Gone (37 page)

Drake spun and smacked Chunk in the mouth with the back of his free hand. When Chunk staggered back, Drake moved in and kicked him in the groin.

Chunk grabbed himself and fell lo his knees. He whimpered, "Why d you do thai, man?"

"Because I'm sick of listening to you," Drake snapped-"Pm sick of all this powers crap. You saw what we did to freaks at Coates? Who do you think it was that took care of that? All these kids with their stupid so-called powers. Starting fires and moving stuff around and reading your mind and all? Who do you think it was grabbed them one by one in their sleep and beat them down and when they woke up their hands were setting up in a block of cement?"

"It was you, Drake" Panda said, placating him. "You got

Wilbur..

*That*s right. And I didn't even have a gun then. It's not about who's got powers, morons. It's about who's not afraid. And who's going to do what has to be done"

Chunk was climbing to his feet now with a hand from Panda.

"It's not Sam Temple or even Caine you little worms need to worry about, it's me," Drake said. "Mr. Laser Hands down there isn't going to make it to where he can fight Caine. I'm going to take him down long before that."

87 HOURS, 46 MINUTES

THEY WERE SIX now. Sam. Edilio. Quinn, Lana, Astrid, and Little Pete. All plans for following the FAYZ wall home were abandoned for now. The fire, a patchwork of brilliant yellow and orange, was climbing the hills to the north, cutting them off. They could only keep moving south.

DawD came at last, an unsatisfying gray that bleached the color from everything, even the fire.

They could see where they Were placing their feet, now, but that didn't stop them from tripping and stumbling. They were lead-footed from exhaustion.

Little Pete silently collapsed and was left behind until Astrid noticed. After that Edilio and Sam took turns carrying him on their backs, which made their progress even slower and more treacherous.

Little Pete slept that way for a while, maybe two hours, then, when the boys couldn't manage another step, he woke up and set off on his own, and now they were all following him, loo tired to argue or try tc redirect him, since he was going mostly in the right direction.

"We gotta stop, man," Edilio said."The girls are tired"

"Pm fine" Lana said. Tve been running with coyotes. Walking with you guys is like standing still"

"I've had it" Sam agreed, and stopped right where he was, which happened to be beside something that was either a very big bush or a small tree.

"Petey" Astrid shouted. "Come back. We're stopping."

Little Pete had stopped walking, but he would not come back. Astrid wearily trudged to him, every sore footstep communicating the pain she was in.

"Sam," Astrid yelled."Quick"

Sam thought he was too tar gone to respond, but he somehow started his feel moving again and went up to where Little Pete was standing and Astrid kneeling.

There was a girl lying in the dirt. Her clothing was a mess, her black hair ratty. She was Asian, pretty without being beautiful, and little more than skin and bones. But the first thing they noticed was that her forearms ended in a solid concrete block.

Astrid made a quick sign of the cross and pressed two fingers against the girl's neck, "Lana" Astrid cried.

Lana sized up the situation quickly. "I don't see any injuries. I think maybe she's starving or else sick in some other way."

"What's she doing out here?" Edilio wondered. "Oh, man, what did someone do to her hands?"

"I can't heal hunger" Lana said.*] tried it on myself when I was with the pack. Didn't work"

Edilio untwisted the cap from his water bottle, knelt, and carefully drizzled water across the girl's cheek so that a few drops curled into her mouth.

"Look, she*s swallowing"

Edilio broke a tiny bite from one of the Power Bars and placed it gently into the girl's mouth. After a second the girl's mouth began to move, to chew.

"There's a road over there" Sam said. "I think so, anyway. A dirt road, I think"

"Someone drove by and dumped her here " Astrid agreed,

Sam pointed at the dirt. "You can see how she dragged thai block*

"Some sick stuff going on," Edilio muttered angrily. "Who would do something like this?"

Little Pete stood staring down at the girl. Astrid noticed. "He doesn't usually stare at people that way."

"I guess he's never seen what some creeps can do," Edilio said.

"No," Astrid said thoughtfully. "Petey doesn't relate to people usually. They're not totally real to him. I cut my hand once, really badly with a kitchen knife, I was bleeding all over and he didn't even blink. And Pm the person he's closest to in the whole world."

Lana said, "Sam, can you, you know, like burn that concrete oft her hands?"

