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As it had been eroding Spider.
Thinking about how these monsters were hurting everyone she loved made Alethea very, very angry. When her rage was this intense, fatigue and everything else seemed to melt away. She swung her bat, and the monsters went down.
One after another.
* * *
“They’re in the streets!”
Benny and Chong heard the terrified cry. They were in the general store, helping the old owner pack canned goods into a big cart, ready for the exodus out of New Alamo. The cry stopped them for a moment.
“No,” said Benny under his breath, despair sharp as a knife, “no, no, no—it’s too soon.”
Grimm began growling, and his whole body tensed as he turned toward the door. The teens dropped the cans they held and ran outside, snatching their weapons from where they’d placed them next to the door. The shouts were coming from the northeast corner of the town. There were yells, screams, and gunfire.
“Chong,” Benny said, grabbing his friend’s arm, “we’re out of time. Get to the hospital. Start the evacuation. Tell everyone to get to the rally points.”
“Benny,” said Chong, “those shots are coming from the east gate. We can’t send people there.”
Benny cursed. “Okay, everyone has to get to the hospital. That’s our only rally point now. The tunnel is our best hope. Go tell everyone you can. Then make sure the tunnel’s still safe. Take Grimm with you. If people don’t listen, let him bite a few of them. That’ll work.”
“Wait, where are you going?”
Benny stepped away and drew his sword. “To help,” he said, and then he was running.
“Good luck!” yelled Chong. “Don’t die!”
“Not a chance,” Benny shouted back. Though as he ran his snarky comment felt like tempting fate.
* * *
Chong ran back into the store and had to push the owner into taking the cart and heading directly to the hospital. People were pouring out of their homes, but few of them carried their belongings, and fewer still were heading toward the rally points. He yelled at them. He shoved them. He even had to threaten one stubborn young man who wanted to stay in his house with his wife and two little kids.
“You’ll die in there,” Chong pleaded. “They’re already in the streets.”
The man’s wife gathered up the kids and pushed past her husband. The man stood for a moment longer, though, looking around at his house. At his life. Then the man looked at his wife, holding their little ones as she went out into the madness, and there was a visible change. He did not suddenly swell into a towering hero, but he picked up a wooden chair and smashed it to pieces on the floor. He picked up one of the legs and hefted it, feeling it become a weapon in his hand. He gave Chong a brief look—as much fear as courage—and then followed his wife outside.
It hit Chong very hard. The man was not a fighter, but he would have to fight. He was not a killer, but he was likely going to have to kill. It made Chong’s heart go out to him, but it also reminded him of the version of himself who’d been a bookish, gentle, nonviolent teen only two years ago. Now he was older, scarred, with the memory of blood on his hands and a body warring with infection.
He wanted to sit down on the couch in this now empty house, put his face in his hands, and cry. He needed to do that.
Instead he took a deep breath, and—with his bow and arrows—went back out to the war. Grimm followed close behind.
* * *
There were fresh yells coming from the eastern wall, and Benny angled that way. Those screams had contained rising notes of panic. Not mere warnings but sheer terror.
Looming inside the wall was the big tower crane that had been used to restack the cars.
“Oh my God,” Benny cried, looking up.
High above he saw two figures on the crane, working the levers that turned the giant boom. There was a guy in a cowboy hat and his girlfriend, with hair as red as Nix’s. Benny had seen them around town, two refugees who’d been brought in after the first siege. A dozen yards below them, climbing with the agility of apes, were several ravagers.
Benny cupped a hand around his mouth to shout a warning to them, but the night suddenly took on a new shape, something fierce and feral and insane. As the ravagers climbed all the way up, the boy walked toward them. As he did so, he took off his hat, and with it came his mop of blond hair. The girl did the same, plucking off the baseball cap and red wig, laughing as she did.
Beneath their hats, bared now to the glow of fire and the cold starlight, were scalps shaved smooth and covered with elaborate tattoos. The teens dug into their pockets and removed strips of red cloth and began tying them to their ankles and wrists.
The teenagers up there were reapers.
