Maggie ducked her head and clenched her fists."Well, then, obviously we've got to escape," she said through her teeth.
The redhead gave a laugh so bitter that Maggiefelt a chill down her spine.
She looked at P.J. "Do you want to escape?"
"Leave her alone!" the redhead snapped. "You,don't understand what you're talking about. We'reonly humans; they're Night People. There's nothingwe can do against them, nothing!"
"BUt - 2)
"Do you know what the Night People do to slaveswho try to escape?"
And then the redhaired girl turned her back onMaggie. She did it with a lithe twist that left Maggie startled.
Did I hurt her feelings? Maggie thought stupidly.
The redhead glanced back over her shoulder, atthe same time reaching around to grasp the bottomof her shirt in back.
Her expression was unreadable, but suddenlyMaggie was nervous.
"What are you doing?"
The redhaired girl gave a strange little smile andpulled the shirt up, exposing her back.
Somebody had been playing tic-tac-toe there.
The lines were cut into the flesh of her back, thescars shiny pink and only half healed. In thesquares were Xs and Os, raggedy-looking andbrighter red because for the most part they'd beenburned in. A few looked cut, like the strategic posi tion in the middle which would have been takenfirst. Somebody had won, three diagonal Xs, and had run a burn-line through the winning marks.
Maggie gasped. She kept on gasping. She started to hyperventilate, and then she started to faint.
The world seemed to recede from her, narrowingdown to a one-dimensional point of light. But there wasn't room to actually fall over. As she slumpedbackward, she hit the wall of the cart. The world wobbled and came back, shiny at the edges.
"Oh, God," Maggie said. "Oh, God.They did thisto you? How could they dothat?"
"This is nothing," the girl said. "They did it whenI escaped the first time. And now I escaped againand I got caught again. This time they'll do something worse." She let go of her top and it slid downto cover her back again.
Maggie tried to swallow, but her mouth was toodry. Before she knew she was moving, she foundherself grabbing the girl's arms from behind.
"What's your name?"
"Who ca-"
"What's your name?"
The redhaired girl gave her a peculiar look over her shoulder. Then her arms lifted slightly under Maggie's handsas she shrugged.
"Jeanne."
"Jeanne. It's got to stop," Maggie said. "We can't let them dothings like that to people. And we'vegot to get away. If they're already going to punishyou for escaping, what difference does it make ifyou try it again now? Don't you think?"
Maggie liked the way that sounded, calm andcompetent and logical. The swift decision for ac tion didn't blot out the memory of what she'd just seen, but it made the whole situation more bearable. She'd witnessed an injustice and she wasgoing to do something about it. That simple. Something so wicked had to be fixed, now.
She started to cry.
Jeanne turned around, gave her a long, assessinglook. P.J. was crying, too, very quietly.
Maggie found her tears running out. Theyweren't doing any good. When she stopped, Jeanne was still watching her with narrowed eyes.
"So you're going to take on the whole NightWorld alone," she said.
Maggie wiped her cheeks with her hands. "No,just the ones here."
Jeanne stared at her another moment, thenstraightened abruptly. "Okay," she said, so suddenly that Maggie was startled. "Let's do it. If wecan figure out a way."
Maggie looked toward the back of the cart."What about those doors?"
"Locked and chained on the outside. It's no goodkicking them."
From nowhere, an image came into Maggie'smind. Herself and Miles in a rowboat on Lake Chelan with their grandfather. Deliberately rocking it while their grandfather yelled and fumed.
"What if we all throw our weight from one sideto the other? If we could turn the cart over, maybethe doors would pop open. You know how armored cars always seem to do that. Or maybe it wouldsmash one of the walls enough that we could getout."
"And maybe we'd go falling straight down a ravine," Jeanne said acidly. "It's a long way down to the valley, and this road is narrow." But there wasa certain unwilling respect in her eyes. "I guess wecould try it when we get to a meadow," she said slowly. "I know a place. I'm not saying it would work; it probably won't. But ..."
"We have totry," Maggie said. She was lookingstraight at Jeanne. For a moment there was something between them-a flash of understanding andagreement. A bond.
"Once we got out, we'd have to run," Jeanne said,still slowly. "They're sitting up there." She pointedto the ceiling at the front of the cart, above Maggie's head. "This thing is like a stagecoach, okay?There's a seat up there, and the two guys are onit. Professional slave traders are tough. They're not going to want us to get away."
"They might get smashed up when we roll over,"Maggie said.
Jeanne shook her head sharply. "Night People arestrong. It takes a lot more than that tokill them.We'd have to just take off and head for the forest
as fast as we could. Our only chance is to get lostin the trees-and hope they can't track us."
"Okay," Maggie said. She looked at P.J. "Do youthink you could do that? Just run and keeprunning?"
P.J. gulped twice, sank her teeth into her top lip, and nodded. She twisted her baseball cap around so the visor faced the back.
"I can run," she said.
Maggie gave heranapproving nod. Then shelooked at the fourth girl, the one still curled upasleep. She leaned over to touch the girl's shoulder.