"No. I can't aim that precisely."

"I don't even know what can be done" Edilio said as he ted the girl another microscopic bite of food-"You try and break that stuff off with a sledge hammer or something, or even a hammer and a chisel, it's going to really hurt. Probably break every bone in her hands, man."

"Who would have done this to her?" Lana wondered.

"That's a Coates Academy uniform" Astrid answered. "We're probably not far from there."

"Shh," Lana hissed,"! hear something."

Everyone instinctively duckec down. In the silence they could clearly hear a car engine. It was being driven erratically, revving one minute, slowing the next.

"Come on, let's find out who it is," Sam said.

"How we going to move this girl?" Edilio asked. "I can maybe carry her, but I can't carry her and that block, man."

"I'll grab her, you grab the block," Sam said.

"This thing is really heavy," Edilio said. "I better not even meet the
peudejo
who did this.
Do
this to a person? What kind of animal does something like that?"

The car turned out to be an SUV. It was driven, as far as Sam could tell, by a lone boy.

"I know him," Astrid said. She waved. The SUV lurched to a halt. Astrid leaned against the open window. "Computer Jack?"

Sam had seen the techie wizard around town but had never really spoken to him.

"Hi," the boy said. "Oh, good. You found Taylor. I was looking for her."

"You were looking for her?"

"Yeah. She's sick. You knows like in the head. She wandered away from school, and so I was looking for her and—"

Right at that moment, Sam knew it was a trap. A split sec* ond too late.

Drake rose up from behind the third row of seats. He had a gun pointed at Astrid's head, but he was looking straight at Sam. "Don't even think about it. However fast you think you are, all I have to do is squeeze the trigger"

"I'm not moving" Sam said. He raised his hands in surrender.

"Ah ah ah, no no no, Sam boy. I know all about the power. Keep your hands by your side."

"I have to help carry this girl" Sam said.

"No one's carrying her anywhere. She's done for"

"We're not leaving her here," Astrid said,

"The guy holding the gun makes the decisions" Drake said, and grinned. "And if I were ycu, Astrid, I wouldn't push me. Caine wants to try to take ycu and your little brother alive. But if you tWO try and do your disappearing act, I'll shoot Sam."

"You're a psychopath, Drake" Astrid said.

"Wow. Such a big word. I guess that's why you're Astrid the Genius, huh? You know what else is a good word? Retard."

Astrid flinched like he had hit her.

"My brother is a retard," Drake mimicked. "I wish I had recorded it. Okay. We're going to climb in the truck here one by one. Nice and slow."

"Not without the girl," Sam said flatly. "That's right" Edilio agreed.

Drake sighed theatrically. "Okay. Pick her up. Throw her in the front seat next to Jack."

Doing that took some effort The girl was alive, but not really conscious and was too weak to move.

Quinn had gone rigid with fear and indecision. Sam could see the conflict on his face. Should he stick with Sam or try and ingratiate himself with Drake?

Sam wondered what he would decide. For now, his friend was staring wide-eyed, blank, mouth trembling, eyes darting, looking for an answer.

"It'll be all right, Quinn," Sam whispered.

Quinn didn't even hear him.

Astrid climbed in. She sat directly behind Jack. "I really thought there might be some hope for you, Jack"

"Nab" Drake said. "Jack's like a screwdriver or a pair of pliers. He's just a took He does what we tell him to do."

Little Pete and Lana shared the middle bench with Astrid. Edilio and Sam were in the back row. Drake pressed the gun to the back of Edilio's head.

"Your problem's with me, Drake," Sam said.

"You might take a chance if it's only your own life on the line." Drake said. "But you won'l risk me shooting your pet Mexican here, or your girlfriend."

They drove in jerks and starts, Jack frequently weaving off the road onto the shoulder. But they didn't crash, which was Sam's only hope. They pulled up outside Coates Academy.

Sam had been once before, brought there to see where his mother worked. The gloomy old building looked like it had been shelled. One entire room upstairs was exposed. The main door had been blown apart.

"Looks like a war zone" Edilio commented.

"The FAYZ
is
a war 2one" Drake said darkly.

The sight of the place brought Sam a wave of sad memories. His mother had done her best to portray her job as something she was excited about, and Coates as a place where she was going to love working. But even then Sam had known that she was only here because he had broken up his mother's marriage.

