Catch Me [antikvár]

PrologueThe little girl woke up the way she'd been trained: quickly and quietly. She inhaled once, a hushed gasp in the still night, then her eyes fixed on her mother's drawn face.'Shhh,' her mother whispered, finger to her lips. 'They're coming. It's time, child. Move.'The girl threw back her covers and sat up. The winter night was cold; she could see her breath as a frosty mist in the glowing moonlight. The little girl was prepared, however. She and her older sister always slept fully dressed, layering T-shirts, sweatshirts, and coats regardless of season. You never knew when They might come, flushing their prey from warm sanctuary into the treacherous wild. Unprepared children would fail quickly, succumbing to exposure, dehydration, fear.Not the little girl and her sister. They'd planned for such events. Their mother, from the time they could walk, had trained them to survive.Now the little girl grabbed her backpack from the foot of her bed. She slipped the wide straps over her shoulders while sliding her small feet into her loosely laced sneakers. Then she followed her mother onto the darkened second-story landing. Her mother paused at the top of the stairs, finger on