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you.”
    Jack sighed, knowing Gavin was right. He had to be honest with himself. He was in no shape to attempt a reconnaissance, or a rescue mission. Go now, and he wouldn’t be the only one in danger. Considering the lousy shape he was in after this latest run, he could get others killed.
    “All right,” he said.
    “Good,” Gavin said. “Zeke left two hours ago. He should be at the diner in Yarnsport in another hour-forty-five.”
    Zeke was half way here? Gavin had put his plans in motion before Jack had even called back. Figured. His superior, with his cold, Rubik’s cube of a mind, rarely surprised him. Though it did reassure Jack that in the midst of onrushing tragedy, Gavin could still be human. He hadn’t written off the Lost One after all.
    When Gavin spoke again, it was as if he’d read Jack’s mind.
    “We could be dead at any moment,” his boss said. “It doesn’t mean we have to stop being who we are.”

Chapter 8
    Lara picked her way over the hundreds of bodies that scattered the ground, smoke and a noxious chemical that burned her eyes, still rising into the night air. Only a few of the bodies were complete, with arms, legs, a head. Most were pieces, many no longer recognizable as human .
    Dizziness sent her stumbling forward, unsteady on her feet at the unexpected transition from her cell to this place .
    What am I doing back here?
    It was the same dream. Why was she dreaming it again? She never had the same nightmare twice. Yet, she was held captive by it, made to see the same things as before, play the same role .
    She reached out for the trunk of a nearby tree to keep herself upright and her hand came away covered in gore. As before, she doubled over and tried to vomit, but her body wasn’t any more successful at purging itself this time. Thankfully she was too spent, too drugged to give the pain that sank, along with someone’s blood and viscera, into her hand much notice .
    Hasn’t this already happened? Aren’t these people already dead?
    She went through all the motions she had the first time, bent down to wipe her hand on the grass, held her knees and moaned and rocked in an effort to comfort herself. Stood up again and turned in a circle to count the five guttering, collapsing buildings .
    Then she waited for it to all be over. Steeled herself for the unseen hand to grab her ankle .
    Except it didn’t happen. The scene didn’t end. Nothing rescued her from the smell of burning bodies. Or the quiet stare of the child with the scorched remains of a stuffed dog beneath her, but no arms to hold it .
    Wake up!
    Lara began to wail, low in her throat, barely audible. Somehow she knew this place and these people. She’d seen their faces before somewhere. Hadn’t she?
    Please, stop this. Wake up.
    What about the people in the farther buildings she could see that hadn’t been destroyed. Where were they? Why wasn’t anyone rushing out to check for survivors?
    Lara.
    Someone whispered her name, the sound coming from behind her .
    Lara.
    She knew who called. It was the one voice she didn’t want to hear. Not now. Not here .
    Lara.
    Hearing the voice meant something bad had happened, worse even than this unfathomable atrocity. The voice asked her to turn and look. Out of the periphery of her eye, a figure took shape –
    “Don’t make me look!” Lara cried. “Please, don’t make me look.”
    Slap .
    “Is she running?” the older of her captors, the one who manned the cart of medical implements, asked.
    Grey Man studied her, and then gave a sour look.
    “She’s hallucinating,” he said.
    “Now what?”
    “We wait. She’s useless to us like this.”
    He backed out of her field of vision.

Chapter 9
    Yarnsport’s only diner served soft shell crab omelets for breakfast, as well as fried oyster bacon cakes, which drew a huge crowd, even on a Tuesday morning. Jack settled for the more plebian eggs and sausage with toast and tasted none of it. He simply ingested and focused on the