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Her expression was unreadable, but suddenlyMaggie was nervous.
"What are you doing?"
The red-haired girl gave a strange little smile andpulled the shirt up,
exposing her back.
Somebody had been playing tic-tac-toe there.
The lines were cut into the flesh of her back, thescars shiny pink and only
half healed. In thesquares were Xs and Os, raggedy-looking andbrighter red
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because for the most part they'd beenburned in. A few looked cut, like the
strategic posi tion in the middle which would have been takenfirst. Somebody
had won, three diagonal Xs, and had run a burn-line through the winning marks.
Maggie gasped. She kept on gasping. She started to hyperventilate, and then
she started to faint.
The world seemed to recede from her, narrowingdown to a one-dimensional point
of light. But therewasn't room to actually fall over. As she slumpedbackward,
she hit the wall of the cart. The worldwobbled and came back, shiny at the
edges.
"Oh, God," Maggie said. "Oh,God.They did thisto you? How could theydothat?"
"This is nothing," the girl said. "They did it whenI escaped the first time.
And now I escaped againand I got caught again. This time they'll do something
worse." She let go of her top and it slid downto cover her back again.
Maggie tried to swallow, but her mouth was toodry. Before she knew she was
moving, she foundherself grabbing the girl's arms from behind.
"What's your name?"
"Who ca-"
"What's your name?"
The red-haired girl gave her a peculiar look over her shoulder. Then her arms
lifted slightly under Maggie's handsas she shrugged.
"Jeanne."
"Jeanne. It's got to stop," Maggie said. "We can't let themdothings like that
to people. And we'vegot to get away. If they're already going to punishyou for
escaping, what difference does it make ifyou try it again now? Don't you
think?"
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Maggie liked the way that sounded, calm andcompetent and logical. The swift
decision for ac tion didn't blot out the memory of what she'd just seen, but
it made the whole situation more bearable. She'd witnessed an injustice and
she wasgoing to do something about it. That simple. Something so wicked had to
be fixed,now.
She started to cry.
Jeanne turned around, gave her a long, assessinglook. P.J. was crying, too,
very quietly.
Maggie found her tears running out. Theyweren't doing any good. When she
stopped, Jeanne was still watching her with narrowed eyes.
"So you're going to take on the whole NightWorld alone," she said.
Maggie wiped her cheeks with her hands. "No,just the ones here."
Jeanne stared at her another moment, thenstraightened abruptly. "Okay," she
said, so suddenly that Maggie was startled. "Let's do it. If wecan figure out
a way."
Maggie looked toward the back of the cart."What about those doors?"
"Locked and chained on the outside. It's no goodkicking them."
From nowhere, an image came into Maggie'smind. Herself and Miles in a rowboat
on Lake Chelan with their grandfather. Deliberately rocking it while their
grandfather yelled and fumed.
"What if we all throw our weight from one sideto the other? If we could turn
the cart over, maybethe doors would pop open. You know how armored cars always
seem to do that. Or maybe it wouldsmash one of the walls enough that we could
getout."
"And maybe we'd go falling straight down a ravine," Jeanne said acidly. "It's
a long way down to the valley, and this road is narrow." But there wasa
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certain unwilling respect in her eyes. "I guess wecould try it when we get to
a meadow," she said slowly. "I know a place. I'm not saying it would work; it
probably won't. But ..."
"We havetotry," Maggie said. She was lookingstraight at Jeanne. For a moment
there was something between them-a flash of understanding andagreement. A
bond.
"Once we got out, we'd have to run," Jeanne said,still slowly. "They're
sitting upthere." She pointedto the ceiling at the front of the cart, above
Maggie's head. "This thing is like a stagecoach, okay?There's a seat up there,
and the two guys are onit. Professional slave traders are tough. They're not
going to want us to get away."
"They might get smashed up when we roll over,"Maggie said.
Jeanne shook her head sharply. "Night People arestrong. It takes a lot more
than thattokill them.We'd havetojust take off and head for the forest
as fast as we could. Our only chance is to get lostin the trees-and hope they
can't track us." [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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