“See the place where the hills end? The lake is just past that. Start running.”
“Are you coming?” Justin cried.
“Right behind you. Now, run!”
Brittney didn’t come after Diana, although Diana swung on her again. Brittney ran after Justin.
She caught him easily. Diana tried to grab Brittney, but a pregnant girl running in the sand…
Brittney hugged Justin to her with one arm. In her free hand she held a sharp rock very close to Justin’s chattering, fearful mouth. It was a heartbreaking parody of maternal protectiveness.
Diana remembered again who Brittney had once been. The brave, decent girl who refused to disappoint Sam and Edilio.
It was Diana, along with Caine and Drake, who had made this Brittney. They and, of course, the Darkness. What a fatal little group they had proved to be. Look at the damage they had done, she and Caine and Drake. And the gaiaphage.
Now here they were on their way to a reunion. Diana, and Drake, and the gaiaphage. And Caine’s role would be played by his son or daughter.
She had wanted so badly to escape it all. For that briefest moment she believed she had changed Caine. And that was when they had created the baby inside her.
“Keep walking,” Brittney said, actually stroking Justin’s face with the stone. “Please.”
It was not Drake. The distant figure Brianna had seen was not Drake. It was Dekka. And Brianna had raced up within shouting distance with her machete out before she realized.
She skidded to a halt.
Dekka was covered in blood from hand to elbow, with sprays of it across her face.
“Where have you been?” Dekka demanded without so much as a hello.
Brianna sheathed her machete and decided against answering. “What’s with the blood?”
“It’s your boyfriend’s,” Dekka grated.
“My what?”
“Jack. He went after Drake by himself. Drake cut his throat.”
Brianna stared at her. “Are you nuts? Jack went after Drake? Jack doesn’t do things like that.”
“He does when there’s no other choice,” Dekka said.
Dekka kept looking past her. Brianna kept doing the same. The world was ending, Jack was hurt, maybe dying, maybe dead already, and they were being awkward.
“Drake has Diana and Justin. He’s heading toward the mine shaft, toward the gaiaphage.”
Brianna shook her head, feeling like she was missing something. “Who is Justin?”
“Where were you? You were supposed to be within earshot. Sam shot off some rounds and no Brianna.”
“I was looking for Drake,” Brianna said defensively.
Dekka glared pure fury at her. “You don’t love Jack. You don’t even care about him, do you? You haven’t even asked how he is.”
Brianna actually took a step back. “Why are you hating on me?”
Dekka’s jaw actually dropped. It would have been almost funny, if it wasn’t Dekka. “Are you that clueless? How do you not understand how irresponsible you are? Right now Orc is running back to the lake with his hands barely holding Jack’s blood in. And Drake is probably whipping Diana across the desert.”
Brianna shook her head violently. “That’s not my fault! That’s not on me! I was out looking for Drake.”
Suddenly Dekka’s bloody fist was flying straight for Brianna’s nose. Brianna easily sidestepped and Dekka stumbled forward.
Brianna was too astonished to hit back.
Dekka wasn’t finished. She actually kicked at Brianna. This unbalanced her completely and she fell heavily on her side.
Suddenly Brianna found herself in a column of floating sand. She tried to run but there was no solid ground beneath her. Gravity was suspended.
That did it. Brianna yanked out her sawed-off shotgun and leveled it at Dekka. “Put me down or I’ll shoot you!”
Dekka had gotten to her feet. “You would do it, too, wouldn’t you?” She waved her hand angrily and Brianna dropped two feet back to earth.
“Do you ever think about anything besides yourself?” Dekka yelled. To Brianna’s amazement there were tears in Dekka’s eyes. She wiped them away so violently it was like she was slapping herself. She left a smear of blood, like red paint.
“Hey, I’m sorry or whatever,” Brianna said hotly. “What do you want me to say? I hope Jack’s okay. And I’ll kill Drake if I get the chance. What do you want from me?”
Dekka’s face was an ugly mask of emotion, unreadable to Brianna. Aside from it being obvious that Dekka was mad about something.
“Four months and you haven’t even said anything to me,” Dekka said.
