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Diana glanced up at the sky It was a habit now A fearful habit

It was a sphincter at the top of a black bowl A fitting coiant sphincter

Justin held on to her as they walked, and she to him

Which is worse? she wondered To reach the ed her feet and stalled every step of the way on the theory that whatever the gaiaphage wanted, she was for the opposite But then Drake reeht delay meant pain

He drove them forith his whip Like so a Hebrew, or a not-so-long-ago overseer whipping a black slave

But she saw that he, too, glanced up at the sky He, too, was afraid of the cohost town There wasn’t estions of places where a saloon and a hotel and a stableset apart froh a creaky door, that Brianna stepped

Diana almost fainted with relief

"Hey, guys," Brianna said "Out for a walk?"

"You," Drake hissed

"Weren’t you expecting me?" she asked She made an embarrassed face "Wasn’t I invited?"

Drake snapped his whip and wrapped it around Justin He jerked the terrified boy through the air and held him over his head

"Move and I smash his brains out," Drake said

"And then what?" Brianna asked in a silky whisper

"Then Diana"

"Yeah, I don’t think so, Drake Worht her all this way to kill her" Then, to Diana: "What do you think, Diana? Has he told you what he wants?"

She was stalling Diana knew it, but did Drake? And if so for time it meant she had an ally Someone obviously slower than herself

"It’s my baby he wants," Diana said

Brianna made a fake astonished face "Is that true, Drake? Is it because you love babies?"

Drake shot a look to the path that led from town up the hill and to the mine shaft He was only a few hundred yards away fro his way that far in the dark But he couldn’t be sure that Brianna would care about Justin Even slowed down by darkness, Brianna could probably outrun him and cut him up