Caine sucked air and sat back in his chair. He considered the terrified girl. “Tell me about your power. Tell me the truth, all of it, and you’ll be fine. If you lie to me, I’ll know I can never trust you.”
Orsay looked up at Diana as though she might be a friend. “Do what he says,” Diana said.
Orsay twined her fingers together. She sat with her knees knocked, her shoulders pressed in as though she were trying to get them to meet.
“It started happening, like, maybe five months ago. Mostly at night. I thought I was crazy. I didn’t know where it was coming from. My head would be filled up with these pictures and sometimes sounds, people talking, flashes of faces or places. Sometimes they were really short, just a few seconds. But sometimes they went on for a half hour, one thing after another, craziness, people being chased, people falling, people having . . . you know, like, sex and all.”
She looked down at her twisting fingers, embarrassed.
“Yeah, we get it, you’re all sweet and innocent,” Drake sneered.
Diana asked, “How did you figure out you were seeing people’s dreams?”
“It usually only happened at night,” Orsay said. “And then, one night I had this really vivid dream of this woman’s face, this kind of nice, red-haired woman, right? But she wasn’t even around, yet. She arrived the next morning. I hadn’t seen her before, not in reality, just in her husband’s dream. That’s when I figured it out.”
“So you’ve been up in the forest this whole time? You must have been lonely.” Caine was applying a bit of his smile, a fraction of his charm, putting her at ease.
Orsay nodded. “I’m used to being lonely.”
“How are you at keeping secrets?” Diana asked. She made her voice casual, but she stared hard into Orsay’s eyes, hoping she would get the message, hoping she knew how great a danger she was in.
Orsay blinked. She was about to say something, then blinked again. “I never told anyone anything I saw,” Orsay said.
Caine said, “Interesting question, Diana.”
Diana shrugged. “A good spy needs to be discreet.”
When Caine looked blank, Diana added quickly, “I mean, I assume that’s what you’re thinking. We have Bug, who can sneak into a place, maybe overhear some conversation. But Orsay could actually get into people’s dreams.” When Caine’s expression remained skeptical, Diana added, “I wonder what Sam dreams about.”
“No way,” Drake said. “No way. You heard her, she gets anyone’s dreams who happens to be nearby. That means she’s in our heads, too. No way.”
“I doubt she wants any part of your dreams, Drake,” Diana said.
Drake uncoiled his arm and lightning quick wrapped it around Orsay, who yelped and froze stiff. “I brought her in. She’s mine. I say what happens to her.”
“Just what is it you want to do with her?” Diana asked.
Drake grinned. “I don’t know. Maybe I’ll cook her and eat her. Meat is meat, right?”
Diana glanced at Caine, hoping to see some sign of revulsion, some acknowledgment that Drake was going too far. But Caine just nodded as if he was considering Drake’s claim. “Lets find out what her range is first, huh? Orsay: How far away can you be and still get someone’s dream?”
Orsay chattered her answer, shaking with fear. “Only like . . . like . . . like from the ranger station and the nearest part of the campground.”
“How much distance is that?”
She tried to shrug, but Drake was squeezing her, like a python, taking advantage of every exhalation to tighten his coils. “Maybe two hundred feet,” Orsay said.
“Mose’s cabin,” Diana said. “It’s twice that far from the campus.”
“I said no,” Drake threatened. “She was in my head.”
“We already know it’s a cesspool in there,” Diana said.
“This is uncool, Caine,” Drake said. “You owe me. You need me. Don’t mess with me on this.”
“Don’t mess with me?” Caine echoed. That was the step too far.
Caine jumped up, knocking his chair over backward. He raised both hands, palms out. “You really want to challenge me, Drake? I can blow you through the wall into the next room before you can unwrap yourself from that girl.”
Drake flinched. Started to answer, but he never had a chance. Caine had gone from calm and contained to crazy in a heartbeat.
