CHAPTER 8 BLADE The others are shutting me out. I feel it in the bundles of nerves along my spine and in the agitated energy in Mack’s stare. Daggers, that’s what he’s shooting at me. Glaring from his post beside the grave—keeping guard, trying to make sure that no one sneaks up on us from the trees that surround the cemetery. Rooster stands beside me in the grave, the red hair of his beard crusted with dirt. The others are out roaming the perimeter, and I like any one of them a hundred times more than I like Mack. I glare at my filthy hands, my jeans, my shirt—my only shirt now—covered in soil. The others are wearing clothes that they had stashed around: a few pairs of work jeans from the barn, some shirts in the garage. My Kite is wearing one of Cue’s winter sweatshirts like a dress.