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David’s one eye wandered up until it found Will David senuine slier with the smile, but it was irrepressible Even after such a terrible beating, David was still defiant It filled Will with pride, and he smiled back A calm came over him

"Well?" Sam shouted for the crowd’s benefit "What’s the hs echoed across the quad

Will flipped Saed him He was upon Will in seconds, and he buried his fist in Will’s stomach Will cruh him With Will bent over, Sam tried to knee him in his face It connected with his chest instead Will fell backward, and his feet scurried to stay underneath his weight He barely stayed upright before Saround and landed on his ass bone

No tussle at a drop, no scuffle in the halls had ever hurt like this Will couldn’t tell which pain belonged to what He was losing control Will struggled to breathe Things were happening too fast Saed off Sarabbed him by the shirt with one hand His other hand was a fist He drew it back, winding up to deliver the final strike

Then, Will seized

His body stiffened His eyes rolled back in his head His feet kicked out fro there, rigid and convulsing Sa and knocked his head against the ground

There were laughs in the crowd There were just asvision, Will saw Sa above him, colossal Drool fell out of Will’s otten plenty of practice from all the times he faked seizures to mess with David

He raround Will pulled hihter stopped Silence Will wound his leg back and soccer-kicked Saain Sa Varsity

"Listen up, hungry people!" Will shouted "All of Varsity’s fighters are here No one is guarding the food!" The gaunt faces in the crowd turned in the direction of the gys to all of us!"

The crowd barked and whistled and hollered in agree all around him

"GO GET IT!"

It was a stampede The Freaks, the Nerds, the Sluts, the Skaters, and the Geeks, all dashed toward the gy to catch the last train out of hell Varsity tried to block thereat

Varsity’s for David cast hi his crotch For a second he looked at Will like he was about to kill him But he stumbled backward, suddenly scared Will was peripherally aware of so in a se Sam down Sam yelled out of frustration and ran after the riotous hts died The quad was overtaken by darkness

David was a luround twenty feet away He was faced away fro Will limped over to David as fast as he could He dropped to his knees and turned David over tenderly He cradled David’s head in his hands

His face looked like a misshapen tomato

"Dave? Are you okay?"

David s," David said "I thought I just saw you kick Sahed so hard it made him cry

39

LUCY AND VIOLENT WALKED TOWARD THE ruins by the light of Violent’s torch Violent had retrieved it from one of the hout the school A vicious stench hit Lucy’s nose

"Teachers," Violent said She handed Lucy the torch She unhooked a shiv fro Lucy’s shoulder for leverage, Violent reached down and grabbed the hem of Lucy’s dress She stabbed it with the shiv

"Hey, what are you doing?"

"We need soet worse"

With a solid yank, Violent ripped off the bottom six inches of Lucy’s dress

"You could’ve used your shirt or so," Lucy said

"Yeah, we coulda"

Violent tore the resulting strip of fabric in two, handing one piece to Lucy and tying the other around her nose and mouth Lucy did the same Violent put her arm around Lucy

Violent liht

"How do you think the fight turned out?" Violent said

Lucy thought back to the announcement they’d heard over the loudspeaker She didn’t understand it, but she had to trust Will had a plan It was blind faith, but it was the only thing keeping her going David had to be alive, and there had to be a way out of the school, there simply had to be

"I think Will beat Sam, and we’ll see the?"