“I’ve talked to you,” Brianna said. But she looked away as she said it, suddenly even more uncomfortable. She could deal with anger. Need was something different.
“I told you—” Dekka began before her voice choked off. She took a few seconds to master it. Then, unable to meet Brianna’s eyes, she said, “I thought I was done for. I mean, I don’t scare easy. The pain…” That stopped her again; then she shook her head angrily, like she was pushing through it. “It was bad, that’s all. And I was dying. I should have died. But I didn’t want to die without telling you.”
“Yeah, whatever,” Brianna said, shifting from side to side and just about unable to resist the desire to go tearing off at a hundred miles an hour.
“I told you I loved you.”
“Uh-huh.”
“And you said nothing. Nothing. For four months.”
Brianna shrugged. “Look, okay, look.” She swallowed hard. “Look, besides me you’re the bravest, toughest chick in the FAYZ,” Brianna said. “I mean, I always thought we were like sisters, you know? Like badass sisters.”
Dekka’s eyes, so hot and furious, went blank. For a long time she just looked at nothing. At the space beside Brianna. Finally Dekka sighed. “Like sisters.”
“Yeah, but like rocking-the-tough-chick-thing sisters.”
“But … you don’t…”
This was a Dekka Brianna wasn’t prepared for. She looked smaller. She looked like a big rag doll with half the stuffing gone. Darkness was coming on fast now. Shadows were deeper, and the shadows were just shadows of other shadows.
Dekka squared her shoulders. Seemed to be arguing with herself. Finally: “You’re not gay. You don’t like girls.”
Brianna frowned. “I don’t think so.”
“Do you like boys?” Dekka asked, her voice strained.
Brianna shrugged. Every part of this made her uncomfortable. “I don’t know, jeez. I made out with Jack a couple of times. But that’s because I was bored.”
“Bored.”
“Yeah. And it didn’t help that much.”
“You’re not in love with Jack?”
Brianna barked out a surprised laugh. “Jack? Computer Jack? I mean, I like him okay. He’s nice. I mean, he’s sweet. And if I’m reading a book I don’t understand he can always explain stuff. He’s smart. But he’s not—” And there she stopped herself.
To Brianna’s surprise that drew an incredulous laugh from Dekka. “This is you, isn’t it? The real you.”
Brianna squinted. What kind of question was that?
“All this time…” Dekka didn’t finish the thought. “Why didn’t you just tell me?”
“What?”
Dekka balled her fists up. “I swear to God I’m going to kill you if you keep playing dumb!”
“I like boys, okay? I think. I guess. Probably. I mean, I’m just thirteen! Jeez! I know it’s the FAYZ and all, but I’m really just … a kid.”
Brianna blushed. Why had she said that? She wasn’t a kid. She was the Breeze. She was the most dangerous person … okay, third most dangerous person … not a kid, though. Not like a little kid.
Well, she was fast, but she couldn’t snatch words back. Jack probably dying. The light going out. Maybe it was just okay to say stuff.
A sharp intake of breath from Dekka. “You are, aren’t you?”
Dekka said softly. “I forget.” She repeated it sadly. “I forget.”
“I mean, it’s like, you know, I have a crush on Sam or whatever, like every other girl—well, except you, I guess—but it’s not like that. It’s like … you know…” She tapered off lamely. Then added, “I just like being The Breeze. Capital ‘T,’ capital ‘B.’”
All the anger was gone from Dekka. “I forget, Brianna. I mean, I see you do stuff that’s so crazy brave.... And I see how Sam depends on you. How everyone does. And I see you run into a fight with Drake and, wow, I mean, I look at you and you’re, like, everything I ever wanted in a girlfriend. And I forget you’re still just a kid.”
“I’m not that young,” Brianna said, now really wishing she could take some of it back.
Dekka sighed a deep, long sigh.
“I mean, maybe in a couple of years,” Brianna said, definitely feeling like she was coming out on the worse end of this conversation.
Dekka laughed. “No, Brianna. No. A crush on Sam? Making out with Jack? Nope. Nope. I was letting my own… I was seeing what I wanted to see. That’s what I was doing. I wasn’t seeing you.”
