Blackout (Darkness Trilogy) Read Online Free PDF Page A

how to track a porcupine by looking at treetops; missing bark means a porcupine has passed through, and dripping sap means it’s still near. She must know I did my best. We’ll sort it out tonight when we’re making candlewicks out of the fungus.
    I kick the top off a snow bank in front of me and Magic bounces against my back. I have to figure out how the neighbors got that power. Use it for good. His words replay in my mind—“We earned it”—but exactly how they earned it, I don’t know. Not one lousy idea. I tighten my backpack’s straps and wind up to kick another icy white mound when suddenly, muffled shouts call above me on the Frontier.
    “Stop th e vehicle!” the Frontman yells. He sprints toward the nearest gate along the concrete ledge, gripping his gun across his chest with both hands. His black goggles drop from where they rested on his helmet to cover his eyes. “Stop the vehicle now!” His voice sounds faint from here, but my heart is racing. He spoke.
    I run below him alongside the wall, pumping my arms hard back and forth to propel me forward. Cold air freezes the back of my throat as I suck it in, and I keep my eyes on the Frontman. He dodges through a narrow vertical slit very high on the surface of the Frontier right next to the gate and starts to fire his gun at something on the other side.
    I stop short. The Frontman finishes his round. I take cover behind a battered police car as a roar rips through the air, getting louder every second. I don’t recognize the sound and my stomach curdles with fear. Something is coming straight toward the Dark Zone. I creep back from the Frontier and fall into a run. Stealing a quick glance over my right shoulder, my eyes bulge.
    T wenty yards behind me, something slams through the titanium gate. I flinch at the earsplitting sound. Shreds of metal scatter to reveal the front end of a speeding black truck headed right for me. It’s enormous: tires up to my shoulders. I take a sharp left turn and dodge out of the way as the truck barrels into the ruins of the Grand Hyatt Hotel. It crashes to a stop inside.

4
     
    Two Easy men emerge from a billowing cloud of black dust. They step forward on shaking legs, and I can’t believe how much they look like DZs. I had always imagined them to be—I don’t know— more. Bigger somehow. Taller. Maybe even immortal. But here they are, injured and human and hobbling just ten feet away.
    I’m in shock.
    One presses the heel of his hand against a fresh gash across his forehead. Blood drips in two rivulets down his temple. The other Easy is bent at the waist and wheezing with one hand on each knee. Both wear all-white coats and pants, whiter than anything we have in the Dark Zone. Watching them recover on our soil, my shock subsides and turns to gut-wrenching hatred. Easies. The ones who abandoned us are here. My eyes narrow, transforming them into prey. I reach my hand slowly behind my neck to wrap my fingers around Magic’s muzzle.
    “Seize them!” a Frontman yells. He sprints through the fresh hole in the gate, backlit by light coming from the other side, and heading right for us. Two more Frontmen run behind him and together the three move in the shape of a perfect triangle. Their thick legs fly over the snowy ground.
    The wounded men look at me with desperate eyes, and I understand in a flash that these are not just any Easies. They crashed into the Dark Zone for a reason—and they disobeyed Frontmen to do it. I grin. Any enemies of the United States are friends of mine. Magic slides back into my bag.
    “Follow me!” I bark.
    I run headfirst into the dark fog coming from the Hyatt and hear them patter close behind. One drags the other forward by his jacket collar, as if the second man is too hurt to run on his own. Coughing on dust, we dash through an old conference room and take a sharp turn down the hallway that leads to the lobby. My eyes sting as we exit the thick haze. Pausing under a chandelier in the