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"The thing’s gonna have the shits all over the place!" Gates said
The hog farted, and the slilet popped out It stayed there aits let’s slick sausagelike body slid out It landed on the concrete floor Its flesh was pinkish where it wasn’t black, and the pink skin looked see-through, like raw chicken breast Its snout was short and stubby, and it writhed on its side
Gates had reached out and grabbed Will’s arm for impact Both of them stared with their let’s little sli roared It was a horrible sound somewhere between a lion’s roar and a volcano with bronchitis Will flinched His flashlight bea, he nearly fell over
She was looking right at hih over that she could stare at Will out of the corner of her right eye She had eyelashes Soft brown ones And the white of her eye was prole, a crescent of brilliant white It made her eye look entirely huht of it ot all the way around the corner to the next hall before Gates caught up with hi
"Ho-lee shit …," Gates said, "have you ever seen anything like that before?!"
Will shook his head He was trying to forget about it It all see in here Those little things didn’t deserve to be born in this place But they were here because of Gates and Will
"We gotta go back," Gates said
"What, why?"
"Those are hed, and Will recoiled "I betcha there’s like eight of ’es Attack hogs! How badass would that be? You s!"
"Just leave ’e’s not here for your amusement, okay?" Will said
Gates’s face drooped like he’d been the birthday boy and Will had just popped all his balloons Will didn’t care though, he’d had enough Gates for today All this partying and thrill-seeking, it wasn’t working anymore He felt like he needed to sleep for a week just to think straight again
"Fine," Gates said "Be a little bitch about it"
"Whatever dude, I’ back"
Will turned and strolled down the hall He didn’t hear anything frolets, Will thought And that sounded like what he was going to do, but then Gates piped up again, and Will died a little inside
"Wait up, we’ll go together"
31
LUCY WAS GOING TO SLEEP WITH BART
Lucy and Violent walked up the stairs to the library The only noise was the jangle of Violent’s necklace made of sharpened cafeteria cutlery They’d done this walk before, under crazier circu by thein the library
Lucy didn’t anticipate Bart to be some rape-crazy maniac, but Violent’s intention had always been that Lucy feel over-prepared for the moment And Lucy was definitely that She had five condoms so Bart couldn’t pull any la her scary voice every et physical if he tried anything she didn’t like And if he did, Lips taught her eight different ways to hit a guy in the nuts Raunch gave her a pouch of salt in her pocket to throw in Bart’s eyes if things got out of hand And if worse came to worse, she had her blade to cut him from neck to nuts, to use one of Violent’sme off at the mall for the first time," Lucy said "You really didn’t have to walk me"
"I didn’t have to, I wanted to"
It made Lucy smile a little
"Really?"
Violent nodded
"Thanks," Lucy said, and they walked the last flight up in silence
"I heard soe," Violent said when they reached the third floor
Lucy blushed "That’ll never happen again--"
"That’s not what I’ I heard he said he loved you?"
"Yeah, he said that So?" Lucy said She could feel her stoht about that day Will had a bad habit of hitting her with huge emotional bombshells that put her on the defensive She resented how vulnerable he could make her feel
"Do you love hi these words out of Violent
"Is this another test?" Lucy said "I can never tell when you’refrom experience, love is scary shit I ran from it, and I don’t feel any better for it I wouldn’t want you to make the sahtened as she did, and she faced the door ahead "Now, are you done being a pain in o find a couch soht?"
Lucy held on to her warrior face until Violent sht, pincushion …," she said as she headed back down the hall "Go get yourself stuck"
The fire door opened Belinda stood in the doorway She wore a gray sweater and khakis, her curly hair was black now and shoulder length She’d put a little weight back on, but it suited her