From MUTATIONMarty walked over to the closest hut. It was obviously being used by Grace and Ana. There was a Moleskine journal on one of the hammocks with a fountain pen. On the other side of the hut, Ana's laptop was sitting on a crude desk made out of a split log. Marty knew better than to peek inside Grace's journal. "But this is an emergency!" he muttered. It turned out it wasn't Grace's Moleskine. He could tell by the smell from three feet away. It was one of Rose's journals. He flipped through the pages quickly, then tossed it back on the hammock and hurried over to Ana's laptop. Ana's last entry was on the screen: "It feels as if we're getting picked off one by one. Now Luther is gone. . . . We don't know if he wandered away from camp or was taken. Buck and I are going to go out looking for him. Grace is going to stay in camp and feed the hatchlings, which have just woken up." That meant that Ana and Buck had been gone for several hours, and Luther a lot longer than that. The thought hit Marty like a punch in the gut: Where's Grace? Excerpted from Mutation by Roland Smith All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.