He felt within him the residue of his rage at his mother. It was childish. Shameful, really. Wrong. And it was the wrong time to be thinking about all that, now, where he was, with what was happening, what was likely to happen.

What was that phrase of EdilioV
Cabeza de turco?
Scapegoat? He needed someone to blame, and his anger had been building at his mother since bng before the FAYZ.

But as mad as I am, Sam thought, it must be worse for Caine, I was the son she kept. He was the one she gave away.

When they pulled up. Panda and a couple of kids Sam didn't know were waiting. They were armed with baseball bats.

"I want to see Caine" Sam said as they climbed out. "No doubt" Drake said. "But first we have things to take care of. Line up. Walk single file around the building" "Tell Caine his brother is here," Sam insisted. "You're not dealing with Caine, Sammy, you're dealing with me" Drake said. "I'd just as soon shoot you. Pd just as soon shoot all of you. So don't piss me off"

They did as ordered. They turned the corner and came to the commons area behind the main building. There was a small performance stage made tc look like a gazebo.

More than two dozen kids lined a low railing around the gazebo. They were all tied to it by a rope leash that gave them no more than a few feet of movement. Neck to rail, like tethered horses. Each of the kids was weighed down by a concrete block that encased their hands. Their eyes were hollow, their cheeks caved in.

Astrid used a word that Sam had never imagined coming from her.

"Nice language," Drake said with a smirk. "And in front of the Pe-tard.too"

A cafeteria tray had been placed in front of each of the prisoners. It must have been a very receni delivery because some were still licking their trays, hunched over, faces down, tongues out, licking like dogs.

"It's the circle of freaks," Drake said proudly, waving a hand like a showman.

In a crusty old wheelbarrow to one side> three kids were using a short-handled shovel to mix cement. It made a heavy sloshing sound. They dumped a shovelful of gravel into the mix and stirred it like lumpy gravy.

"Oh, no," Lana said, backing away, but one of the Coates kids smashed her behind the knee with his baseball bat, and she crumpled.

"Gotta do something with unhelpful freaks," Drake said.

"Can't have you people running around loose" He must have seen Sam start to react because tie stuck his gun against Astrid's head."Your call, Sam. You so much as flinch and we'll get to see what a genius brain really looks like"

"Hey, I got no powers, man," Quinn said.

"This is sick, Drake. Like you're sick," Astrid said. "I can't even reason with you because yotfre just too damaged, too hopelessly messed up."

"Shut up," Drake snapped. "Okay, Sam. You first. It's easy to do. You just stick your hands in ind then, presto, no more powers"

Quinn pleaded. "Sam's a freak, I'm not, man, I have no powers.! am just a normal person.'

Sam walked with shaky steps to ihe wheelbarrow. The kids mixing the concrete looked very unhappy about what they were doing, but Sam didn't kid hinself; they would do what they were told.

There was a hole dug in the dirt, about a foot long, halt' as wide, and maybe eight inches deep.

The cement mixers sloshed a shovelftil of concrete into the hole, filling it a third of the way.

"Stick your hands in, Sam," Drake ordered. "Do it or pop-goes-t he-genius"

Sam plunged his hands into the cement. The kid with the shovel dumped a load of wet, heavy cement into the hole and used a trowel to poke it down. Then half a shovelful and the boy used the trowel to smooth it over and return the excess to the wheelbarrow.

Sam knelt there, hands encased, his brain crazed with desperate plans and wild calculations. If he moved, Astrid would die. If he did nothing, they would be slaves.

"Okay, Astrid, your turn," Drake said.

Another hole and the same process. Astrid was crying, saying, "It'll be okay, Petey, it'll be okay" through her tears.

One of the mixers got busy digging a third hole. He did it with quick, practiced moves, slicing the turf with a trowel.

"Takes about ten minutes is all Sam," Drake said."If you're going to do something brave, you ve got about eight minutes. Tick-tock."

"This is how you have to deal with freaks," Quinn said. "No choice, Drake"

Sam could feel the concrete hardening. Already if he tried to move his fingers, he found they were imprisoned. Astrid was more upset than Sam had ever seen her. She was crying openly. Her fear fed his. He couldn't bear it. For himself it was bad enough, but seeing her this way ...