Page 34 (1/2)

“Okay,” Malik echoed, eyes still closed Then he opened them on the view of the Ranch spread out ahead He for it in a fraers He breathed deeply

Cruz felt the invisible blast of pain that came from Malik It was like so past her It did not touch her, but Cruz felt its power And she saw and heard its effects on the reenbelt Most fell to their knees, on their backs, on their sides Others ran in wild panic, batting at their bodies as if they were on fire All screamed

So ht So ululation, others cursing, and still others

This must be what hell sounds like

Cruz suddenly realized how cals, ned to thelike babies, writhing like aniht had not been Those poor people! but a distant, chilly What strange sounds people make when they are in pain

Malik nodded “Now, Shade”

Shade tapped the button on her GoPro and was off like a bolt fro effortlessly over the writhing, desperate security ate and used her momentum to leap over both of the fourteen-foot-tall chain-link fences AShe paused and heard a noise like sohtmare: screams and cries from every direction, some muffled by walls, others shrill and near

She went in, and it was like passing through soht-lit, neutral-colored office-building hell Men and wo out in their necks, with eyes bulging, fingers clawing at their own flesh

She didn’t even need her speed She could have strolled through the place eating an ice-cream cone But she could feel that Malik had ended his brutal assault Gradually the effects of Malik’s pain blast would lessen; people would wipe their tears and change their soiled underpants and get back to work But having been briefly exposed to Malik’s first assault, she kneould be some time before people were really functional What Malik did, the power that he had, was impossible for the human mind to process easily, or easily move past Even now the sense memory of it was like a wound in her brain, a wound that had only begun to scab over and was a long way yet fro

A wound I deserve

Shade spun back up to full speed and within a round Ranch to the underground heart of the place

She stood there atop a newly repaired scaffolding, vibrating, staring, taking in an iht It was much as Dekka had described it, but no description could have prepared Shade for the sheer size, the vast space that could have been used as a landfill for half a dozen sports stadiu malls

It was roughly rectangular, without of a maximum security prison Cells lined round level, others stacked atop each ot

her, ht escaped frolass barriers also had the effect ofalmost directly in front of it

The Ranch’s hidden underground was a work in progress, with construction equip when Malik had struck—it had s a small rock slide She saw the operator in profile He see or throwing up