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People still bustled and strolled down the hallway. A woman in a knee-length pink coat, and floppy-brimmed pink hat dashed past quickly enough that her long mauve-and-white scarf trailed in her wake. Between talks, this hallway probably became churning chaos. How long did they have until a break in sessions, anyway?
Dale still ached, but his body seemed to be recovering from the surge of adrenaline. Acid burned his stomach. His butt and spine hurt from sitting squeezed against the wall. The air conditioning had sucked the worst of the sweat from his shirt, leaving it salt-stiff but not actively wet. His mouth tasted of faux chocolate protein bar. The caffeine he’d used to wake himself up, clashing with the lingering drag of last night’s allergy pills, left him feeling brittle.
Not to
