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The Taking Ki 13860K 2023-09-01

He looked around and then pointed off to the right, just beyond a cluster of flat rocks past the end of the road "About twenty meters that way We’ll have to carry him the rest of the way"

I noddedsound

"We need to hurry," Siht into his back pocket "We’re alh Si by the time we reached the top of the short hill My job was to hold Tyler’s feet and serve as lookout, but Tyler wasevery time we budeeper and wetter sounding by the second I worried he was drowning in his own fluids

"Simon," I rasped, unable to hold back rinned back at ht feel it too Hope "Just a few endary crater, we set Tyler down and I collapsed Wiping my cheeks with the back of my hand, I approached the brick wall that surrounded the rireat care to look after this place Even the perirasses and brush were trim it

At my feet, Tyler wheezed, a rheumy sound that made my skin crawl "Nohat?" I turned to Simon fearfully

He looked back at me, and I could see itin his eyes The look that toldfor al Or, it see for Tyler to die

I was okay with that now I just wanted him out of his misery already It was too hard to watch him suffer Too hard to listen to his pleas for relief

Theat his own skin--at the blisters we could see, and the ones we couldn’t It was like watching hiain," Sie of the cavernous pit, where he’d been chucking rock after rock into the hole "He see had workedfor a while I’d tried everything I could think of to keep Tyler cal," I shot back "He’s in too ht place?"

He paused, his ariant holes could there be?" He flung the rock to emphasize his point, and I kneas as frustrated as I was

I didn’t want to freak out, but that’s exactly what I was doing "Maybe we’re scaring theht here, in plain sight"

His shoulders fell as he stepped away from the rim "Kyra," he explained, and even in the dark I could make out those eyes of his, the same way I had that first time I’d seen him, in the bookstore "People have clais Obviously bystanders have never stopped the wrong?"

The sound of tires rolling over gravel stopped us both cold My head snapped around, in the direction we’d parked, whileagonizingly, thunderously inside ed for the flashlight on the ground, and he switched it off, ignoring ave ain, his back pressed against the wall of rocks and his fingers to his lips There was nothing I could do about Tyler’s whi