He could barely stand – his body swaying like a drunk man – and it was taking him every last ounce of his strength to keep the Colt in his hand leveled at my head – his arm tensed, quivering---his broken teeth gritted---a film of sweat oozing from his pores, glistening pink with blood---

There was nothing but death in his eyes.

Mine and his.

He was dying, he knew it. But he was going to kill me first.

I saw all this the moment I opened my eyes. I saw him looming over me, the burning black sky above his head, and I saw his finger tightening on the trigger, and in the next moment my eyes closed and my heartsense opened and I was with my mother – streaking across the rubblestrewn glassrock towards the dead-eyed human, and as we looked together through her killing eyes, I saw myself lying there at his feet---sprawled on my back in the dust, limp and motionless, ready to die---and I saw the humans finger tightening on the trigger---and then his eyes flickered, and he turned and saw us hurtling towards him, and then we were flying, leaping up through the air at him, launching our massive jaws at his throat---

My eyes opened.

I saw Pilgrim swivel round and raise his gun just as my mother leaped at him. I saw him sighting the pistol at her head as she flew through the air towards him, and in that moment I knew she wasnt going to make it. I saw his finger pull the trigger---

Then something flashed, spinning through the air, and a pearlhandled switchblade thudded into his back.

He froze for an instant, his eyes widened---

And then a savage blur of crushing jaws engulfed his head and he crashed to the ground with my mother tearing at his throat.

I heard Kite screaming as Pilgrim died – howling from the depths of her heart – but by the time Ide managed to get to my feet, there was no longer any sign of her in the East Tower. Not that I cared. The only thing I cared about was finding Chola Se, and as I turned to my left – where the switchblade had come from – and I saw her hobbling through the rubble towards me, I felt the same strange tingling sensation in my belly that Ide experienced when I first met her. Shede clearly been hurt when shede jumped from the tower – she was limping badly, her left arm looked broken, and the side of her face was grazed raw – but she was alive.

Shede made it.

She barely glanced at Pilgrims body as she came over and stood beside me – he was nothing now, nonexistent – and as my mother trotted over to stand with us, licking Pilgrims blood from her lips, Chola Se didnt look at her either. She didnt have to – theyd killed Pilgrim together – she was in my mothers heart.