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"Rosa," I said "Yourfor you"

She flinched at the sudden attention, but after a deep breath, she stepped out of her pitch-black rooht came hard and fast as her eyes darted around

"Look atout et you out of here Okay?"

Okay Her tre into place The tension bunching her shoulders didn’t relax until irls in her room flowed out behind her, and it was only then that the other kids lost that last bit of hesitation and followed

"Ho evac"

"Twoa hell of a lotwith us They trusted us The gratitude I felt for that small factup one by one andout the puddle of wet paint that had drifted frootten can Some of thehter, no smiles, no cheers--of course not It uided Rosa into the line, glancing at the here the soldiers had been writing out that ainst it and used it to brace themselves as they rounded the corner down into the stairwell, serprints through it Alice stood frozen in front of it, lifting her cae I had before the night sped up, gliding into a blur that carried us down the stairs, down the h The blast of cold air washed away the pounding heat froine it--how good it would feel when this was Thurate one last tiotten nized that I was still a prisoner of that place And it wasn’t the cure that would givefreed fro, with certainty, that I would never be forced to go back

Zach helped Liaave Alice the lift she needed to get up into it I caught his questioning look as he took her hand and nodded She had to come back with us She’d seen too much, was a security risk Gonzo and Ollie were the last to clied the PSFs we’d left outside into the interior of the ca with the secured truck driver

The kids were forced to sit on the plastic-wrapped pallets and boxes, solow sticks and flashlights we’d given the locked in total darkness As I rolled the trailer door down, I saw Lia over his knees, watching me I pulled the door firmly into place and secured it with the latch

Zach was already up in the front seat, ripping the GPS out of the console He rolled down theand tossed it outside One less way for the I was the one to run to open the gates; the fence wasn’t electrified, but the PSFs had ed to secure it with a padlock I turned to look at Zach and shook my head He waved me back and I climbed into the cab with hie to me and the whole teah the gate, sending pieces flying as if they’d been ht on the front hubcap and sparked against the ground, but was knocked away as we veered onto the highway, and we sped away before the sun had the chance to start rising at our backs

16

WE DROVE A FULL FOUR hours before ditching the semi-trailer truck in Reno In an ideal world, ould have taken it straight to Lodi, only stopping once to let the kids relieve their bladders and stretch their legs, but it was nias So

Senator Cruz had arranged for an old Greyhound bus to be brought down fro it was the only time she’d be able to put this particular contact into play as the fore classle himself too deeply in matters of the Federal Coalition and had been rewarded by Gray with the right to keep his job

Zach and I helped each kid down, and I couldn’t stop the s the way they all seeht Rosa was one of the last off, bypassing Zach’s hands for ?"

She stretched her ar them around I made sure that I kept the smile on my face so she’d knoas okay to let herself believe this would work out So I’d learned from Cate

I wondered what she’d think of all this as we lifted the boxes of food andtheain, I would nitude of what she had done for s, if I brought her face to mind and focused on it, she’d so about her--that I hadn’t forgotten her