Chapter Two - A Night Without Night

The neon signs snapped off one by one like bones breaking. "Don't look back!" Elliot shouted. But he did look back. In the firelight, he saw the man who had been lying outside stand up and run into the burning convenience store as if he were searching for something. In that instant Elliot understood. The man had not been a random survivor at all. He had been a delay, a trap, buying time for the riders behind him. "He lied to us!" Lucy shouted. "More than that," Nad said, breathing hard. "He's a contractor guard from the cache site. He knew we'd come." "And you waited until now to say that?" Mara nearly lunged at him. "I'm saying it now," Nad gasped, "because the thing that's really going to kill us is not the riders."