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"Then let’s help the to the end of Melina’s bed I drew the needle carefully from her foot A tiny drop of black liquid leaked from the wound After a moment her face relaxed

"Hello," said a voice from elsewhere in the roo shackles He was curled in a ball and rocking, and he laughed without s, his eyes like shards of black ice

It was his cold laugh we’d heard echoing through the roo to her knees in front of hiht here!" the man said

"No, the others," I said "There have to beout in a little puff of frost--which was strange, because it wasn’t cold in the roo on top of the my temper "We don’t have time for this!"

"Please," Eed "We’re peculiars We’re here to help you, but first we have to find our y are they in?"

He repeated hi On top of them" His words blew a steady strearab him and shake hi behind us I turned around and noticed, caed in the tile floor, a handle--and the square outline of a hatch door

On top of them Literally

We ran to the handle, turned it, and pulled up a door in the floor A set of metal stairs spiraled into darkness

"Hoe know you’re telling the truth?" Eh

"Let’s give it a try," I said There was, after all, nowhere else to go but back the e’d co from the stairs below to the beds around us I knehat she was thinking, but she didn’t even ask--there was no ti everyone We’d have to come back for the to come back to

Emma lowered herself onto the metal stairs and descended into the dark hole in the floor Before I followed, I locked eyes with the rinned and copied esture I hoped he meant it Guards would be there soon, and if he kept his mouth shut, maybe they wouldn’t follow us into the hatch I started down the stairs and pulled the door shut after me

Emma and I huddled near the top of a narrow cylinder of spiraling stairs and peered down It took a ht rooh rock