Gone Series Complete Collection (190 page)

Quinn smashed the bug one last time and if it wasn’t dead it was at least not going anywhere. He dropped to his knees and held Dekka’s shoulders.

“What are you doing?” Quinn asked.

“Surgery,” Sam said dully.

He held up his right hand. The green light, as focused as a laser, sliced through Dekka’s clothing and skin.

Brianna found Lana retreating with Sanjit toward the eastern edge of town.

“Lana!”

“You’re alive!” Lana said. “The kids?”

“A lot dead,” Brianna gasped. “A lot more hurt, but the bugs are done for.”

“I’m coming,” Lana said and started to trot back toward the plaza.

“Yeah. Wrong way and too slow,” Brianna said. “Give me your hand. You can heal yourself later.”

Brianna took off, dragging Lana, who instantly tripped. She dragged the Healer the rest of the way down the street, then down the length of the beach.

Dragging her, Brianna couldn’t do anything like full speed, but she could move faster than any human runner.

The Healer’s legs were scraped raw by the time Brianna yanked her to her feet at the end of the dock.

“Got her!” Brianna announced. Then, “What are you doing?”

Sam’s face was a mask of horror. He had sliced Dekka open from neck to pelvis. Dekka’s organs—a slaughterhouse mess—crawled with a dozen bugs, all swarming out of her.

Quinn snatched at the bugs and tossed them from the boat into the water. He was elbow-deep in blood.

“Lana, keep her alive,” Sam said.

Lana jumped down into the boat, which rocked madly back and forth.

Dekka was beyond speech, past even crying out.

Lana laid her hands on Dekka’s contorted face.

Brianna followed her into the boat, landed lightly, and pushed both Quinn and Sam aside. “I got this,” she said.

One by one she snatched the emerging creatures—some of which raced to attack Sam, others of which just ran like panicked cockroaches around the bottom of the boat—turned them on their backs, and blew them clear through the bottom of the boat with shotgun blasts.

Quinn tossed a rope over the dock cleat and pulled the sinking boat in. Sam and Quinn shoved and hoisted Dekka onto the dock where she lay split open like a burst orange.

Lana held Dekka’s head on her lap.

Sam, Quinn, and some strange-looking guy Brianna thought looked vaguely familiar stood watching, a circle of horrified fascination.

The boat sank. The blasted bodies of the insects floated.

Dekka’s mouth was moving but no sound came out. Her eyes were like marbles, rolling, searching without seeing.

“She’s trying to say something,” Quinn said.

“She should shut up and let me keep her alive,” Lana snapped. The Healer shot a malignant look at Brianna. “You owe me a pair of shoes.”

Again Dekka tried to speak.

“It’s you, Breeze,” Sam said. “She wants you.”

Brianna frowned, not sure Sam was right. But she knelt beside Dekka and put her ear close.

Brianna listened, closed her eyes for a moment, then stood up without saying anything.

“What did she say?” Quinn asked.

“Just thanks,” Brianna said. “She just said thanks.”

She turned and took off but not so quickly that she missed the strange new boy saying, “That’s not the truth.”

FORTY-TWO

3
MINUTES

ASTRID WATCHED,
HELPLESS.

She could no longer see Orc. He might already be dead down there.

Jack seemed unable to free himself from Drake’s choking grasp. And Drake knew it. He looked up at Astrid and winked.

She had reached the decision not to harm Little Pete, to let him live even if it meant others would die.

The right and moral decision.

But in a minute or less Jack would asphyxiate. And Drake would catch her. She had no illusions about what that psychopath intended.

Drake and his army would kill and go on killing. And what could stop them? Who could stop them?

She found she could hardly breathe.

Her whole body seemed to buzz with some strange energy. Was it fear? Was this what panic felt like?

Jack’s face was turning dark. His struggles were less focused. His fingers clawed impotently. His eyes bulged like they might pop out of his head.

Drake was going to kill her. But not quickly.

And he would go on to kill many, many more, for as long as the FAYZ existed.

Enough. It had to end. All of it had to end.

Astrid stepped to Little Pete. She gathered him in her arms. She moved to the window and stood there, hesitating, with his limp, sweating body in her arms.

