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They edged the board closer, David squinting through a drifting wall of smoke "It looks likeshoes"

Tally blinked He was right She lowered the board and ju to the spot

Tally looked around in amazement Around her were scattered twenty or so pairs of shoes, in all sizes

She fell to her knees to look closer The laces were still tied, as if the shoes had been kicked off by people whose hands were bound behind thenized me," she murmured

"What?"

Tally turned to David "When I escaped, I flew right over the pen Croy must have seen it was me He knew I didn’t have shoes We joked about it"

She i one last gesture of defiance Croy would have kicked his own shoes off, then whispered to whomever he could: "Tally’s free, and barefoot" They’d left her with a score of pairs to pick from, the only way they could help the one Smokey they’d seen escape

"They knew I’d come back here" Her voice faltered What they didn’t knoho had betrayed theht size, with grippy soles for hoverboarding, and pulled theiven her

Ju back on the board, Tally had to hide the pained expression on her face This is what it would be like froesture of kindness from her victio"

The hoverpath wound through the s camp, over what streets re building, now little e of blackened rubble, David pulled the board to a halt

"I was afraid of this"

Tally tried to picture what had stood there Her knowledge of the Smoke had evaporated, the fanizable sprawl of ash and ees fluttering in the wind The library

"They didn’t take the books out before they," she cried "But why?"

"They don’t want people to knohat it was like before the operation They want to keep you hating yourselves Otherwise, it’s too easy to get used to ugly faces,normal faces"

Tally turned around to look into David’s eyes "Some of them, anyway"

He sht crossed her azines Maybe he escaped"

"On foot?" David sounded dubious

"I hope so" She leaned, and the board slid toward the edge of town

A blotch of pepper still ht the Special Tally ju to remember exactly where the Boss had escaped into the forest

"If he got away, he one," David said

Tally pushed her way into the brush, looking for signs of a struggle The h the leaves, and a trail of broken bushes cut into the forest The Boss had been none too graceful, leaving a path like a charging elephant

She found the duffel bag half-hidden, shoved under ait open, Tally saw that the ly wrapped in its own plastic cover She slung the bag over her shoulder, glad to have salvaged so from the library, a small victory over Dr Cable

A moment later, she found the Boss

He lay on his back, his head turned at an angle that Tally instantly kneas utterly wrong His fingers were clenched, the nails bloody froht to distract the Orseen that she’d reached the forest too

She remembered what the Specials had said to her more than once:We don’t want to hurt you, but ill if we have to

They’d been serious They alere

She stu fro?" David asked

She didn’t answer

He saw the expression on her face and jumped down froht him They killed him"

David looked at her, his mouth open He took a slow breath "Coo"

She blinked The sunlight see, twisted out of shape, like the Boss’s neck As if the world had beco the trees "Where?" she o to my parents’ house"