Swarm by Scott Westerfeld, Margo Lanagan, Deborah Biancotti Page A

supposed to be keeping watch for Glitch and Coin, but Kelsie couldn’t help joining in with the audience. Becoming part of the excitement.
    Then a jolt went through her—it hadn’t come from the crowd, but from deep inside her.
    â€œHey,” Chizara said, “isn’t that the Parker-Hamilton in the background?”
    Kelsie stayed silent, hoping it wasn’t.
    â€œI guess they shot this last summer, before it was demolished.”
    Kelsie couldn’t answer. She remembered her dad tied up,the countdown to the hotel’s demolition ringing in their ears. She’d thought she was going to die there too.
    Chizara was looking at her. “Kelsie?”
    Kelsie gripped the armrests. She felt sick.
    She shut her eyes against the sight of the doomed hotel. But it was too late. The flashbacks had started. Tied up in a car trunk, a bag over her head. Then strapped to a concrete pole on an abandoned floor of the hotel. Her dad nearby, beaten nearly to death. Too far away for her to reach out to him.
    Her dad in the hospital. Her dad dying. Dead. Gone.
    She started to sweat. This sequence played out in her dreams sometimes, but never when she was awake.
    The world began to spin around her. And with it, the theater crowd spun too. Her fear flooded out into the room. The movie soundtrack grew ominous, dragging them all along with it.
    Kelsie opened her eyes, taking deep breaths. Trying to put herself back in the story. The fictional story. The one on the screen, not the one playing over and over in her head.
    This movie was about someone else. A nameless girl on-screen. It wasn’t about Kelsie.
    But then the stalking camera made its move, closing swiftly in a parking lot. A bright, shiny needle went into the girl’s neck. She swooned, and was shoved into the waiting trunk of a car. . . .
    â€œOh my God.”
    Panic flooded Kelsie. Her hand shot out and gripped Chizara’s arm.
    She tried to stand, but the shaky darkness of the trunk had swallowed her will. By now the whole crowd was swept up with Kelsie, her fear roaring and rebounding off the movie theater’s walls.
    The nightmares she’d been swallowing for six months came tumbling out.

CHAPTER 17
CRASH
    CHIZARA FOUGHT FOR CONTROL .
    Kelsie’s fear spilled over from the next seat, ricocheting around the theater. It was much stronger than the images on the screen—tightening ropes, the villain’s cold-lit face—and the stings of foreboding music.
    The fear made it harder to bear the hundreds of needling phones in the audience behind her, and the knot of itchy pain in the back of her head from the multichannel speaker system. With Mob’s power drenching her, Chizara had to consciously fend off every spike of tech.
    She held Kelsie’s hand tight. On-screen the trunk lid slammed shut, and Chizara felt the thump of Kelsie’s fear in her gut.
    â€œIt’s all right,” she muttered.
    â€œNo.” Kelsie shook her head. “It’s not.”
    In brief scraps of screen light Chizara made out Kelsie’s staring eyes. With each jangle and scrape of the soundtrack more fear was welling out of her.
    But it’s her fear, not mine, Chizara thought, ferociously trying to keep the two separate. Kelsie’s fear of . . .
    Of course. Last summer. Sack over the head, trunk, tied wrists—this was the worst day of Kelsie’s life all over again. This crappy movie had let those bad memories loose. Chizara felt them reaching deep inside her, blotting out her rational mind.
    With a massive effort she twisted from the screen to the audience. People clutched each other, blank-faced and cowering in their seats. A few called out curses, prayers, each other’s names, from mouths square with terror. And the fear kept ratcheting up.
    â€œYou’ve got to control this, Kelsie!” Chizara called out over the noise.
    â€œHow?” Kelsie gasped.
    At least she wasn’t