Gone Series Complete Collection (31 page)

Patrick finally could take it no longer. He turned tail and ran, shouldering his way past the contemptuous wild dogs.

She wanted to call him. But no sound came from her nerveless lips.

Deeper and deeper. Colder and colder.

The flashlight weakened and as it dimmed Lana became aware that the walls of the cave were glowing a faint green.

It was near now.

It.

Whatever it was, it was near.

The lantern fell from her numb fingers.

Her eyes rolled up into her head and she fell to her knees, indifferent to, unaware even of the pain as her kneecaps landed on sharp rock.

On her knees, eyes blind, Lana waited.

A voice exploded inside of her head. Her back arched in spasm and she fell on her side. Every nerve ending, every cell in her body screamed in pain. Pain like she was being boiled alive.

How long it lasted, she would never know.

The exact words she heard—if they had been words at all—she would never recall.

She would awake later, having been dragged from the cave by two of the coyotes.

They dragged her out of the cave into the night.

And there they waited patiently for her to live or die.

TWENTY-EIGHT

123
HOURS
, 52
MINUTES

SAM, EDILIO
, QUINN,
Astrid, and Little Pete followed the FAYZ wall out to sea. The curve of the barrier took them away from land, then back toward it.

There was no gap in the wall. There was no easy escape hatch.

The sun was setting as they traveled north of a handful of tiny private islands. One of those islands had a beautiful white yacht smashed into it. Sam considered detouring to take a closer look but decided against it. He was determined to survey the entire FAYZ wall. If he was to be trapped like a goldfish in a bowl, he wanted to see the whole bowl.

The FAYZ wall met the shore in the middle of Stefano Rey National Park, having inscribed a long semicircle on the face of the eerily placid sea.

The shoreline was impossible, a fortress of jagged rock and cliffs touched with the golden light of the setting sun.

“It’s beautiful,” Astrid said.

“I’d rather have ugly and a place to land,” Sam said.

The surf was still tame, but it would take very little for the rocks to tear a hole in the hull of the already crippled Boston Whaler.

They headed south, creeping along, hoping for a place to put in before the gas tank ran empty and night fell.

Finally they spotted a minuscule spit of sand, a V shape, no more than twelve feet wide and half as deep. Sam figured he could, with luck, run the boat in there and beach it. But the boat would not survive for long, and they would be on foot, without a map, at the bottom of a seventy-foot cliff.

“How’s the gas look, Edilio?”

Edilio stuck a stick down into the tank and pulled it back up. “Not much. Maybe an inch.”

“Okay. Well, I guess this is it, then. Tighten up your life jackets.”

Sam pushed the throttle forward and aimed straight for the tiny beach. He had to keep up speed or the sluggish swell would shove him into the rocks that crowded in on both sides.

The boat ran up on the sand. The impact jolted Astrid, but Edilio caught her hand before she fell. The four of them quickly piled out. Little Pete could not be induced to get out, or even to acknowledge their existence. So Sam, fearful that at any moment Little Pete might freak out and choke him, or teleport him, or at least start howling, carried the boy ashore.

Edilio took with him the boat’s emergency kit, which amounted to little more than a few Band-Aids, a book of matches, two emergency flares, and a tiny compass.

“How do we get Little Pete up this cliff?” Sam wondered aloud. “It’s not a really hard climb, but . . .”

“He can climb,” Astrid said. “He climbs trees sometimes. When he wants to.”

Sam and Edilio wore identical expressions of doubt.

“He can,” Astrid said. “I just need to remember the trigger words. Something about a cat.”

“Okay.”

“He followed a cat up a tree once.”

“I don’t know if we have tides anymore,” Quinn said, “but if we do, this beach is going to be underwater soon.”

“Charlie Tuna,” Astrid said.

The three boys stared at her.

“The cat,” she explained. “His name was Charlie Tuna.” She crouched next to Little Pete. “Petey. Charlie Tuna? Charlie Tuna? Remember?”

“This is not too crazy,” Quinn muttered under his breath.

Sam said, “Okay, how about Edilio, you go first, then Astrid so Little Pete will follow you. Quinn and I will come last in case L. P. slips.”

