Don't Turn Around Read Free Page A

Dumpsters, but otherwise no signs of life. Noa tore by a set of doors identical to the ones she’d escaped through. Too dangerous to go back inside a building, though—she had a better shot out in the open.
    The part of her brain that was geared solely toward survival was screaming at her to go go go … it was a familiar voice, and listening to it had gotten her through bad situations before. Noa shut down the rest of her mind and let it take over, pushing aside the other distracting thoughts flitting through. Like the possibility that there might be more kids like her in each of these buildings, laid out on cold steel tables with bandaged chests.
    A sudden sharp pain in her right foot nearly sent her sprawling. Noa staggered to the nearest building. Leaning against it, she lifted her foot and dug out a jagged piece of glass embedded in her heel. She bit her lip as blood flowed freely from the wound. She could hear them getting closer. Ignoring the throb in her foot and the matching one in her chest, she pushed off the building and started running again. The alley crossed another road before continuing on between an identical pair of warehouses. Everything looked abandoned; there wasn’t a vehicle or person in sight. Where was she?
    Noa chanced a look back over her shoulder. The original guard had fallen back, but five others in the same uniform and much better shape were gaining ground. At the sight of them, Noa started to despair. She didn’t even know if she was still in Boston. And there didn’t seem to be any end to this warehouse complex.
    Noa shoved those thoughts away. She wasn’t the type to give up, not even when it was probably the smarter choice. She ignored the pain in her chest and foot and the shouting voices behind her. Warehouses streamed past, punctuated by more narrow alleys. She abruptly broke free of them and nearly stopped dead.
    She was facing an enormous parking lot, the blacktop so shiny it looked like a pond that had iced over. The air was thick with salt and oil, the wind tugging at her now that there were no buildings to catch it. As far as she could see, there were rows of boats perched on trailers.
    Noa realized where she was: a marine shipyard, dry-dock storage for boats. Off in the distance she was relieved to recognize the Boston skyline, a cluster of dark brown buildings aspiring to be skyscrapers but falling short, tapering off as they slouched west.
    As if on cue, a plane roared past a few hundred feet above her head, making a final approach. Her heart leaped: South Boston, then; somewhere near Logan Airport. An area she knew relatively well, thanks to six months spent in a City Point foster home.
    The realization spurred her onward. Noa darted between the boats. They were parked close together in narrow slots. Some were battered workboats, with barnacles and algae smearing their hulls. As she progressed, they increased in scale until she was threading between daysailers and trawlers, cabin cruisers and sloops. Glancing back again, she realized with relief that, at least for the moment, she’d managed to lose them.
    The voices sounded like they were spreading out—the search would slow them down. And it was unlikely they’d be able to check every boat for her.
    There was also no way she could keep running. As her adrenaline reserves dissipated, her muscles started to protest. She felt weak, exhausted. The pain in her chest had escalated until it felt like someone was punching each breath into her, and her foot killed. She finally slowed to check it: bleeding, but not too badly. Despite the core heat she’d built up running, she was shivering. She needed to find real clothes, and some shoes. And if she kept going, she risked charging straight into one of her pursuers.
    Noa scanned the boats, looking for one that would suit her purposes. A hundred feet away towered a miniyacht, with a sleek cherry hull and a dive platform hanging low over the back of the trailer.
    She raced toward