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CHAPTER ONE

She dreamed of death

The dirty red light frory heart Its flash turned the pools of blood glistening on the floor fro the filthy little roo it to shadows

She huddled in the corner, a bony girl with a tangle of brown hair and huge eyes the color of the whiskey he drank when he had the lassy and blind and her skin the waxy gray of corpses She stared, hypnotized by the blinking light, the way it blipped over the walls, over the floor Over him

Hi in his own blood

Small, feral sounds rumbled in her throat

And in her hand the knife was gored to the hilt

He was dead She kneas dead She could s out of him to foul the air She was a child, only a child, but the aninized the scent -- both feared it and rejoiced over it

Her ar where he'd snapped the bone The place between her legs burned and wept from this last rape Not all the blood splattered over her was his

But he was dead It was over She was safe

Then he turned his head, slowly, like a puppet on a string, and pain washed away in terror

His eyes fixed on hers as she babbled, scrambled back deeper into the corner where she'd crawled to escape hirinned