It turned out Astrid was right, Little Pete could climb. In fact, he almost passed Astrid on the way up. Nevertheless, it took them till dark to gain the top of the cliff. By the time they finally collapsed on a bed of grass and pine needles beneath towering trees, they needed every one of the Band-Aids Edilio had brought.

“I guess we sleep here,” Sam said.

“It’s warm out,” Astrid said.

“It’s dark,” Sam said.

“Let’s light a fire,” Astrid said.

“Keep the bears away, huh?” Edilio agreed nervously.

“That’s a myth, unfortunately,” Astrid said. “Wild animals see fire all the time. They’re not especially scared of it.”

Edilio shook his head ruefully. “Sometimes, Astrid, you knowing everything isn’t really helpful.”

“Understood,” Astrid said. “What I meant to say was that bears, like all wild animals, are terrified of fire.”

“Yeah. Too late.” Edilio peered nervously into the blacker-than-black shadows beneath the trees.

Astrid and Edilio watched Little Pete while Sam and Quinn searched for firewood.

Quinn, nervous for more than one reason, said, “This isn’t me dogging you or anything, Sam, but brah, if you really do have some kind of magic, you need to be figuring out how to use it.”

“I know,” Sam said. “Believe me, if I knew how to turn on a light, I would.”

“Yeah. You always have been scared of the dark.”

After a while Sam said, “I didn’t think you knew that.”

“It’s no big thing. Everybody’s scared of something,” Quinn said softly.

“What are you scared of?”

“Me?” Quinn paused, holding his few sticks of firewood, and considered. “I guess I’m scared of being a nothing. A great big . . . nothing.”

They collected enough wood and enough pine needles for kindling and soon they had a cheerful, if smoky, fire burning.

Edilio stared into the flames, “That’s better, even if it doesn’t scare any bears. Plus, I’m not on that boat anymore. I like solid land.”

The warmth of the fire was unnecessary, but Sam enjoyed it anyway. The orange light reflected dully from tree trunks and branches and made the night even darker. But while the fire burned, they could pretend to be safe.

“Anyone know any ghost stories to tell?” Edilio asked, half joking.

“You know what I’d like?” Astrid asked. “S’mores. I was at camp once. It was an old-fashioned camp with fishing and horseback riding and these awful sing-alongs by the fire. And s’mores. I didn’t like them then, mostly because I didn’t want to be at camp. But now . . .”

Sam peered at her through the flames. The starched white blouses of the pre-FAYZ had given way to T-shirts. And he wasn’t completely intimidated by her anymore, not now that he’d been through so much with her. But she was still so beautiful that sometimes he had to look away. And the fact that he had kissed her meant that now every thought of her came with a flood of overwhelming memories, scents, sensations, tastes.

He fidgeted and bit his lip, using the pain to keep him from thinking any more about Astrid and her shirt and her hair and skin. “Not the time, not the place,” he muttered under his breath.

Little Pete sat, legs crossed, and stared into the fire. Sam wondered what was going on in his head. He wondered what power was concealed behind those innocent eyes.

“Hungry,” Little Pete said. “Munchy, munchy.”

Astrid gave him a hug. “I know, little brother. We’ll get food tomorrow.”

One by one they felt their eyelids grow heavy. One by one they stretched out, fell silent, slept. Sam was the last. The fire was dying. The darkness was moving in from every direction.

He sat cross-legged, crisscross-applesauce they called it when he was in kindergarten, turned his hands around, palms up, and lay them on his knees.

How?

How did it happen? How had this happened to him?

How could he control it, make it happen on command?

He closed his eyes and tried to recall the panic he’d felt whenever he had created light. It wasn’t hard to remember the emotion, but it was impossible to feel it.

As quietly as he could, he stole away from the fire. The darkness under the trees might conceal a thousand terrors. He walked toward his fear.

Pine needles crunched beneath his feet. He walked until he could only just make out the faint glow of the fire’s embers behind him and could no longer smell the piney smoke.

He raised his hands, the way he’d seen Caine do, palms out, like he was signaling someone to stop, or else like he was a pastor blessing a congregation.

He dredged up the fear of that nightmare in his bedroom, the panic when Little Pete was choking him, the sudden reaction when the firestarter tried to kill him.

Nothing. It wasn’t going to work. He couldn’t simulate fear, and trying to scare himself with a dark forest wasn’t working, either.