“You stupid thug,” Caine raged. “You think you can replace me? You think if I was out of the way you’d be able to go down the hill and take out Sam and the rest? You couldn’t even beat Orc! You nobody!” Caine screamed, spit flying from a mouth moving as fast as it could but still not fast enough for the fury within.
The blood had drained from Drake’s hard face. His eyes burned furiously, his arm twitched, almost out of control. He looked like he might choke on his own bottled rage.
“I’m the brains!” Caine shrieked. “I’m the brains! I’m the brains and the power, the true power, the four bar, the one. I am the one. Me! Why do you think the Darkness kept me for three days? Why do you think . . . Why do you think it’s still in my . . . in my . . .”
There was an abrupt change in Caine’s voice. For a second it was as if he was sobbing, not raging. He caught himself and righted his voice, swallowed hard. He looked unsteady and reached for a chairback to hold himself up.
Then he saw the not-quite-pitying look in Diana’s eyes, and no doubt the shark’s cold gleam of triumph on Drake’s face as well.
Caine roared, an incoherent, lunatic howl. He extended his hands, aiming down and to either side of Drake.
There was an earsplitting sound, stones ripped apart, as the floor exploded upward in a geyser of shattered floor tile and dirt.
The pillar of rock and debris shot up, slammed into the already-scarred and damaged cathedral ceiling and tumbled back down again, a rain of gravel, as Caine’s howl fell silent.
The only sound was the off-key, musical patter of falling debris.
Caine stared, blank. Blank.
It went on for too long. But no one dared speak. Then, as if someone had thrown a switch, Caine’s expression became human once more. He smiled a shaky smile.
“We can use this girl, Drake,” Caine said calmly. Then, to Orsay directly, “We can, can’t we? We can use you? You’ll do whatever I tell you to do? And you will obey only me?”
Orsay tried to find her voice but couldn’t even manage a whisper. She nodded vigorously.
“Good. Because if I ever doubt you, Orsay, I’ll give you to Drake. You don’t want that.”
Caine slumped, used up. Without another word he weaved his way to the door.
Lana patted her dog, Patrick, on his thick ruff. “Ready?”
Patrick made his little whimpering sound, the one that meant, “Come on, let’s get going.”
Lana stood up and checked the Velcro strap that held her iPod in place on her arm. She made sure the bright yellow headphones were in place—her ears were too small for the standard earbuds.
She dialed up her “running” play list. But, of course, she didn’t really run now. Running made hunger unbearable. Now she just walked. And not as far as she had run.
Back in the old days, before the FAYZ, she’d done neither. But that, like so much, had changed. There was nothing like dragging through the desert without water or a clue, and then being made a captive of a swift-moving coyote pack, to make you think you should get in shape.
She liked to begin in silence. She liked to hear the sound of her sneaker treads, almost silent on the carpeted hotel floor. Then satisfyingly loud on the blacktop.
Her route began at the front door of Clifftop. It was an automatic door, and it still worked. It was weird, still weird after all this time, that the door’s sensor should be patiently awaiting the signal to open wide the doors to the outside world.
From Clifftop she would walk down toward Town Beach. Then she would cut through town, but away from the plaza, join the highway, and complete the circle ba
ck to Clifftop. Unless she was too weak from hunger. Then she would cut that short.
She knew she should probably not burn unnecessary calories. But she couldn’t bring herself to stop. To stop, to spend a day lying on the bed, was to surrender. Lana didn’t like the idea of surrender. She hadn’t surrendered to pain, or to Pack Leader, or to the Darkness.
I don’t surrender, she told herself.
Come to me. I have need of you.
As she got beyond the Clifftop approach road and headed down the slope, Lana punched the iPod’s touchscreen and her ears were filled with a Death Cab for Cutie song.
But it was the other lyrics she heard, like a whisper, like a second track beneath this song.
She’d gone no more than a hundred yards along when two little kids intercepted her, waving their hands to get her attention.
They looked healthy enough to her. She gave them a short wave and hoped that would be enough.
