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I’ everything I needed to hear, when Elias co into the courtyard His eyes are wide and he barely catches his breath before panting out: "Catcher came back froht They’ll be at the village anydown the fences--we have to go now!"

Chapter 39

I jump to my feet, the serenity of the moment with my mother now shattered Already I hear the ht air We have to stay ahead of the as I try to remember e’ll need

Odys skitters into the courtyard, his hackles raised and his teeth bared He paces, a lol ru overthat I don’t Hears so

And that’s when I see the around the reh the darkness toward us

"Harry,"back into the house

My eyes widen; Elias curses and grabsover his shoulder and shoves h the village, dodging shadows and listening for thebut all I can do is run Follow Elias as he races toward a gate I didn’t see before at the far end of the village

"My

"She’ll be okay," he yells back, and I stuh what oncearound stray stalks of corn that whip at ht and all I can do is put one foot in front of the other Our breaths, the sound of our feet hitting the ground, are e It makes me afraid that if the Mudo are behind us--if there was a Breaker--ouldn’t even hear it co Terrified that the next step could leadto seebut shadows trailing us as we run along the fence until we find the other gate

Elias fu it al screaht too quiet, too empty until the Mudo out in the Forest sense our presence and rise, shuffling toward us They sla as they try to reach for us

Finally the gate creaks open and we push through, sla back into the village Behind us the trees rustle, branches swaying like the sound of waves on the shore On either side of us Mudo pound against the fences In front of us, nothing

Eventually I can see shapesinto the cracks, slowly oozing through the open spaces

It isn’t fair to have finally realized where I’m from and then to have to leave it so soon I have memories lost here that I need to find! This is e alked through, the burned-out husk of what used to be a thriving world How es like that are there in the Forest? Howbeyond?

Figures run in the distance, too ers around the gate, pressing against it, wishing I could go back and grab theh to safety

Finally I see s as she runs toward us In her ares clutched against her chest It throws off her gait and she trips, al

Someone cuts toward her and for a moment I think it must be Harry I realize too late that it can’t be, that the person is too tall, too thin, too fast There’s no way my mother can see hiht of theher face for an instant She smiles, the curve of her cheek soft and sirl I see her aswhat her future holds And then the round She tries to keep the book in her hands She falls aardly, legs sprawling And when her back hits the ground the pages explode around her

I’ My h I don’t knoords I screae and terror and horror

The man is a Recruiter, his black shirt rolled up at the sleeves and dusted with red dirt He stands over my mother, a knife in his hand She tries to roll from underneath hi on her skirt and trapping her

Paper floats around theht exists It o for just this moment and we could all float away

I raise hter If I could run faster, if I could run harder, I could get there I could stop the Recruiter with the knife

He doesn’t even care that I come at him He doesn’t even crouch and prepare for the iin to crowd in the periphery of ht, my mother Too ure sprinting out of the distance and neither does the Recruiter One , entwined with the pages of her book As if he’s of no more substance than they are

Sound hits me all at once The moans, the screams, the shouts of e and fear She grasps for the pages but he grabs her and pulls her to hiround, his teeth bared and back arched None of the toward theles to stand back up and Odys growls even louder

Harry circles her wrist with his hand He’s stronger than she is I don’t understand what’s going on, why she’s resisting My body screarab her and pull her back

"It’s e are!" she yells again, struggling against Harry "It’s our history!"

"Those stories aren’t as i her to the fence I watch as they struggle; then finally together they sprint pastme in the shadows, Odys at their heels I look back at the cover of the book on the ground a few yards away froers to his feet There are still pages stuck inside, relance at the fence, at the Mudo swar toward us