Ripley took Ezra down easy, with one punch. He pushed Ezra, face first, into the mud. Ezra never got one good shot. Ripley flipped him over.

“Stop,” I screamed. “Ripley, stop it.”

Ripley had a rhythm to his violence. He hit Ezra over and over. Ezra started to bleed.

I tore up behind Ripley and pulled at him, trying to haul him off Ezra. His hair was too short to grab hold. He wrenched my fingers from his coat with a snap of his shoulders.

“Leave him alone, Ripley,” I screamed.

Blood gushed from Ezra’s nose.

I pummeled Ripley’s head and neck and back with my fists. He pushed me aside hard, into the pricker bushes along the bank.

Ezra was bleeding more now, from his mouth, from his ears.

“Look what you’re doing to him, Ripley,” I cried. “You’re killing him. Stop it! Stop it!”

But Ripley would not stop.

“He’s one of those mutants, isn’t he? I knew you had him there in your house. Living with you. Sleeping with you. I knew it all along. Well, we don’t need no more mutants in this world,” Ripley said. He hit Ezra again, and again.

I screamed, throwing myself at him. I scratched at his ears, his face, his eyes. I must have caught his bad eye. He howled with pain and sprang off Ezra, grabbing me by the wrist.

Ripley pulled me down into the mud, pinning my arms. The look in his good eye terrified me.

“My dog went missing again.”

I’d never heard that tone in Ripley’s voice before. So quiet. It made my stomach hot and liquid, the contents of my gut rose into my throat. Had Red Jackson caught Tyrus?

“You should have kept him chained,” I cried. “It’s not my fault your dog runs off. It’s not Ezra’s fault either.”

“You know who found him? The soldiers, at the dead-zone border.” Sweat ran down Ripley’s face. It dropped onto me. I clamped my jaws tight to keep the vomit from coming up.

“Tyrus is dead,” Ripley said.

My hand plunged into the thick mud, trying to dig my way out from underneath him. I couldn’t breathe.

“Tyrus is dead.” His voice rasped over me. He was crying. Ripley Powers crying.

“It was radiation poisoning. Doc Prentice cut him open. It’s the law now when they find a dead animal. Did you know that? Four months after the accident. It’s his fault.” Ripley tossed his head toward Ezra, who lay unconscious, bleeding in the mud. “It’s his fault.”

I felt his hard weight crushing me, bruising my bones. I grabbed at fistfuls of mud, trying to get free.

“Get off” I yelled, twisting beneath him. “Get off me.”

Ripley glared.

“I can’t breathe!” I cried.