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In the end, all of that training ca I could shift and cry and try to screa in The whole world was collapsing, crushing, and dissolving the faces of everyone who stood there watching Rob snapped on a pair of thick rubber gloves before shoving thethe strap behind ain I was theJoe passed the tablet to Rob and took several steps back He looked at the white-haired woht and said, "God, if I’d knoouldn’t have touched the thing at all"

Rob bent and tried to haul me out of the mud by the chain that connected the handcuffs to the ot no farther than my knees; the rest of my body still hadn’t solidified under ust, he pickedand bounce along the ground I reared back, trying to knock ainst the knots of et the world," he said "But soht That look on your face when you sawelse"

I twisted as he dragged me up into the back of his old red Jeep

"I knew if I watched the skip-tracer network, you’d screw up eventually I’d get to ask you ed out of the Op--what Cole and Cate have to do with it I wanted to be the one to pick you up, to drive you straight back to that little ca you in"

I screa at the back of the seat

"You andstrip of plastic fro to bind h "We’re gonna have such a fun trip back to West Virginia I won’t even ask for the reward"

The door sla le line in front of their ho The car rocked as he opened the driver’s door and sat down

"You wanna knohy I killed those kids, bitch?" he called back "They weren’t fighters None of you are, but you’re the ones with all the power in the League these days You get to overrun us, decide the Ops, turn Alban into a worthless pile of cooing shit But you don’t understand; none of you does You don’t get what this world has to be if we’re going to survive this Even these skip tracers, they just don’t understand that you’re worth a lotdespite the Jeep’s shuddering protests, blasting ZZ goddao He shouted back that he was tired of hearing me snivel and sob What a coincidence I was pretty dae" and the set the e He’d tightened it to the point of pain and, from the sound of it, had used a s to try to get topulled atlike a tear I bitintothe jued under a truck I’d seen the blade--it had been small, about the size of the one on h the pain--keep riding the adrenaline to keep froht and almost too narroork, but I could be sers past the laces into the tight leather I curledthere was nothing to get--I’d never gotten my Swiss Army knife back I hadn’t been able to find it in the supplies I sed hard It’s okay It’s okay Don’t panic--but I was I could feel it bubbling up in et out of hand it would suffocatefinally--finally--faded out

"Preparations for the Unity Su," came President Gray’s eerily cal with these reatly respect, and--"

Rob punched the station off "It’s funny, isn’t it?" he called back "That the president all of a sudden is thatnew?"

Yeah, I wanted to say, hilarious The guy had the rown itself another head, one with sharper teeth

"It took Alban forever to see what ayou in, and he still sent you shitheads out to do jobs any of us could have done He can have his past, but he’s not going to changepotentially sharp enough to saw the plastic zip tie around my wrists

"And Conner…she just wanted to babysit you, but we got no tiot no place for you, here or anywhere The only place for you is in those camps or buried with the rest of the now "I don’t need an excuse for what I did! I joined to get Gray out, not play house with a guy who’s too daround He thinks we joined up because of you? He wants to knoe can’t respect you? But he won’t let us use you for the one thing you’re good for?"

Dying for people like hiht, that’s what he ain I’ll do it to every daain, and I’ll start with your teaust

Keep it together, I commanded myself He doesn’t know I didn’t need to touch him He could silence me, but Rob had no power over my mind

"What would Jude make of the electric fence at your old houards do to Vida when they saw just how pretty, just how built she is for a girl her age? And Nico--he’s a pretty easy target, isn’t he?"

I closed my eyes I forced myself to relax, to remember that here, now, and always, I was the predator This hat Clancy had meant when he had claimed I’d never be able to control my abilities because I was too afraid of what they would make me I hadn’t been able to do it before--not froo of needing to control where it would take me