Free The Fugitive by Pittacus Lore Page B

if I told you,” I say, squeezing the back of her neck.
    “Try me.”
    “I don’t even know where to begin.”
    She pulls away and takes a good look at me. I can see concern cross her face as she stares into my eyes.
    “Don’t take this the wrong way,” she says. “But have you been sleeping at all? It looks like—”
    But she stops and gasps. My fists automatically clench as I look around.
    “What?” I ask. Shit. I knew I should have just got us in the truck and then out of here. “What is it?”
    “Mark,” she says, pointing at my left arm. There’s blood dripping out from under my T-shirt sleeve. “Are you okay?”
    I push the cotton of my T-shirt down onto the wound, hoping that stops the bleeding until we get back to home base.
    “Would you believe me if I said I was shot while escaping from a bunch of crooked FBI agents?” I ask.
    She nods, her eyes wide.
    “I’ve been shot at a lot lately,” she says quietly. “A few days ago I was stabbed by a Mog.”
    And then we just stare at each other. This is the moment when, months or even a few weeks ago, I’d probably have tried to kiss her. Or at least wished that was what I was doing. I’d have ignored the fact that I promised John Smith I’d keep her safe—ignored the fact that he existed at all. But in the parking garage, I look at her and she looks at me, and there’s some kind of joint understanding. The dynamic has changed between us. We’ve changed. I can’t be some hotshot football star trying to win back his ex when the fate of the world could rest on us. And she . . . there’s something different about her. Something fierce. She looks more like a soldier than the girl who used to wander around campus snapping pictures of flowers.
    “I’m so glad you’re here,” I say. “And that you’re okay. I’m fine. I’ll patch up back at base.”
    “That wound is supergross, Mark,” she says, her nose wrinkling a little. “You should probably see a doctor. . . .”
    Her voice trails off. She knows that’s not really an option.
    “I should have brought a healing stone or somethingwith me.” She’s eyeing my arm, shaking her head. I stare back at her, not knowing what she’s talking about.
    “We have a lot to catch up on,” I say. I put out my arm, ushering her towards my truck.
    “Let’s start with why you’re in Alabama ,” she says.
    “Um, that’s kind of a long story.” I open the passenger’s-side door for her. She’s halfway inside before she stops and turns to me.
    “Wait, when did you get this truck?”
    I start to answer, but a huge bird lands on the hood of the truck with a loud thump. I jump, instinctively raising a fist.
    “Jesus, what the hell?” I ask.
    “Oh,” Sarah says, smiling. “Do you remember Bernie Kosar?”

CHAPTER TEN
    SARAH FILLS ME IN ON WHERE SHE’S BEEN since she was taken from Paradise. She glosses over being imprisoned in Dulce. It kills me to think that they might have tortured her or something, but I don’t push the issue, because how do you casually ask, “So what terrible things happened to you when the FBI threw you in a secret dungeon?” She goes into more detail about everything after that, though, and walks me through the escape from New Mexico, their time at the John Hancock Center in Chicago—which I was totally right about being a Mog attack—and then their temporary hideout in Maryland, where she finally got the emails I’d been sending her. She tells me about a team of Garde sent down to Florida, and my head buzzes as I think of all the weird messages that had been sent to me about gangs in the Everglades and kids with telekinetic powers.
    One of the Garde died down there, and when she left John and the others, none of them even knew which one it was.
    Shit is getting very real on Earth.
    The more we talk, the more the puzzle pieces start to fit together. A bigger story forms. Notes and small leads start to connect, and I suddenly have information about people and