been last ti My radio trick couldn’t drown it out, not co at the first piercing shriek

Liaainst his ears Chubs knocked his head into the passenger seat , as if trying to raan to drift forward, only to jerk to a stop when Liaas

The door opened beside le him from the seat belt I pulledthe ernails down as hard as I could It was enough to startle the truck driver, the sa his head to "Free Bird" two seconds before, into dropping Chubs He was left half hanging in his seat, half hanging out

The driver stuainst the bed of his truck, his words drowned out by the thunderstorm of noise that had settled over the three cars It was only then that I saw the badge hanging around his neck on a silver cord, and the bright red Ψ stitched there They weren’t skip tracers

Psi PSF Caen had opened the driver’s side door of the van and was trying to unhook Liae in any sense of the word--he looked like he could have been an accountant, with thick glasses and hunched shoulders froth, not when he was holding the black aphone in his hands

Some of the PSFs at Thur theroups, or just to see a few kids squirm What did they care? They couldn’t hear it

Every nerve in , but I launched my elbow into the chest of the pickup truck driver He fell back again, and I pulled the door shut and locked it I only had a second to look back at Zu as I dove across Lialasses, knocking them off his face So door, and this time he wasn’t empty-handed

Zu didn’t flinch as the rifle was pointed in her face--by the way she was loves curled over her ears in agony, I don’t think she was seeing straight

I didn’t knohat to do My hands were on Lia to shake him back into consciousness His eyes flashed open, clear and so blue, but it was only for an instant The aphone was suddenly two inches from my face, and the White Noise sunk into ister the fact I had fallen over Lia louder than the White Noise, than the radio, than Chubs’s screa

I squeezedinto the soft leather of Liah distance between us that I had no chance of sliding into his mind--but the other half of h, to anchor myself to him and will him to move If I could hurt someone, shouldn’t that et up, get up, get up…

There was a high-pitched wail, a sound that couldn’t have possibly come from a human I forced my eyes open Pickup Truck had his rifle in one hand and the collar of Zu’s shirt in the other, and he was tugging both in the direction of the truck I tried to screaen’s hands inround hard, the loose gravel cutting opento twist away from the PSF’s reach Fro to the road like two small birds, and heard a door slaen wrenched the driver’s side door open again, pulling soe fro to force the double ie device in the PSF’s free hand was no bigger than a cell phone, easy enough to ainst thea swipe at the PSF’s ankle with my hand was pointless--he was so involved hatever it was he was doing that he didn’t so , it wasn’t working Liae device flashed, and aof the White Noise, I heard Volkswagen say, "That’s a positive ID on Liah the air, billowing out under Betty like a stinging cloud of sand I felt it rub up againstlight that ca that stood in its way I heard Volkswagen cuss from above ainstso hard, so fast, that tiny shards dropped like hail onto the ground in front of one The White Noise cut out sharply as soround and landed a short distance away The aphone’s handle Volkswagen was screa inthe bullhorn to actually give a daed ers closed around the handle

"Get up, you piece of--!" There was a digital squeak, like an alar "This is Larson, requesting irunt, then , and when he finally realized his mistake and looked over his shoulder, he was rewarded with a face full of aphone

His radio clattered to the asphalt, and I kicked it out of his reach Both of his hands went up, trying to shield his face froo easy on hi to let him take me back to Thurmond

My hand closed over his exposed forear him to look down at me I watched his pupils shrink in his hazel eyes before blowing back out to their norht on me, but you never would have known by the way he dropped to his knees in front of me He hadn’t even been able to catch his breath, let alone keep ht into his mind