"No!" is Melanie's immediate, emphatic response. The only death for her here is the one in the corner, and if Daniel gives himself over to the hungries, they only might tear him to pieces. It's just as likely that they'll leave him intact enough to turn into one of them. Either way, "I won't let you," she insists. "You can't." She hasn't worked this hard to keep him alive just to have him die on purpose.

She holds the book aloft with a fierce, stubborn frown on her face. "I want to try this way," she says. Without waiting for a response, she settles herself on the dusty bedspread and starts leafing through the latter half of the book, looking for a nice passage about the garden and shooting the occasional stern glance Daniel's way, as if he might produce a sword out of nowhere and throw himself on it at any moment.