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"Well, it’s a lousy deal, if you ask er "I’ve heard enough These people are collaborators They’re like pets"

Soh his tone, when he continued, was still almost eerily cal I haven’t said to myself a thousand times Mira was not e if he had lived When he was chosen, hiswith hiht Olson had sent his own son to die

"Why Jude?"

Olson shrugged "It’s who he is There has always been Jude" He shook his head again "I would explain it better if I could But none of that matters now What’s past is past, or so I tellfor this day for years To get away, to live our lives as people But unless we kill Babcock, he’ll call the Many With these weapons we have a chance"

"So who’s in the ring?"

"We don’t know Jude wouldn’t say"

"What about Maus and Amy?"

"I told you, we don’t knohere they are"

Peter turned to Alicia "It’s them"

"We don’t know that," Olson objected "And Mausanant Jude wouldn’t choose her"

Peter was unconvinced EvenOlson had said

"Is there another way inside?"

That hen Olson explained the layout, the ducts above the catwalks, kneeling on the floor of the garage to draw in the dust "It will be pitch-black for the first part," he warned, as hisout rifles and pistols from the cache taken from the Humvee "Just follow the sound of the crowd"

"How manyhis pockets withby an open crate, Caleb and Sara were both loading rifles

"The seven of us, plus another four in the balconies"

"That’s all?" Peter said The odds, not good to begin with, were suddenly ht "How ht you understood He has all of the, Olson continued: "Babcock is stronger than any viral you’ve ever seen, and the croon’t be on our side Killing him won’t be easy"

"Has anyone ever tried?"

"Once" He hestitated "A so"

Peter was about to ask what had happened But he heard, in Olson’s silence, the answer to this question

"You should have told us"

A look of abject resignation came into Olson’s face Peter realized that what he was seeing there was a burden far heavier than sorrow or grief It was guilt

"Peter What would you have said?"

He didn’t answer; he didn’t know Probably he wouldn’t have believed him He wasn’t sure what he believed now But A, of that he was certain; he felt it in his bones He popped the clip from his pistol to blow it clean, then reinserted it into the handle and pulled the slide He looked toward Alicia, who nodded Everyone was ready

"We’re here to get our friends," he said to Olson "The rest is up to you"

But Olson shook his head "Make no hts are the same Babcock has to die Unless we kill him, he’ll call the Many The train will er uncoiling inside him And he stretched out his :

It is ti Soaring over the desert floor in leaps and bounds, the great joyful hunger coursing through hi them that you should live in this way and no other

There was blood in the air He could sh hi sweetness And then his Best and Special, his Jude, who dreamed the drea, whosethe ones of blood that Babcock would drink and be filled by it

He le jump

I am here

I aasps of the crowd Around him, the fires blazed up Behind the flaap he saw the beasts approaching, driven on the whip, their eyes fearless and unknowing, and the hunger lifted hi and ripping, first one and then the other, each in its turn, a glorious fulfillment

We are Babcock

He could hear the voices now The chant of the crowds in their cages, behind the ring of fla on the catwalk above, leading thethe in fierce unison: "in this way and no other!"

A pair of figures appeared in the gap They stumbled forward, pushed by ain behind the

The crowd roared