Cate Campbell Beatty

During the night a fine, delicate summer rain had washed the plains, leaving the morning sky crisp and clean. The sun shone warm__oon to bake the earth dry. It cast a purple haze across the plain__ike a great, dark topaz. In the trees the birds sang, while the squirrels jumped from branch to branch in seeming good will, belying the expected tension of the coming days.

It was not that donors had no loyalty to each other, but they were not ashamed to betray a fellow donor. In its wisdom the Alliance promulgated the moral rules__he main one being one__ duty to the Alliance. The Alliance was sacred__ll else secondary. But not all donors__r citizens__ought into that. Many knew in their hearts there was more to life.

No,_ Joan vowed. She grabbed Bash__ shirt. __ don__ want this. Didn__ want this to happen.__creams resonated.Bash continued quietly, __one of us do. That__ not up to us. We have to decide what we__e going to do with what we__e given. Play the cards dealt to us.

Joan spoke kindly, explaining patiently, as he always patiently explained things to her. __t__ like in that book you gave me, Jane Eyre. Jane says she isn__ a bird caught in a net. Instead she__ a human being with an independent will and that she has a treasure inside her that will keep her alive, no matter if anything bad happens.

The law isn't merciful.

Then his fingers trembled on her ankle__ightened around her foot. His head shifted, turning toward her. With a growl, she crashed the poker down onto his head. His hand jerked. A gurgling noise arose, not from his throat but from his chest, from deep down, as if he were fighting for something. Struggling. His eyes shifted toward her. Joan raised the poker again. The gurgling stopped__ot abruptly but in a final, lingering, prolonged, exhalation of breath. His lungs gradually expelled every last atom of oxygen.