Gone Series Complete Collection (52 page)

Caine reacted with sudden violence, forgetting his powers and slapping her hard across the face.

Diana tripped backward from the blow and sat down hard on the stone steps.

Caine could see her face with sudden, terrible clarity by the glow of a brilliant column of blinding, green-white light.

That light could have only one source.

The light was like a spear aimed at the sky. It arced upward from the midst of the rubble of the apartment building.

“No,” Caine said.

But the light burned, burned away rubble and debris, all the crushing weight of the collapsed apartment building.

“No,” Caine said, and the light died, snapped off.

Behind him, Drake and Orc carried on their quick-and-slow, nimble-and-heavy, sharp-and-dull battle, but all Caine could see was the blackened, soot-covered, bright-eyed figure who now walked toward him from the rubble.

Caine aimed his hands at the shattered wood and plaster of the church front. He threw his hands toward Sam and a truckload of debris went flying.

Sam raised his hands. Green fire exploded chunks of brick and heavy wooden beams. They burned in midair, turning to cinders before they could hit him.

Dekka raised the debris off Astrid and Little Pete.

But it was no easy thing. Her ability to suspend gravity suspended it under Astrid as well, and she and Little Pete floated up in a spinning galaxy of broken lumber and plaster.

Dekka darted a hand in and yanked Astrid out of the suspension zone. Astrid hit the floor along with Little Pete.

Dekka released her hold on the debris and it slammed down, scarily loud.

“Thanks,” Astrid said.

“There’s a lot of other people trapped in here,” Dekka said, wasting no time in moving off to help others.

Astrid bent down and tried to lift Little Pete. He was limp, just dead weight. She got her arms around his chest and hugged him close like a too-large baby. She hugged him to her and staggered awkwardly from the church, half dragging him, stumbling across rubble.

Lana could heal him, but Lana was gone. All she could think of was to get him to Dahra down in the basement. But what could Dahra do? Was it even possible to reach the so-called hospital, or had the entrance been blocked by falling debris?

For the first time she realized that the front wall of the church was simply gone. She could see night sky and stars. But she could also see a terrible green-tinged lightning.

Her hearing was returning as the ringing subsided. She could make out animal growls and the sharp crack of a whip and too many voices crying.

Suddenly the debris piled around her began to fly.

Astrid dropped to the ground, shielding Little Pete again, still, always protecting Little Pete. Chunks of wall and shards of wood paneling and odd steel-and-wood joints rose like jets taking off from an airport and accelerated crazily, flying in a stream out through the broken church front.

The green lightning flashed and there came a sound of explosions, a roar of explosions and a brighter light still.

The debris stream stopped.

Astrid climbed up again, hauling Little Pete with her.

Someone ran toward her from the street. He stopped, panting, staring, a frightened animal at bay.

“Caine,” Astrid spat.

He did not speak. She could see that he was hurt. In pain. His face was streaked with sweat and dirt. He stared at her like he was seeing a ghost.

A dangerous light dawned in his clouded eyes.

“Perfect,” he whispered.

Astrid felt herself lifted off her feet. She clung desperately to Little Pete, but he slipped from her hands, escaped her clawing fingers, and fell to the floor.

“Come out and play, brother,” Caine shouted. “I have a friend of yours.”

Astrid floated, powerless, helpless, and Caine strode behind her, using her as a shield. Out through the church front, out onto the steps, looking out on a nightmare scene of mad dogs and raging battles.

Sam was there at the bottom of the steps. He was bloodied and bruised, and one arm hung limp.

“Come on, Sam, burn me now,” Caine shrieked. “Come on, brother, show me what you’ve got.”

“Hiding behind a girl, Caine?” Sam asked.

“You think you can taunt me?” Caine said. “All that matters is winning. So save it.”

“I’ll kill you, Caine.”

“No. No you won’t. Not without killing your girlfriend.”

“We’re both going to blink out of here in about a minute, Caine. It’s over for both of us,” Sam said.

“Maybe for you, Sam. Not for me. I know the way. I know the way to stay.” He laughed in wild triumph.

Astrid said, “Sam, you have to do it. Destroy him.”

Diana was mounting the stairs.

“Yeah, Sam, destroy me,” Caine mocked. “You have the power. Just burn a hole right through her and you’ll get me, too.”