“But you and me. We’re cool?”
Dekka was crying again, but this time she wiped the tears away with a laugh. “Breeze, how could we not be cool? We are definitely the badass sisters.”
“What do we do now? I can’t run very fast in the dark.”
“Yep. But we still go after Drake. He’s got Diana, and we can’t leave her to him. He hates women, you know.”
“Yeah. I did notice that about him.” Brianna felt energy flowing through her again. The tiredness, the frustration, they were gone. And the coming darkness? Well, she could still swing a very, very fast machete. “The boy hates chicks, right? Let’s go give him a good reason to.”
Astrid walked holding Cigar’s hand. Sometimes it would freak him out and he’d be convinced she was going to eat him. His mind was gone. Or if not gone forever, then gone for now. Gone until he somehow got help.
But he could see what she could not. He could see her brother. She had sensed it from the start when she had seen the coyote with the human face. Not stupid, but ignorant, heedless. Something or someone with staggering power and no idea how to use it.
Little Pete was an unseen, almighty god who played ignorant, heedless games with the helpless creatures in the FAYZ.
Maybe the stain was his, too.
Maybe he was the one shutting down the light.
Well, it would figure, wouldn’t it? Sooner or later the game had to end.
She walked on tired feet toward Perdido Beach, knowing now that it was a hopeless effort.
They were all mere humans, after all. And the closest thing they had to a god was a reckless, indifferent child.
TWENTY-EIGHT
10 HOURS, 35 MINUTES
“THAT’S THE BEST I can do,” Roger said. The lower half of his face and the front of his shirt were covered with blood. The deck was smeared with it.
Sam looked down at Jack, covered with a blanket. They couldn’t move him. They couldn’t really do much for him unless they found a way to bring Lana to him.
Roger had started with green thread. At first that was all anyone could find. That was what he had used to sew up the artery or vein or whatever it was that lay slit and exposed by the angry slash in Jack’s neck.
The outer part of the wound was sewn up with white thread, though formerly white was more like it. It was red now.
They had smeared a little of their precious stock of Neosporin on the wound and covered it with a bandage torn from an old flag. Jack’s neck was red, white, and blue, though the bandage was soaking through with seeping blood as well.
Roger was the unofficial nurse. Mostly because he seemed nice and was good with kids. He had taken on the job of sewing up Jack’s neck.
He’d said it was like trying to sew a piece of pasta. A piece of pasta that pulsed and sprayed blood.
“Thanks, Roger,” Sam said. “You absolutely stepped up, dude.”
“He’s so pale,” Roger said. “Like a piece of chalk.”
Sam had nothing to say about that. Lana could save Jack. But she was far away, and soon there would be almost no way to even contact her.
Where was that little bimbo Taylor? They needed her.
He had stopped being mad at Brianna, because now he was just too worried about her. If she was out there running around after Drake, Sam would kill her. Hug her first. Then kill her.
This couldn’t be. It just couldn’t. Poor Jack, who had maybe not always been the most stand-up guy in the world but who had never had a mean bone in his geeky body. And Breeze missing. And Diana. Howard dead. Orc … somewhere.
And Astrid.
It was all coming apart in his hands. He was watching his whole world bleed out like Jack.
“We’ve got Astrid, Dekka, Diana—and I hope Brianna—all out there in the desert with Drake,” Sam said. “Orc’s on his way back out. And in an hour they’ll all be in absolute darkness.”
“And Justin,” Roger said, making a point of it.
“And Justin,” Sam agreed.
Edilio wiped his face with his hand, a sign of nervousness in the usually impassive Edilio.
Suddenly Sam remembered the first time he’d run into Edilio after the coming of the FAYZ. It had been up at Clifftop. Edilio had been trying to dig under the barrier. Practical, even then.
“Look,” Sam pressed. “People here have lights. It’s not much, but they have something; they can at least see. What chance do those kids out there in the desert have?”
“Drake’s probably reached the mine shaft by now,” Edilio said.
