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She tucked her feet, spun around incontrol rods as hard as she could

It wasn’t elegant She cleared the lip of the pool and skidded across the floor

But she had the remote She stared at it

Nohat?

“Sam? Sam?”

Sa She leapt to him, rolled him over, and only then saw to her horror the mess that Drake had made of him

“Sam?” It came out as a sob

“Red button,” Saasp

THIRTY-EIGHT

53 MINUTES

EDILIO’S HANDS WERE gripping the wheel so tightly, his fingers hite Dekka noticed

He was gritting his teeth and then forcing himself to unclench in an unsuccessful effort to relax Dekka noticed that, too

She didn’t say anything about it Dekka was not a talkative girl Dekka’s world was inside her, not locked up but kept private Her hopes were her own Her emotions were her business, no one else’s Her fears…Well, nothing good ever ca fear

The kids in Perdido Beach, like the kids at Coates before that, tended to read Dekka’s self-contained attitude as hostile She wasn’t hostile But at Coates, that du just a little scary was a good thing

At Coates, Dekka had belonged to no clique She’d had no friends She didn’t rades up, followed most of the rules, kept her nose out of other people’s business