Diana said, “Caine, put her down. Be a man, for once.”

“Put her down, Caine,” Sam said. “It’s the end. Fifteen and out. I don’t know what it is, but it may be death, and you don’t want to die with more blood on your hands.”

Caine laughed mirthlessly. “You know nothing about me. You didn’t grow up not knowing who you were. You didn’t have to create yourself out of your own imagination, out of your own will.”

“I grew up with no father at all,” Sam said. “And no explanation. And no truth. Same as you.”

Caine glanced at his watch. “I think time is up for you, Sam. You go first, remember? And here’s what I want you to know before you go: I’m going to survive, Sam. I’m going to be here still. Me and your lovely Astrid and all of the FAYZ. All of it mine.”

Diana said, “Sam, the way you beat the poof is—”

Caine rounded on her, raised his hand, and blasted her in mid-sentence. She flew through the air, somersaulted backward and landed across the street on the grass of the plaza.

The effort had distracted Caine. He dropped Astrid.

Sam extended his hand, palm out.

FORTY-SIX

01
MINUTES

A CLEAR
SHOT
.

With a thought, he could kill Caine.

But the world around him faded. Astrid, lying in a heap, seemed bleached, colorless, almost translucent. Caine himself, a ghost.

No sound. The screams of children were muted. The battle between Drake and Orc moved in slow motion, the attacks by the coyotes, all of it frame-by-frame, human and beast and monster.

Sam’s body was numb, as if it had died and left only his brain still whirring away inside his skull.

It’s time, a voice said.

He knew that voice and the sound of it was a knife in his guts.

His mother stood before him. She was as beautiful as she had always been to him. Her hair stirred in a breeze he did not feel. Her blue eyes were the only true color.

“Happy birthday,” she said.

“No,” he whispered, though his lips did not move.

“You really are the man now,” she said, and her mouth made a wry smile.

“My little man,” she said.

“No.”

She stretched out her hand to him. “Come.”

“I can’t,” he said.

“Sam, I’m your mother. I love you. Come with me.”

“Mom . . .”

“Just reach out to me. I’m safe. I can carry you away, out of this place.”

Sam shook his head slowly, slowly, like he was drowning in molasses. Something was happening to time. Astrid wasn’t breathing. Nothing was moving. The whole world was frozen.

“It will be like it was,” his mother said.

“It was never . . . ,” he began. “You lied to me. You never told me . . .”

“I never lied,” she said, and frowned at him, disappointed.

“You never told me I had a brother. You never told—”

“Just come with me,” she said, impatient now, jerking her hand a little like she would when he was a little kid and refused to take her hand to cross the street. “Come with me now, Sam. You’ll be safe and out of this place.”

He reacted instinctively, the little boy again, reacted to the “mommy” voice, the “obey me” voice. He reached for her, stretched his hand out to her.

And pulled it back.

“I can’t,” Sam whispered. “I have someone I have to stay here for.”

Anger flashed in his mother’s eyes, a green light, surreal, before she blinked and it was gone.

And then, out of the bleached, unreal world, Caine stepped into the eerie light.

Sam’s mother smiled at Caine, and he stared at her wonderingly. “Nurse Temple,” Caine said.

“Mom,” she corrected. “It’s time for both my boys to join me, to come away with me. Out of this place.”

Caine seemed spellbound, unable to tear his gaze away from the gentle, smiling face, the piercing blue eyes.

“Why?” Caine asked in a small child’s voice.

Their mother said nothing. Once again, for just a heartbeat, her blue eyes glowed a toxic green before returning to cool, icy blue.

“Why him and not me?” Caine asked.

“It’s time to come with me now,” their mother insisted. “We’ll be a family. Far from here.”

“You first, Sam,” Caine said. “Go with your mother.”

“No,” Sam said.

Caine’s face darkened with rage. “Go, Sam. Go. Go. Go with her.” He was shouting now. He seemed to want to grab Sam physically, push him toward the mother they had not quite shared, but his movements were odd, disjointed, a jerky stick figure in a dream.

Caine gave up trying. “Jack told you,” he said dully.

“No one told me anything,” Sam said. “I have things I have to do here.”

Their mother extended her arms to them, angry, demanding to be heeded. “Come to me. Come to me.”

