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scrutinizing. She was a small woman, just a hair over five feet tall, with the athletic look of an Olympic gymnast. She sat on the edge of the stone and dangled her feet, occasionally dragging her toes in the gravel. Her hands busied themselves in slow movements, fondling her fingers first on one hand and then the other, then starting over again. She was concentrating on the obstacle of the gate. Unlike the mob, she was silent.
    She was thinking.
    That was simply not acceptable. Death had arrived to reconcile that transgression.
    I stepped out of the woods and meandered toward her, feigning attention on the mob.
    She looked at me, but I didn’t look back. Out of the corner of my eye, I thought I saw her facial expression change. I froze, but after a few moments, she looked back at the wall.
    I pretended to keep my attention on the mob as I slowly sidled to my left.
    She looked at me again , but this time, didn’t look away.
    I focused on the Whites in front of me.
    Still, she stared.
    And stared.
    Three or four minutes passed until I couldn’t take the staring anymore. I looked back at her. Her concentration was gone, replaced by blank curiosity, but those eyes, deep brown and indecipherable, were almost human. How much was going on inside that diseased brain?
    I tried my best to mirror her blank expression to no effect. Still, she stared.
    I looked back toward the mob, hoping she might do the same. After a minute, she did. She looked at the mob, the gate, the wall. Whether it was my imagination or not, her expression didn’t go back to the concentrated look she had before. Only curiosity was left.
    She was about four feet to my left, just beyond arm’s reach. With my machete, I knew I could spin and bring the blade around with enough force to cleave a mortal wound in her small body. She wouldn’t have a chance. By the time she realized what was happening, her flesh would be tearing open. The thought of it gave me pause, but she had to die. If she didn’t, Steph, Murphy, Mandi,—all of us—were at risk.
    Pirate assassin.
    Arrgh!
    Like a striking cobra—at least in my mind—I made my move. The blade came up and out. My arm pulled it down over my head as I stepped and spun with all the fury and speed that virus-infected muscles could deliver. But in those microseconds it took for my blade to reach the diminutive woman, she not only saw me move, but reacted fast enough to jump to her left in a blink. My blade hit rock, ringing loudly and throwing sparks.
    Surprised by her speed and my failure, I found my eyes glued in disbelief to the sight of the blade’s edge grating against stone, not buried in flesh.
    But the mob, at least those in the back , were moving, turning their attention to me. Things were going to get very interesting very fast. I looked down the length of my blade and followed it up toward the gymnast. Her momentum was still carrying her to her left and she was trying to catch her balance, in a weird bit of awkwardness that seemed out of place for her apparent athleticism. Then I spotted it.
    Blood.
    She teetered two steps further from me, then another.
    The blood was on her arm, halfway between the shoulder and elbow. Lots of blood. And her shirt was cut across the ribs. There was blood there too.
    When s he came to a stop ten feet away she stared at me with a look of horror that told me she understood, with every bit of imagination and intellectual abstraction, exactly what was coming next in all of its gory, painful, finality.
    A White from the mob on my right screamed and started to move. Another scream of jubilation followed and was joined by more.
    For an impossibly long time, the gymnast eyed me, accusing, hating. Then she ran. Eight or nine Whites with blood in their eyes chased her into the dark cedars—hounds on the hunt.
    Full of ambivalence and remorse, I ran after.
    Finish what you start!
    She ha s to die!
    Right?
    On the heels of the other White chimps on the hunt, we screamed with one