Drake saw her. The color drained from his face.

His tentacle lessened its grip on Jack’s throat.

“No!” Drake cried. He unwound his python arm and began to run toward her, yelling, “No! No!”

“Sorry,” Astrid whispered. “I’m so very sorry, Petey.”

Drake was at the door to the room. “No!” he cried again as she heaved her brother toward the sea of insects.

“Get him!” Drake cried.

He pushed past Astrid to the window as Little Pete fell.

“Don’t hurt—,” Drake shouted. His words were cut off by a weak but well-aimed punch from Astrid.

Little Pete almost hit the ground. He stopped inches from impact.

His eyes opened wide. He stared into a dozen eerie blue eyes.

“Don’t hurt him!” Drake cried. “The Darkness needs him!”

But it was too late. The bugs surged toward Little Pete. Their tongues snapped. Their mouthparts gnashed.

There was no explosion.

No flash of light.

The bugs simply disappeared.

There. Then gone.

Little Pete sank to the ground. He coughed once, with incredible violence. And then he, too, simply disappeared.

Astrid and Drake stood side by side, both staring down in horror.

Astrid closed her eyes. Was it over? Was it all finally over?

“I’ll kill you,” Drake said, but his voice was faint.

Astrid opened her eyes and saw his face already changing, melting from the hard-edged shark features to a softer, rounder countenance.

Jack came pounding up the stairs.

Lying on his back with one leg gone, Orc groaned in pain.

“Where is he?” Brittney asked. “Where is Nemesis?”

Astrid barely heard her.

She had done it. She had killed him. She had sacrificed Little Pete.

“Let’s get out of here before Drake comes back,” Jack said. He took Astrid’s arm. But she would not go with him. Not yet.

“You killed him,” Brittney said. She spoke more in wonder than in accusation.

Astrid heaved a shuddering sigh. Tears ran down her face. She had no words.

Brittney was becoming angry. “He’ll get you for this, Astrid. His rage will find you. Sooner or later.”

“Drake or the gaiaphage?” Jack asked.

Brittney bared her braces in a feral grin. “We are the arm of the Darkness. He will send us to take you. Both of you.”

“Let’s go, Astrid,” Jack said, without taking his eyes off Brittney. Astrid felt the strength of his grip on her arm. She yielded.

She was almost blinded by her tears, her mind a confusion of emotions: self-loathing, disgust, anger.

And worst of all: relief.

He was gone. Little Pete was dead. And now it would end at last. The FAYZ wall would be gone. The madness would be over.

Relief. And the sickening realization that she was glad she had done it.

Jack led her down the stairs. He lifted a terribly injured, mangled Orc effortlessly. Orc was moaning in pain and crying that they should leave him to die.

“No one is dying,” Jack said harshly. “We’ve had enough of that.”

Astrid walked obediently behind Jack as he carried Orc down the hill toward town.

And she wondered as she walked, how it could be that the FAYZ was ended and yet Jack was still so strong.

Dahra Baidoo emerged from the so-called hospital for the first time in what felt like days.

Virtue held her up, although he was shaking so badly he could barely walk himself.

Both of them were covered in gore. The hospital was a slaughterhouse. The single bug that had made it inside had simply massacred kids too sick to stand, let alone run.

Virtue told himself that most of those kids were too sick to survive anyway. But that knowledge would never wipe the horror from his memory.

He had been wedged into a corner behind a cot, cowering and praying, and begging to be spared. He had thrown things at the bug, but bedpans and bottles were nothing to the monster.

And then, in an instant, the creature was gone.

Its bloody mandibles had been scraping the wall, trying to dislodge Virtue. Inches and milliseconds from gruesome death.

And then . . . nothing.

Gone.

Virtue had heard nothing but the sound of his own sobbing.

And then the sounds of others crying.

And an insistent, mad howl of despair.

Dahra was screaming as he drew her gently from beneath a body.

“It’s gone,” he’d said.

She couldn’t stop shaking. Couldn’t stop howling. And Virtue was suddenly back in that refugee camp in the Congo, remembering things he’d witnessed when he was still too young to understand.