“No,” Roger said sharply. “No. Don’t do that. Don’t just write Justin off like that.”
Sam saw shame on Edilio’s face. “I’m sorry, babe; you know I love that little guy. I didn’t mean it like that.”
Edilio reached for Roger, then, with a darting sideways glance at Sam, stopped himself.
Roger had made an identical move, and also stopped after an abashed glance at Sam.
Sam stood very still, and for a few very awkward seconds no one spoke.
Finally Sam said, “Edilio, I have to go after them.”
“We can’t risk you, Sam. What if you’re killed? What if there’s no more light, and you’re it; you’re the only thing between us and total darkness?”
“Then we’re all dead anyway, Edilio.” Sam spread his hands in a helpless gesture. “We barely stay alive in this place as it is. In total darkness? A few Sammy suns won’t save us.”
“Look, we have to keep people calm. That’s what’s most important.”
It was a job that suddenly got a lot harder as a gaggle of a dozen kids came pelting madly down the slope past the Pit.
“Help us! Help! Help us!”
The coyotes knew their prey were getting close to safety. That was Sanjit’s conclusion as he watched them begin closing in.
The crowd on the road had grown. Kids had huddled closer together as the darkness deepened. Kids who had started out later ran till they were falling down, desperate to catch up.
Those who had begun with a lead began to doubt the wisdom of being out front. So front and back had joined middle and now they were a mob of thirty kids, spilling off the road, moving as a cluster, walking as fast as they could, crying, whining, complaining loudly, demanding.... Demanding of whom, Sanjit couldn’t guess.
This was officially a fiasco, he knew. One of those efforts that was doomed from the start. His little mission to tell Sam what was happening in Perdido Beach, to hand him Lana’s request for lights in Perdido Beach, all a waste of time.
Too late. And unnecessary, anyway, since the crowd of refugees would have gotten the same point across.
A stupid, wasted effort.
He didn’t blame Lana for sending him. It never occurred to him to blame her. He was head over heels, lost, lost, lost in love with her. But she would agree—if he ever saw h
er again—that it had not worked out very well.
He could barely see a hundred feet to either side of the road. The gloom that had been weirdly tea colored had now deepened and shifted in the spectrum. The air itself seemed a dark blue. There was an element of opacity to the light that remained. Like it was foggy, but of course it wasn’t.
A hundred feet was enough to see the coyote pack. Their lolling tongues. Their intelligent, hyperalert yellow eyes. The way their ears stood up and swiveled to each new sound.
As soon as it was dark they would come. Unless the kids reached the lake before that happened. Sanjit could read anxiety in their avid expressions and the way they paced back and forth.
“Everyone just stay together and keep moving,” he urged.
Somehow he was in charge. Maybe it was that he was the only one with a gun. Others had the usual assortment of weapons, but his was the only gun.
Or maybe it was his association with the revered Lana. Or the fact that he was among the three oldest kids.
Sanjit sighed. He missed Choo. He missed all his brothers and sisters, but especially Choo. Choo was the pessimistic one, which allowed Sanjit to be the perky optimist.
One of the coyotes had had enough and started trotting purposefully toward the crowd of kids.
“Don’t do it!” Sanjit yelled, and aimed the pistol. Zero chance of hitting the animal from here, in this light, with his total lack of skill. But the coyote stopped and looked at him. More curious than afraid.
Sanjit knew the animal was sizing the situation up. In the math of a coyote the smart move was to kill as many as the pack could. Meat didn’t have to be fresh for them; they could drag the bodies away at their leisure and eat for weeks.
Then the coyote spoke. The voice was a shock, guttural, slurred like a shovel dragged through wet gravel. “Give us the small ones.”
“I will absolutely shoot you!” Sanjit said, and walked forward, holding the gun with both hands, self-consciously emulating a hundred TV cop shows.
“Give us three,” the coyote said without the slightest evidence of fear.
Sanjit said something rude and defiant.
But someone else yelled, “It’s better than all of us getting eaten!”
“Don’t be stupid,” Sanjit snapped. “They just know we’re close to the lake. Trying to distract us so—” The horrible reality of his own words came to him.