1269_UgliesFreeBook

296 Scott Westerfeld
Tally froze, the brush barely concealing her.
Then she felt a tickle in her throat, a slowly growing
irritation. Tally held her breath, closing her eyes. But her
chest began to shudder, her body twitching, demanding to
expel traces of the pepper from her lungs.
She had to cough.
Tally swallowed again and again, hoping spit could put
out the fire in her throat. Her lungs demanded oxygen, but
she didn’t dare breathe. One of the Specials was only a
stone’s throw away, scanning the forest with slow back-andforth
sweeps of his head, his eyes searching the dense trees
relentlessly.
Gradually, painfully, the flames seemed to expire in
Tally’s chest, the cough dying a quiet death inside her. She
relaxed, finally letting out her breath.
Over the thunder of hovercars and crackle of burning
buildings and sounds of battle, the Special somehow heard
her soft exhalation. His head turned swiftly, eyes narrowing,
and in what seemed like a single motion he was by her side,
a hand on the back of her neck. “You’re a tricky one,” he said.
She tried to answer, but wound up coughing savagely
instead, and he forced her face down in the dirt before she
could manage another breath.