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“Ava,” I whisper again The feet are closer I pull Liam to the side and scraround at the top of a mound and slide halfway down the other side I tell Liam to be quiet and crawl a little back up the mound to look at the path I fled A tide of Gale I know all of the them, so I stay silent and hunkered down in the shadow of the rubbish But as the sounds of their footfalls fade into the night, a terrible fear of being left behind fills me I’li near the treeline I want to shout at li and baring its pale teeth My kinsle coBlades

I flee the screah as I run up adown Crash hard into the refuse, barely shielding Liaainst my chest The sweet scent of rotawful A rat skitters acrossfrom the wound Insects throb aroundHeat fro spot and huddle low underneath the re in fear, small body racked by silent sobs I set hi him Men rove near the path now, close to where we entered the duhts slash at the darkness

I flatten er to Liaoes overhead The hten his ju out of the hood Water froe as the men speak to each other The voices are like my father?

??s, like my ues sound cruel, all hard and dark and sharp-edged How can Reds do this to their own kind? One coh for me to see his painted hands It’s not paint that covers the

The flashlights st themselves I’m left with fear Where is my sister? Was she found? I pray she pressed on to the boats I don’t knohat to do, where to go, so I hunch there and peer out at the dark shadowsof flames from inside the camp, I catch their faces They’re boys So scraps of beard on chins Lean and glea to each other, they peer into trash heaps, bent like hungry wild dogs

Liaether In per ht He tre I had the power to take him from here, to stop this

“You’re so brave, Liam,” I whisper “Goblin brave, you are”

“Where is Ma?”

“We’re going to meet her She’ll be at the boats, I reckon Since you’ve been so brave, I’ve got so for you” I reach into ive to him I press it into his hand

“Thank you,” he says As he eats, I hear whispers in the darkness near to us I ease up and see several sets of eyes catching ht fro A little girl raises her hand to wave to me I wave back

We’re not alone

We can survive this Soo to her soon, I just need a breath But then I smell the fire

IT BEGINS AT THE EDGE of the dumpsite near the watchtower and soon spreads as ht s place The air dances and writhes as tongues of ss Lia spot I run fro Can barely breathe Can’t see, eyes streas sliced byin mire up to the knee

Then, faintly, I hear the voice of a young girl calling toSo sentle And then I see her in the chaos of ash, waving her arm frantically for me to find my feet

I stumble up and follow her voice to find a seaulp down clean air There’s others running ahead of us Twenty, forty e, away fro boats are e of the duoing toward the boats