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Sara sat on the girl’s cot and opened her kit to reveal what she’d brought: flatbread, an apple, a wedge of cheese

"Hungry?"

The girl ate quickly, polishing off herbites: first the bread and then the cheese, which she sniffed suspiciously before tasting, and finally the apple, right down to the core When it was gone she wiped her face with the back of her hand, suess that settles it," Sara declared "Not the best table h I’own, drawing it aside to expose the girl’s bandaged shoulder while leaving the rest covered With a pair of shears, she snipped the cloth away Where the bolt had entered, tearing skin and muscle and bone, all that remained was a small pink depression It reminded Peter of a baby’s flesh, that soft freshness of new skin

"Allthose stitches in, I guess Turn around so I can do the back"

The girl co on the cot; Sara took up a pair of tweezers and began pulling the sutures fro them one by one into a metal basin

"Does anybody else know about this?" Peter asked

"About the way she heals? I don’t think so"

"So nobody else has been in to see her since this afternoon"

She clipped off the final stitch "Just Jiown back over her shoulder "There you go, all set"

"Jimmy? What did he want?"

"I don’t know, I assume Sanjay sent him" Sara shifted on the cot to look at Peter "It was kind of strange, actually I never heard hi in the doorith thislook on his face"

"A look?"

"I don’t kno else to describe it I told hi, and then he left But that was hours ago"

Peter felt suddenly rattled What did she mean by a look? What had Jiain "Okay, your turn"

Peter was about to say, My turn for what? But then he re since worn down to a filthy rag He guessed the cut was healed by now; he hadn’t looked at it for days

He sat on one of the empty cots Sara took a place beside hi a sour odor of stale skin

"Did you bother keeping this thing clean at all?"

"I guess I forgot"

She took hold of the arirl’s eyes, intently watching theged the first suture "Ow, be careful"

"It would help if you held still" Sara repositioned his ar at hihthouse on the way back fro him"

"Elton? Is that so smart?"

"Don’t worry, we can trust hilance "Funny hoe’re all talking like that, all of a sudden Who can trust who" She gave his ar his hand into a fist, he pumped his arm back and forth "Good as new"

Sara had stepped to the pu her hands on a rag

"Honestly, Peter Sometimes I worry about you"

He realized that he was still holding his arm away from his body He aardly dropped it to his side "I’ That one night after theshine; so had come over him, a sudden, almost physical loneliness, but then, the uilt It wasn’t that he didn’t like her, nor that she had failed to ht, what she’d said on the roof of the power station Sara was the obvious choice for hi he didn’t There was a part of hih to deserve her, to offer in kind what she was offering hi to go look in on Hightop Make sure somebody remembered to feed him"

"What do you hear?"

"I’ve been inside all day You probably know ed "I expect people are divided There’s going to be a lot of anger about last night The best thing would be for a little ti with him Lish will never stand for it"

Sara see it on her shoulder again, not looking at hiet it, Peter Lish is notwith her departure Well, Peter thought, what to make of that? It was true that Alicia and Sara couldn’t have been twoMaybe it was simply the case that Sara blamed Alicia for Teacher’s death, which would hit Sara harder than most It was sort of obvious, now that Peter considered it He didn’t knohy he hadn’t thought of it before

The girl was looking at hiave a quizzical lift of her eyebrows: What’s wrong?

"She’s just upset is all," he said "Worried"

He thought it again: How strange it all was It was as if he could hear her words in his head Anybody who saw hi like this would think he’d lost hishe hadn’t expected at all Aroused by some unknown purpose, she rose from her cot and moved to the sink She primed the pump, three hard pushes, and filled a basin ater This she carried back to the cot where Peter sat She placed it on the dusty floor at his feet and took a cloth fro at the waist to dip the rag in the water Then she took his aran to dab the place where the sutures had been with theover his daainst her open hand to increase the surface area Her gesture wasbut a s the dirt and desiccated skin away An ordinary kindness, to wash his skin, and yet co: it was full of sensation, of athered around it, the feel of the washcloth on his arm, her breath on his skin, like ain, a boy who had fallen and scraped his elbow and run inside, and she ashing him clean