1269_UgliesFreeBook

UGLIES 299
Croy looked around. “No.”
“I think he got away. He and I made a run together.”
A dark smile crossed Croy’s face. “That’s funny. He
always said he wouldn’t mind getting captured. Something
about a face-lift.”
Tally managed to smile. But then she thought about the
brain lesions that went along with becoming pretty, and a
shiver passed through her body. She wondered how many
of these captives knew what was really going to happen
to them.
“Yeah, the Boss was going to give himself up, to help me
get away, but I couldn’t have made it through the forest.”
“Why not?”
She wriggled her toes. “No shoes.”
Croy raised an eyebrow. “You picked the wrong day to
sleep late.”
“I guess so.”
Outside the overcrowded rabbit pen, the new arrivals
were being organized into groups. A pair of Specials moved
through the pen, flashing a reader into the bound Smokies’
eyes, taking them outside one by one.
“They must be separating everyone by city,” Croy said.
“Why?”
“To take us home,” he said coldly.
“Home,” she repeated. Just last night, that word had
changed its meaning in her mind. And now home was
destroyed. It lay around her in ruins, burning and captured.