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Whatever thatelse entirely for me There are computers in the Infir a room not under camera surveillance to run a simple search in their system--I’ll know, for better or worse, exactly where Mia is

I let that thought carryin tih not to fly off into a rage when I see Tildon s it open for the kids who are filing inside

My feet carry ain Sam’s cabin is included in the first meal rotation, and there--I can see them across the way, over hundreds of heads bent over their Styrofoa yesterday, looks like she’s been dusted with chalk, she’s so pale Her eyes dart to the blank space next to her as the PSF patrolling the aisle behind her leans down and whispers so the shell-pink curve of her ear and I know, even before he looks up and catches , that it’s Tildon

That empty space is Sae to s the food already in my mouth They still have her locked up, then She is still in that goddae

The tables vacate one by one, faces and nu into orderly lines, two by two We do the saettoday Work means the hours will pass faster, and I’ll see Sam when our schedules collide one last time at the final meal rotation I pick upthe terror on the faces of the Green boys who have asseht

F14 turns toward them, her eyes as dull and flat as sandstone If it weren’t for the PSF standing nearby, I think the kids still would have scattered likedown their nerves

The kid listed as 5552 on irl, who knows to wait at her table, even after the other girls in her cabin have stood up and shuffled their way out for the day’s work I press the clipboard totables to stand behind her She glances back, then looks again She remembers herself just as quickly, and her dark eyes fall back to the table Her body is as rigid as the icicles that have frozen like teeth along the edge of the Mess’s roof Shah me when I take her by the arlove touches her arm, it’s like I’ve stabbed her there She couldn’t have juher if I had been a live wire

When it’s our turn to head to the double doors, I finally notice that Tildon has repositioned hi the look of a cat contentedly groo fear as he catches my arm and holds up the line behind us

"It’s just too bad," he says, tilting his head toward ht and airy "It’s just too damn bad you weren’t there this tiister, dissolving like static in my brain I start to turn back, but can’t--I know I can’t It would confir inthe fla up inside me He knows, or at least he thinks he knows, that I care about Sa in to the caht it had paid off The only thing I’d cared about in thathim away from her

This assle--he’s a tried and true predator Whatever he wants out of you, it’s in his nature to detect a whisper of weakness, exploit every small crack in your wall He picks at wounds just as they start to heal, he touches, knowing you can’t touch back, he takes froive

I’d been stupid enough to assume he was too much of a chickenshit to try to turn around and hunt ot between hi through irl can hear it, too, it’s so da me He wants to see if it’ll affect ernails and drive me crazy I saw the look on his face, how closely he watched me as I passed He suspects HeThe dark wood structure behind the Mess has become the center of my universe, and ht of my life to not look back overit, what he could have done to her How he ust turns o hot--too hot My left arh that it knocks her forward a step

Sorry The word is so da He couldn’t have hurt her I would have heard it broadcast over the wireless

Not if you were still sleeping

The words work throughaway atI’ve yet to step inside The camp controllers didn’t have tih, and, from what I can tell, I didn’t miss much The smell of it is like every dentist’s and doctor’s office--rubber, antiseptic, fake leround floor’s checkered tile is half hidden by the stacks of boxes, plastic crates, and piles of what al, but the girl beside me stops dead and stiffens as she takes it all in