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Edilio did not find Hunter Instead he found Zil and a crowd of a dozen kids They in turn had found Hunter They had Hunter cornered on the porch of the house Astrid and Mother Mary shared

Why Hunter had gone there, Edilio could guess: Astrid would be calm and reasonable She would shelter him, for a while at least

The scene, however, was anything but calown Her blond hair was untethered and wild She stood at the top of the porch stairs and stabbed an angry finger at Zil

Hunter was behind Astrid Not exactly cowering, but not getting out in front of her, either

Zil and his friends, who—Edilio noted with a sinking heart—were all nor around, glad of an excuse to get out and run around town in the ht

Most had some kind of weapon or other, baseball bats, tire irons One, Edilio noted griun, Hank, had been a quiet kid back in the old days He didn’t look quiet now

Edilio pulled his Jeep up to the curb He hadn’t had time to round up any of his own people, he was alone All eyes registered Edilio’s arrival, but no one stopped yelling

“He’s a

“What do you want to do? Lynch him?” Astrid demanded

That stopped the flow for a second as kids tried to figure out what “lynch” meant But Zil quickly recovered

“I saw him do it He used his powers to kill Harry”

“I was trying to stop you fro my head in!” Hunter shouted

“You’re a lying mutant freak!”

“They think they can do anything they want,” another voice shouted

Astrid said, as cal her voice to be heard, “We are not going down that path, people, dividing up between freaks and normals”