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Coli took it upon herself to answer LaShay’s question "She attackedto help her, so I had to defend myself She messed up her stitches"

"What’d she do that for?" asked LaShay, heavy judgh!" yelled Trip

My eyes flew open at the sound

Coli was fu, but wisely kept herlike that it would be stupid to say anything at all He was a nice enough guy, and a cousin to Coli, but he was still the chief - or one of them, anyway

Winky appeared from around a corner and came to sit at the side of my bed Everyone else kind of faded away as she sat there, staring at aze for a few seconds, but then I had to look away I didn’t see any admonishment in her eyes, but I didn’t see pity either She was just waiting for

After a while I couldn’t take it any at me like that"

"So, you are fully aware and not catatonic"

"Yes, I’m aware," I said bitterly

"Good I have to take those bandages off and sew you up again Looks like you did a hell of a job on the good work I did for you before"

"You sewed me up?" I felt confused Why hadn’t I realized that before? How out of it have I been?

"Yep I’roup with Coli I used to do a lot of embroidery as a hobby before all the doo-doo hit the fan Now I just ether for these new kids, so I need to get you taken care of and healed as soon as possible"

She reached behind her back and her hand ca around with Coli I don’t want to have to do this again Your scar’s going to be ugly enough as it is"

I looked at her withso one into so so my boyfriend

I couldn’t decide whether to cry or punch so either, so I opted instead to do nothing I watched in silence as she sliced the dirty bandages off ry red mess underneath I looked up at her, pissed now about the whole ugly world I’d found myself in

"Don’t look atI can see you’re freaking out Norround with Coli’s butt, but it looks like she got the juYou were there, Winky You saw al"

"Tell me what I missed Telltears I wanted to tell her I felt like I was all alone with this nightet it out ofbreath and let it out, trying to cal her my story

"I was in that pool house with Loco … Dave The leader of the canners And there was this great kid in there Julio He had one leg left, and that was it" I cleared my throat once to keep the tears at bay "He was a soccer star and had a cute girlfriend He told me about her And then Loco attackedcannibal in the neck, which is way ht after I left, Julio kicked that grenade right at Loco and blew the place up"

"Wo’d Julio do that when he only had one leg left?"

I noticed the people around us had gone silent My story had the

"It dropped out of the back of my pants and rolled over by him And when I fell down nearby, he told me to balance it on the top of his foot So I pulled the pin and did it"

"I can’t believe it didn’t just fall off," said Winky, her voice sounding reverent

"He had his foot bent up, like he said he did with hacky sacks or soht, even after I’d pulled the pin I … I didn’t knohat else to do I didn’t want to kill hio…" A loud sob escaped ood arm

Winky stroked my arm as it rested on my face "Shhh, don’t cry about it Peter told us the kids ere left would never have made it"

LaShay cairl He had serious gangrene all up in his legs and stuff He was dyin’ I’m surprised he was able to do as much as he did Youain," I said through my tears "She had died already"

"Yasirl Julio was a great guy What they did to hiht thing to do Ain’t nobody as there gonna say any different Those killers had it corenade down their throats ht from hell"

I pulled my arm away from my face, my tears stopped for the moment "What about that kid Sean? He didn’t seem like he was totally in with them" I remembered his conversation with LaShay that I’d overheard when I was hiding in a nearby tree with Winky