1269_UgliesFreeBook

THE RABBIT PEN
They marched her to the rabbit pen, where about forty
handcuffed Smokies sat inside the wire fence. A dozen or so
Specials stood in a cordon around them, watching their
captives with empty expressions. By the entrance to the
compound a few rabbits hopped aimlessly, too addled by
their sudden freedom to make a break for it.
The Special who had captured Tally took her to the end
farthest from the gate, where a handful of Smokies with
bloody noses and black eyes were clustered.
“Armed resistor,” he said to the two cruel pretties who
guarded this end of the pen, and shoved her down to the
ground among the others.
She stumbled and fell onto her back, where her weight
stretched the cuffs painfully across her wrists. When she
struggled to turn over, a foot planted itself into her back
and pushed her up. For a moment, she thought the shoe
belonged to a Special, but it was one of the other Smokies,
helping her up the only way he could. She managed to sit
up cross-legged.