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She doesn’t et closer I see that a boy is holding on to her hand, the pair of theh the crowd, and when I reach her I can see that she’s treone pale and her eyes are ri too

"Aot his ar"Coh he has told aze

The crowd has gathered here to see soh the crowd I can see a boy who has fallen on the cobbles Soh, because I’m already frozen still when I see the university crest on the rich purple vest, and I realize that he hasn’t simply fallen down

His eyes are like the eyes of the trout my mother buys at the market on weekends Peel back the paper and there are those eyes, bloodshot, glassy, and lifeless

His dark skin is glistening wet, clothes plastered to his shape like a body e to hi to breathe

The crowd has parted to make room for the sfor us to get back Soasp, and finally she looks at me There’s still that defiance in her eyes, but there’s fear too, because she’s a child and her parents don’t notice her absence and she needs sorab her hand and she followson to Amy’s other hand follows too

In the lobby of , nobody knohat has happened yet It’s a different world in here We file into the stairwell and up the stairs One step and then the next, Imore Breaths are hard to co hard "And Daphne" Step "And now Quince"

"Stop," the boy says Amy breaks away from me and sits on a step and buries her forehead in her knees

We all stop to look at her

The boy sits beside her and asks if she needs her pill She shakes her head

"I need off," she whispers, to no one in particular "I need to get off this place"

"You have to take one," the boy says He fu of yellow pills "You’ll have a fit"

"Get Alice," I whisper to Basil

I sit next to A the pill the boy holds out, she looks atto kill every last one of us We’re all going to die and I’m one of the people to blarabs her chin, forces the pill into her oes down She touches her throat and growls at hiing you anywhere with me," she says "You’re just like them I can’t believe I’ll have toto be that Internment drops out of the sky before that day co, it may come true" He hardly seems wounded He’s done what the doctor has advised him to do Jumpers need their ht? Does she have so to do hat I just saw? Does Judas? I hid him in the lake I saved him from arrest Am I involved in whatever this is?

One story up, the door bursts open and footsteps are pounding Alice has taken off her heels and she runs barefooted down the steps "Coent way she uses when Lex crashes to the ground overcoet you kids upstairs"

She has to tug Ains to move

By the time I’veis happening toto re at the stars, not blinking as patrol his shadow

My knees are shaking and I sit in a kitchen chair before I fall instead Basil stands behindmy shoulders

Alice leans on the table before me, tilts my chin so that our eyes meet "Did you see the body?" she asks