A terrible fury boiled up inside him. An uncontrollable rage against everyone and everything that made the world a hell of fear and pain and loss.

He wanted to smash things. He wanted to bellow like a wild animal.

But Dahra had ceased howling, and now just stared up at him, needing someone, someone to finally take care of her.

Virtue took her hand and put his arm around her shoulder. “We’re getting you out of here,” he said gently.

There were kids crying out in pain. But Virtue knew that Dahra could no longer respond. So he led her out into the cool, fresh air.

The bodies of the bugs were all gone. The bodies of those they had killed were not.

Virtue didn’t know where to take Dahra. After all, she was the one kids took other kids to. He didn’t know anyone to help her. Maybe no one could help her.

He led Dahra to the ruined church. It was quiet inside, although it, too, had been a scene of battle. He cleared a space for her in a pew. He sat her down, sat beside her, so weary, and closed his eyes and prayed.

“God in your heaven, look down and take pity on this girl. She has done enough.” He sighed and added a doubtful, “Amen.”

Virtue did not stay long. There were still kids needing help.

He ran into his brother heading toward the hospital. Sanjit hugged him tight and said, “They’re gone, Choo. They’re all gone.”

Virtue nodded and patted Sanjit’s back reassuringly.

Sanjit held him out and looked at his face. “Are you okay, brother?”

“I’ve had better days,” Virtue said.

“So, I guess the island’s looking even better now, huh?” Sanjit asked. “You were right, it’s one big open-air asylum.”

Virtue nodded solemnly and glanced back at the church. “Yeah, but there’s a couple of saints mixed in with the crazies.”

Caine walked stiffly back to town. He was burned, scraped, punctured, bruised, and might, he thought, have broken a couple of ribs.

But he had won.

The only downside—aside from the various pains that made him wince with every step—was that he hadn’t done it alone. Brianna had scored an assist. He couldn’t stand her, but man, was she good in a fight.

And some unseen, unknowable force had caused the bugs the two of them had just killed to disappear. Even their broken-off legs, their fluids and guts had disappeared. Like they’d been wiped entirely out of existence.

Brianna had zoomed off to leave him limping all alone. No doubt she was bragging and claiming all the credit.

But it wouldn’t work. No, everyone had seen him walking toward the threat. And now the threat was gone, just as he had promised. He had delivered. He had earned his rightful place.

Just as he crossed the highway into town, the first kids came rushing up to him, grateful, giddy, wanting to slap palms.

“You did it, man! You did it!”

He refused their high fives and stood very still, looking at them, and just waited.

They seemed uncertain, a little worried. And then it dawned on them.

The first one bowed his head. It was a jerky, awkward gesture, but that was okay with Caine: they’d learn.

The second kid, then a third and a fourth, rushing up to join in, bowed their heads to Caine. He nodded in solemn acknowledgment and walked on, no longer feeling nearly so much pain.

THE MORNING AFTER

SAM COULD
NOT
face the town and the kids there. If he went into town now, there might be a fight with Caine. He couldn’t face a fight. Later. Not now. Not yet.

He had seen the sudden and complete disappearance of the bugs. One minute the creatures that had hatched inside Dekka had been floating in the water and the next second they were gone.

He thought he knew what had happened. Only one power was great enough to cause them to cease to exist.

Against all odds, Jack must have succeeded in throwing Little Pete to the bugs. Only Petey could have done it. Sam’s desperate, lunatic plan had worked, had actually worked.

But once Astrid knew that he was the one who had ordered Jack to do it, she would never speak to him again.

The town was saved. But Sam was lost.

You ordered the death of a five-year-old autistic boy, Mr. Temple?

The accusing tribunal was back.

That’s right
, he told them in his imagination.
That’s what I did
.

He walked until he found himself at the cliff. The last time he’d been there . . . Well, groping Taylor seemed like a fairly small sin, now.

That’s right. And because I did the bugs were destroyed. And lives were saved
.

You don’t get to make those decisions, Mr. Temple. God decides life or death
.

“Yeah?” Sam said aloud. “Well, I don’t think much of His decisions.”