World's End

Page 79

His mouth pulled back in an ugly smile, and the blade brushed my lashes.

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I shut my eyes, trying to turn my face away. "What?

What? Please--"

The pressure lifted slowly from my eyelids. "You've just told me everything I needed to know."

I opened my eyes, blinking them back into focus.

His hand moved suddenly, swiftly, and pain blazed above my eyes.

I heaved him off of me with a strength born of sheer fright. He scrambled to his feet, standing over me before

I could get my body under control again. Looking up and past him, I saw Ang's face behind the darkened dome of the cab--looking out, watching everything that happened.

When my eyes found his, his face disappeared from view.

Spadrin glanced over his shoulder, following my gaze.

He looked back at me, and he began to laugh again. His laughter was almost like sobbing. He was still laughing as he climbed heavily into the rover's cab.

I lay where I'd fallen. The wound on my forehead was

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like a burning-glass, a focus for all the pain in the world.

98

WORLD S END

Finally, when I could make myself move again, I got to my feet. I looked at my reflection in the shadowy mirror of the dome. A bloody S marked my forehead; a trickle of red crept down the bridge of my nose as I watched.

Spadrin had cut his initial into my flesh--like a brand, a mark of ownership.

I covered my forehead with my hand and turned away. The thought of getting back into the rover, of facing either Spadrin or Ang, was more than I could stand. I moved away along the shore, stumbling like a drunkard, until I reached the spot where Spadrin had attacked the missionary. There was no sign of the woman or the cloud ears--no sign that any living thing had ever been there.

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I actually wondered for a moment if it had really happened.