He spun. A noise behind him.

“It’s not working, is it?” Astrid said.

“It almost did, you almost scared me enough to make it happen,” Sam said.

Astrid came closer. “I have a terrible thing I want to tell you.”

“A terrible thing?”

“I betrayed Petey. Drake. He wanted me to call him a name.” She was twisting her fingers together so hard, it looked painful.

Sam took her hands in his. “What did he do?”

“Nothing. Just . . .”

“Just what?”

“He slapped me a couple of times, it wasn’t so bad, but—”

“He hit you?” It felt like he had swallowed acid. “He hit you?”

Astrid nodded. She tried to explain, but her voice betrayed her. So she pointed at the side of her face, at the place where Drake’s hand had hit her with enough force to jerk her head sideways. She steadied and tried again. “No big deal. But I was scared. Sam, I was so scared.” She stepped closer, wanting maybe to have his arms around her.

Sam took a step back. “I hope he’s dead,” he said. “I hope he’s dead, because if he isn’t, I’ll kill him.”

“Sam.”

His fists were clenched. It felt like his brain was boiling inside his skull. His breath came shallow and harsh.

“Sam,” Astrid whispered. “Try it now.”

He stared, uncomprehending.

“Now,” she yelled.

Sam raised his hands, palms out, aimed toward a tree.

“Aaaaahhhh!” he yelled, and bolts of brilliant, green-tinged light shot from his hands.

He dropped his hands to his side, panting, stunned by what he had done. The tree was burned through. It fell, slowly at first, then faster, and crashed heavily in a patch of thornbush.

Astrid came up behind him and slid her arms around him. He felt her tears on the back of his neck, her breath in his ear. “I’m sorry, Sam.”

“Sorry?”

“You can’t summon fear whenever you need it, Sam. But anger is fear aimed outward. Anger is easy.”

“You manipulated me?” He untwined her arms and turned to face her.

“It happened with Drake, just like I told you,” Astrid said. “But I wasn’t going to tell you until I saw you out here trying. You kept saying it was fear that made the power work. So, I thought . . .”

“Yeah.” He felt strangely defeated. He had just, for the first time, willed the light to come. But he felt sad, not elated. “So, I have to be mad, not scared. I have to want to hurt people.”

“You’ll learn to control it,” Astrid said. “You’ll get better at it, so that you can use the power without having to feel anything.”

“Well, won’t that be a happy day?” Sam said with bitter sarcasm. “I’ll be able to burn someone without feeling anything.”

“I’m sorry, Sam. I really am. Sorry for you, I mean, sorry this has to happen. You’re right to be afraid of the power. But the truth is, we need you to have this power.”

They stood, distant from each other though only a foot apart. Sam’s mind was far away, playing out memories from a time that seemed like a million years ago. A million years, or maybe just eight days.

“Sorry,” Astrid whispered again and threaded her arms beneath his to pull him against her.

He rested his chin on her head, looking past her, seeing the fire, seeing the darkness everywhere else, the darkness that had scared him ever since he was a baby.

“Sometimes you catch the wave. Sometimes the wave catches you,” he said at last.

“It’s the FAYZ, Sam. It’s not you: it’s just the FAYZ.”

TWENTY-NINE

113
HOURS
, 33
MINUTES

LANA’S FOOT
CAUGHT
a root and she fell onto her hands and knees. Patrick bounded over to look at her, but kept his distance.

Nip, the coyote who was Lana’s personal tormentor, snapped his jaws at her.

“I’m getting up, I’m getting up,” Lana muttered.

Her hands were scraped. Again.

Her knees were bloody. Again.

The pack was well out in front, weaving through sagebrush, leaping ditches, stopping to sniff at gopher holes, then moving on.

Lana could not keep up. No matter how fast she ran, the coyotes always outpaced her, and when she fell behind, Nip would snap at her heels, and occasionally draw blood.

Nip was a low-ranked coyote, anxious to prove himself to Pack Leader. But he wasn’t vicious, not like some of them, so he wouldn’t rip and tear at her with his teeth, he would only snarl and snap. But when she delayed the pack with her slow, clumsy human running, then Pack Leader would snarl at Nip and slash at him while Nip whimpered and abased himself.