But the two littles moved to block her way. She stopped, panting a little, even though she shouldn’t be, and ripped off her headphones.
“What?” she snapped.
There was some hemming and hawing before the kids could blurt it out.
“Joey’s got a loose tooth.”
“So what? He’s supposed to be getting new teeth.”
“But it hurts. You’re supposed to fix things that hurt.”
“Supposed to?” Lana echoed. “Look, kids, if you’re bleeding from some big gaping wound you can bug me. I’m not here for every little headache or skinned knee or loose tooth.”
“You’re mean,” the kid said.
“Yeah. I’m mean.” Lana settled her headphones back in place and started off, feeling angry at the kids and angrier at herself for yelling at them. But kids came after her wherever she was. They interrupted her while she was eating. They harassed her when she was sitting on her balcony reading a book. They banged on her door while she was pooping.
It was almost never something that needed a miracle. And increasingly that’s what Lana was starting to think about her powers, that they were something miraculous. No one had any better explanation.
And miracles shouldn’t be wasted.
Anyway, she had a right to have a life of her own. She wasn’t everyone’s servant. She belonged to herself.
Come to me.
Lana bit her lip. She was ignoring it, the voice, the hallucination, whatever it was.
Just going to ignore it.
She cranked up the volume on the music.
She veered away from the beach as she approached town. Maybe if she went along the back streets more. Maybe she could vary her route more and make it harder for people to track her down.
So long as she ended the same way: back up the hill to Clifftop. Up to the FAYZ wall. Not to touch it, but to get very close to it as she panted and sweated and nursed the inevitable stitch in her side.
She felt she needed to see that barrier up close every day. It was a devotion, somehow. A touchstone. A reminder that she was here, and this was now. Whatever she had been before, she wasn’t that person anymore. She was trapped in this place and in this life. Not her choice: the wall’s choice.
Come to me. I have need of you.
“It’s not real,” Lana shouted.
But it was real. She knew it was real. She knew the voice. Where it came from.
She knew she could not shut the voice out of her mind. The only way to silence the voice was to silence it forever. She could be its victim, or she could make it her victim.
Madness. Suicidal madness. She skipped a slow song and went to something manic. Something loud enough to banish crazy thoughts.
She walked harder, faster, almost running, pumping her arms and forcing Patrick into a long lope to keep up. But she wasn’t fast enough to outrun a truck that zoomed crazily up to her honking its horn.
Again she tore off her headphones and yelled, “What?”
But this was no loose tooth or skinned knee.
Albert and Howard piled out. Howard helped pull Orc from the back. The boy . . . the creature . . . staggered as if drunk. He probably was, Lana thought. Then again, maybe he had a pretty good excuse.
There was a hole in one of the last human parts of him, his cheek. Dried blood crusted his cheek and neck. Fresher, redder blood still oozed down his cheek and neck.
“What happened?” Lana asked.
“Zekes got him,” Howard answered. He was torn between a kind of low-level panic and relief that he had finally reached the Healer. He held Orc’s elbow as if Orc needed Howard’s frail strength to support him.
“Has he got a worm in him?” Lana asked, cautious.
“No, we got the worm,” Albert reassured her. “We were just hoping you could help him.”
“I don’t want no more rock on me,” Orc said.
Lana understood. Orc had been a garden variety thug, unaware of any special power, until the coyotes had gotten to him in the desert. They had chewed him up badly. Very badly. Worse than anything that had happened to Lana, even. Everywhere they had chewed him had filled in with the gravel covering that made Orc nearly indestructible.
He didn’t want to lose the last of his human body, the patch of pink skin that included his mouth and part of his neck.
Lana nodded.
“You need to stop weaving back and forth, Orc. I don’t want you falling on me,” she said. “Sit down on the ground.”
He sat down too suddenly and giggled a little at it.
Lana lay her hand against the gruesome hole.
“Don’t want no more rock,” Orc repeated.
The bleeding stopped almost immediately.
