The man squinted, deepening the creases fanning out in the skin around his eyes. “There was shouting in the square,” he said, and I assumed he was referring to the central portion of the Tent District, where Dorman’s office and the hospital were. “Very loud shouting and other sounds, and everyone ran to it.” Noodle Guy was quiet for a moment, then nodded to himself. “But they will come back. Everyone has to eat.”

I was already running toward the square by the time he finished talking. The crowd was on its way back, hushed murmurs exchanged between people clinging together at the elbows or comforting each other with arms around shoulders and waists. Red-rimmed eyes and the pale skin of shock marked most of them.

“I have a very bad feeling about this,” Dom said.

“Gee,” I muttered, “you think?” The closer I drew to the square, the thicker the milling and meandering crowd became, and with me moving against the tide, I had to do my fair share of shoving and offer up a string of excuse-mes and move-its just to make headway.

There were too many people to see what was going on in the square, and I wasn’t tall enough to see over them, so I did what any logical person would do—I climbed one of the old, rusted shipping containers someone was using as a house. They stacked them up here in threes and fours and fives, the Tent District’s version of apartments. Once I could see over the crowd, it was easy enough to find the eye of the storm.

Maybe forty feet from the entrance to the hospital-hangar, Dorman knelt on the ground, a small, frail body cradled on his lap and a solid ten feet between him and the crowd encircling him. His head was bowed over the child, his ever-present baseball cap removed. Even from so far away, I could see the blood spattering his clothing and tell that his shoulders were shaking.

There were other people on the ground near him, some moving, some not. There was so much blood sprayed around on the people and asphalt within that open space that it looked like someone had poured out buckets full of dark red paint.

“What the hell happened?” I said, more talking to myself than to Dom.

He answered anyway. “It must’ve been one of the kids. If another child entered the final phase of the disease and turned rabid unexpectedly . . .”

Slowly, I shook my head. “But they’re sedated. How could any of their bodies override the drugs?”

“I shall confer with Neffe. I’ll return shortly.”

I nodded and jumped down from the side of the shipping container. My hands smelled like rust and iron and paint, and I wrinkled my nose even as I returned to shoving my way through the crowd. I needed to get to Dorman to find out exactly what happened. If the sedative wasn’t enough, we’d have to come up with another plan. There were dozens of kids on the verge of entering the final phase, even more adults not long after that. If just one small child could do this much damage—infect who knew how many more people—what would happen if two went wild simultaneously? Or more?