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THE WORLD IS a clock winding down

I hear it in the wind’s icy fingers scratching against theI s wallpaper of the old hotel And I feel it in Teacup’s chest as she sleeps The ha of her heart, the rhyth down

Across the rooht seeps through the tiny crack in the curtains behind her, lighting up the plu from her mouth Her little brother sleeps in the bed closest to her, a tiny luain, her head turns like a pendulu of her head, the rhythet’s, like Teacup’s, likedown

I ease out of bed Teacup moans in her sleep and burrows deeper under the covers The cold clah I’rab from the foot of the bed Sullivan watches as I pull on the boots, then when I go to the closet for my rucksack and rifle I join her by theI feel like I should say soain

“So this is it,” she says Her fair skin glows in the ht The spray of freckles seems to float above her nose and cheeks

I adjust the rifle on my shoulder “This is it”

“You know, Duet, because Saet soto do with his roly-poly-ness But why Ringer?”

I sense where this is going Besides Zombie and her brother, she isn’t sure of anyone anye “I’m human”

“Yeah” She looks through the crack in the curtains to the parking lot two stories below, shi with ice “Someone else told me that, too And, like a dummy, I believed him”

“Not so duiven the circumstances”

“Don’t pretend, Ringer,” she snaps “I know you don’t believe me about Evan”

“I believe you It’s his story that doesn’t make sense”

I head for the door before she tears into me You don’t push Cassie Sullivan on the Evan Walker question I don’t hold it against her Evan is the little branch growing out of the cliff that she clings to, and the fact that he’s gone hter

Teacup doesn’t make a sound, but I feel her eyes on o back to the bed

“Take me with you,” she whispers

I shake h this a hundred ti A couple days”

“Promise?”