Struck by Jennifer Bosworth Page A

I’m fine.” I was getting there, anyway. The fire in me dimmed, making it easier to form a clear thought.
    Jeremy turned his eyes away. I looked down and saw that my pants were undone, and my shirt was pulled up to just beneath my bra. I sat up, scrambling to right my clothes. Had he seen my lightning scars?
    “Let’s get out of here before he wakes up,” Jeremy said. He scowled at the Dealer’s prone figure. In one hand he held a heavy, cast-iron skillet that he must have grabbed from someone’s cook fire. The way his fingers clenched so hard around the skillet’s handle made him look like he wanted to bash the Dealer’s head with it a few more times. I’d thought earlier today that Jeremy had the saddest eyes I’d ever seen. Now I thought he had the angriest.
    But how had Jeremy gotten past the guard? And how had he known I was here?
    He started to reach out his free hand to me to help me up, and then withdrew it, so my hand fell short.
    He shook his head. “Sorry. I can’t.” Can’t what, he didn’t say, but I got the point. The last time I’d touched his hand, I’d woken up on the floor of Mr. Kale’s classroom.
    I started to climb to my feet on my own, but a low, rumbling growl like the sound of a motorcycle idling froze me in place.
    Jeremy and I both looked toward the sound. Rosemary’s moist black eyes glinted in the candlelight.
    “No sudden moves,” Jeremy said, but I immediately reached for the pepper spray. I had to fight to get my hand into my pocket. Damn skinny jeans!
    I wrested the can loose and we began to ease slowly toward the tent flaps, the huge black dog’s eyes following. Then she grumbled a warning, but too late. A hand grabbed my ankle and jerked my leg out from under me. I landed flat on my stomach in the sand. The breath was pounded from my lungs.
    The Dealer’s eyes were wide open. Full of rage. But I was prepared this time. I pointed the pepper spray right at his eyes—at least I hoped the nozzle was pointed in the right direction—and pushed the button.
    Sssssss!
    The Dealer roared and released me to clap his hands over his eyes. He started coughing like he had a lung stuck in his throat. My own throat began to burn, and then I was coughing, too. And so was Jeremy. I doubled over, feeling like I’d swallowed a handful of fire ants that were eating their way toward my lungs. My eyes teared up and oozed fat droplets that felt thick as oil.
    The Dealer grabbed blindly at me again. I crab-scrambled through the sand.
    Rosemary barked. The sound was earsplitting, and seemed to make the walls of the tent shudder. Then she leaped, knocking over a scented candle onto the pile of pillows. Flames erupted instantly and spread to the tent wall as though the whole place was doused in gasoline, which it might as well have been considering the recently applied coat of purple paint.
    Rosemary’s teeth sank into the Dealer’s arm. She shook her head violently, like she was trying to snap his bones, and the Dealer screamed.
    I found my feet and looked down at the Dealer. “You were right,” I rasped, my throat ragged from the pepper spray. “She does like me.”
    The fire consumed the mountain of pillows and had nearly enveloped the far wall of the tent. The heat was reaching unbearable levels. Still, I considered attempting a quick search for the meds before remembering the Dealer kept them locked in a safe.
    Covering his mouth with his shirt, Jeremy waved me toward the tent’s opening.
    I felt the weight of defeat on my shoulders. The meds were gone.
    A crowd of onlookers had gathered around the Dealer’s tent, but no one made any attempt to put out the fire. The Dealer had not allowed anyone to set up a tent within thirty feet of his, so they must’ve figured the fire wouldn’t spread. Apparently the Dealer didn’t have a lot of friends among the residents of Tentville. Even his guard had gone MIA, or so I thought until I saw him lying unconscious on the sand a few feet from