“Does it hurt?” Lana asked. “I mean the rock. I know the hole hurts.”
“No. It don’t hurt.” Orc slammed his fist against his opposite arm, hard enough that any human arm would have been shattered. “I barely feel it. Even Drake’s whip, when we was fighting, I barely felt it.”
Suddenly he was weeping. Tears rolled from human eyes onto cheeks of flesh and pebbles.
“I don’t feel nothing except . . .” He pointed a thick stone finger at the flesh of his face.
“Yeah,” Lana said. Her irritation was gone. Her burden was smaller, maybe, than Orc’s.
Lana pulled her hand away to see the progress. The hole was smaller. Still crusted with blood, but no longer actively bleeding.
She put her hand back in place. “Just a couple minutes more, Orc.”
“My name’s Charles,” Orc said.
“Is it?”
“It is,” Howard confirmed.
“What were you guys doing going into the worm field?” Lana asked.
Howard shot a resentful look at Albert, who answered, “Orc was picking cabbage.”
“My name’s Charles Merriman,” Orc repeated. “People should call me by my real name sometimes.”
Lana’s gaze met Howard’s.
Now, Lana thought, now he wants his old name back. The bully who reveled in a monster’s name was now a monster in fact, and wanted to be called Charles.
“You’re all better,” Lana announced.
“Is it still skin?” Orc asked.
“It is,” Lana reassured him. “It’s still human.”
Lana took Albert’s arm and drew him away. “What are you doing sending him into the worm field like that?”
Albert’s face went blank. He was surprised at being reproached. For a moment Lana thought he would tell her to take a jump. But that moment passed, and Albert slumped a little, as if the air had gone out of him.
“I’m trying to help,” Albert said.
“By paying him with beer?”
“I paid him what he wanted, and Sam was okay with it. You were at the meeting,” Albert said. “Look, how else do you think you get someone like Orc to spend hours in the hot sun working? Astrid seems to think people will work just because we ask them to. Maybe some will. But Orc?”
Lana could see his point. “Okay. I shouldn’t have
jumped all over you.”
“It’s okay. I’m getting used to it,” Albert said. “Suddenly I’m the bad guy. But you know what? I didn’t make people the way they are. If kids are going to work, they’re going to want something back.”
“If they don’t work, we all starve.”
“Yeah. I get that,” Albert said with more than a tinge of sarcasm. “Only, here’s the thing: Kids know we won’t let them starve as long as there’s any food left, right? So they figure, hey, let someone else do the work. Let someone else pick cabbages and artichokes.”
Lana wanted to get back to her run. She needed to finish, to run to the FAYZ wall. But there was something fascinating about Albert. “Okay. So how do you get people to work?”
He shrugged. “Pay them.”
“You mean, money?”
“Yeah. Except guess who had most of the money in their wallets and purses when they disappeared? Then a few kids stole what was left in cash registers and all. So if we start back using the old money we just make a few thieves powerful. It’s kind of a problem.”
“Why is a kid going to work for money if they know we’ll share the food, anyway?” Lana asked.
“Because some will do different stuff for money. I mean, look, some kids have no skills, right? So they pick the food for money. Then they take the money and spend it with some kid who can maybe cook the food for them, right? And that kid maybe needs a pair of sneakers and some other kid has rounded up all the sneakers and he has a store.”
Lana realized her mouth was open. She laughed. The first time in a while.
“Fine. Laugh,” Albert said, and turned away.
“No, no, no,” Lana hastened to say. “No, I wasn’t making fun of you. It’s just that, I mean, you’re the only kid that has any kind of a plan for anything.”
Albert actually looked embarrassed. “Well, you know, Sam and Astrid are working their butts off.”
“Yeah. But you’re looking ahead. You’re actually thinking about how we put it all together.”
Albert nodded. “I guess.”
“Good for you, man,” Lana said. “I gotta go. Orc will be okay. As okay as he can be, anyway.”
“Thanks,” Albert said, and seemed genuinely grateful.
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