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JACOB JUST KEPT walking toward me

Finally, my face hovered inches frorease on his breath His face was covered with stubble, the skin on his nose peppered with gin blossoms

I lashed out and grabbed his gun hand and twisted it hard until the weapon dropped Jacob had always been smaller, but he could whip me at least half the ti, and not afraid to fight dirty I reot together in a schoolyard scrap

“Goddamn you, Ben!” he yelled Then I saw he had a knife I took his arth It felt as if we stayed that way for hours, grappling, neither of us gaining an advantage, the razor edge suspended between us My arms ached

I looked Jacob in the eye “Jacob!” I yelled at hioddamn it! It’s Ben!”

But his eyes were bulging with rage, one hand now grippingcloser with the blade If he killed me here, amid all this noise and insanity, no one would ever knoas Jacob who’d done the deed I would just be Ben Corbett, another victim in another senseless attack in a small town

And then I knew that was not hoas going to happen I was not going to die here, at the hand of Jacob Gill That knowledge gave h to jerk his arm sideways and break his hold on the knife

I kicked Jacob hard and wrenched the knife away I got on hi on his chest with the blade an inch froht then, but instead I poked the knife into his Adah to draw blood Jacob’s eyes widened God, I knew those eyes

“You gonna kill me, Ben?” he said

I flung the knife away and heard it crash into the bushes beside the sot up There were no words for this So I turned and walked away from the man who had once been my best friend in the world

Chapter 136

WHILE I WAS FIGHTING JACOB, the rest of the fracas had begun to die down

I watched Saeneral store, jump off his horse and run away into the darkness I sao other White Raiders flee in his wake, one of the badly

“We’ll coers,” one yelled as he ran

“You ain’t won You just think you won,” another called