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Sorabbed Mark by the shirt and yanked him to the side He was just about to rear back with his weapon when he realized it was Alec

"You have a knack for trying to get yourself killed!" the man yelled

"I didn’t knohere to start or what to do!" Mark countered

"Soo of Mark’s shirt and they took off in the same direction--up the slope, away from the fire But there were people all around the his torch in front of him as he ran But then so and landed facefirst in the dirt An instant later he heard a thump and a cry of pain and the body flew off of hi his foot down from a kick

"Get up!" the man yelled But the last word had barely coround by a rabbed the torch he’d dropped, ran to where Alec was struggling with his two attackers He drove the burning point into the back of theoff Alec Then Mark hauled the log back and swung it as hard as he could, connecting with the side of the wo as she toppled off Alec

Mark reached down, grabbed Alec’s hand, helped him to his feet

More people rushed in on theetting all control and just handing himself over to instinct and adrenaline He smacked a ht in the nose He drove it forward at a ht for him, thrust its tip into his stonited

Alec was next to Mark He was punching and kicking and elbowing and picking people up, tossing thee At so both hands to fight off the attackers The man was every bit the soldier he’d once been

An arm slipped around Mark’s neck fro the breath out of hi in both hands, then hammered it backward in desperation Heit with every bit of strength he could s He felt the solid blow as he connected, heard the crunch of cartilage and the man’s screarip

Mark fell to the ground, sucking the life back into his lungs Alec was bent over to catch his own breath They had a slight reprieve, but one look showed thattheir way

Alec helped Mark to his feet They turned up slope and half crawled, half climbed into the thicker cover of the trees Mark heard the cries of pursuit behind the He and Alec hit a spot that was a little flatter and burst into an all-out sprint And that hen Mark spotted it, about a hundred yards ahead of theulfed in flames

Between them and their camp Where they’d left Trina, Lana and Deedee

CHAPTER 27

The trees and shrubbery of the woods were already half dead--a tinderbox ready to light up It had been a feeeks since the last torrential storrown since the flares was parched Misty tendrils of sround at their feet, and the sonna spread like wildfire," Alec shouted

Mark thought he was joking, but the rave "It is a wildfire!" he shouted back

But Alec had already started running straight toward the distant flarown in thethey had to --they had to get to Trina and Deedee and Lana The two of the past thick briars, dodging trees and low-hanging li out froed pursuers understood it was crazy to head into a forest fire But Mark could hear lingering catcalls and whistles haunting the woods

He ran on, throwing all of his focus intoand spitting and roaring A wind had picked up, fanning the flah the canopy, throwing sparks everywhere until it finally hit the ground Alec continued to head for the heart of the blazing section of woods, not slowing down, as if his one final goal was to run to a fiery death and end it all

"Shouldn’t we veer off?" Mark shouted up to hi back and Mark had to strain to hear hies so we know exactly where we are! And maybe lose those psychos while we’re at it!"

"Do you know exactly where we are?" Mark wasas quickly as he could, but the soldier still stayed ahead of him

"Yes" came the curt reply But he pulled out his corown thicker,it hard to breathe The fire took up Mark’s entire field of vision now, the flaed out in waves, washing across Mark’s face only to be sucked away by the wind gusting froot closer, now only a few dozen feet away, the waves didn’t matter anymore The temperature had skyrocketed; Mark was drenched in sweat and was so hot it felt as if his skin ht’ve lost his marbles after all, theparallel to the expanding line of fla his life in the former soldier’s hands for the umpteenth time since they’d met in the subtrans tunnels

Intense heat pulsed across his body as he ran; sweltering wind froht His clothes were so hot against his skin, they felt as if they h they were drenched in sweat His hair was dry, though, any ined the follicles on the cusp of drying out and falling to the ground like pine needles And his eyes They felt as if they were being baked in their sockets; he squinted and rubbed the

He ran on,they’d round the fire and break away from it before he died of thirst and heat exhaustion The sound of the fla he heard now, a constant roar like the ignited thrusters of a thousand Bergs

Suddenly, a woht just ahead, the fire a glint in the ht, expecting the woman to turn and attack them But she ran across their path in front of Alec--if she’d been a little slower he would’ve plowed right over her body The woh the undergrowth She tripped and fell, got back up And then she disappeared in the wall of fla

Finally they reached the edge of the expanding inferno, the line of it far more distinct than Mark would’ve expected They kept the saood, sent a burst of fresh adrenaline through his body, to be turning toward the left, turning toward Trina and the others again Mark ran even harder, alht up to him Then they were side by side

Every breath was a chore for Mark The air scalded his throat as it went down, and the set away … fro into a long fit of coughing He quickly glanced at the coripped in the palm of his hand "Almost … there"

Soon they rounded another corner of the ht, heading away fro that he was completely disoriented now He didn’t think it was tiain, but he trusted the old oing faster than ever Mark could feel the fresher air with every breath he sucked into his lungs The voluh that he could hear the crunching sounds of his footsteps again