Caine shook his head slowly. “No.”

“But you’re the man of the house now, Sam,” his mother wheedled. “My little man. Mine.”

“No,” Sam said. “I’m my own man.”

“And I was never yours,” Caine sneered. “Too late now, Mother.”

The face of their mother wavered. The tender flesh seemed to break apart in jigsaw-puzzle pieces. The gently smiling, pleading mouth melted, collapsed inward. In its place a mouth ringed with needle-sharp teeth. Eyes filled with green fire.

“I’ll have you yet,” the monster raged with sudden violence.

Caine stared in horror. “What are you?”

“What am I?” the monster mocked him savagely. “I’m your future. You’ll come to me on your own in the dark place, Caine. You will come willingly to me.”

“No,” Caine protested.

The monster laughed, a cruel sound from that piranha’s mouth.

Slowly the monster faded. Color bled back into the world around Sam and Caine. Orc and Drake accelerated back to normal speed. The air smelled of gunpowder again. Astrid drew breath.

Sam and Caine stood facing each other.

The world was the world. Their world. The FAYZ. Diana stared. Astrid gasped and opened her eyes.

Caine was quick. He raised his hands, palms out.

But Sam was quicker. He leaped toward Caine, stepped inside his reach, and grabbed his brother’s head with his good hand.

Sam’s palm was flat against Caine’s temple, his fingers curved into his hair.

“Don’t make me do this,” Sam warned.

Caine didn’t try to back away. His eyes were wild with defiance. “Go ahead, Sam,” Caine whispered.

Sam shook his head. “No.”

“Pity?” Caine sneered.

“You have to leave, Caine,” Sam said softly. “I don’t want to kill you. But you can’t be here.”

Brianna zoomed up, screeched to a halt, and leveled a gun at Caine. “If Sam doesn’t get you, I will. You sure aren’t faster than the Breeze.”

Caine ignored her contemptuously. But he would never get the chance to attack Sam now. Brianna was too fast to defy.

“It’s a mistake to let me live, Sam,” Caine warned. “You know I’ll be back.”

“Don’t. Don’t come back. Next time . . .”

“Next time one of us will kill the other,” Caine said.

“Walk away. Stay away.”

“Never,” Caine said with some of his old bravado. “Diana?”

“She can stay here,” Astrid said.

“Can you, Diana?” Caine asked her.

“Astrid the Genius,” Diana said in her mocking way. “So intelligent. So clueless.”

Diana stepped close to Sam, cupped his cheek with her hand, and planted a light kiss on the corner of his mouth. “Sorry, Sam. The bad girl ends up with the bad boy. It’s the way the world works. Especially this world.”

She went to Caine. She did not take his extended hand, did not even look at him, but walked beside him as he descended the steps.

The battle between Drake and Orc had staggered to an exhausted draw. Drake was raising his whip hand once more to bring it down on Orc’s pylon shoulders, but his movements were slow, leaden.

“Knock it off, Drake,” Diana said. “Don’t you know when the fight is over?”

“Never,” Drake gasped.

Caine raised his hand and almost casually pulled the struggling, cursing Drake after him.

The coyotes, those still alive, followed them out of town.

Edilio raised his gun and took aim at the retreating beasts, human and not. His eyes locked with Brianna’s, the two of them ready.

Sam said, “No, man. War’s over.”

Edilio lowered the gun reluctantly.

“Put it down, Breeze. Let it go,” Sam said.

Brianna obeyed, more relieved than anything.

Quinn climbed the steps to stand with Edilio. He was spattered with blood. He threw his own gun down on the ground. He sent Sam a bleak, infinitely sad look.

Patrick bounded up excitedly, and with him, Lana. “Sam, let me see that arm,” she said.

“No,” Sam said. “I’m fine. Go to the others. Save them, Lana. I couldn’t. Maybe you can. Start with Little Pete. He’s . . . he’s very important.”

Astrid had gone back into the church to find her brother. She reappeared, holding him under the arms, dragging him. “Help me,” Astrid begged, and Lana ran to her.

Sam wanted to go to Astrid. He needed to. But utter weariness rooted him to the spot. He leaned his good hand on Edilio’s strong shoulder.

“I guess we won,” Sam said.

“Yeah,” Edilio agreed. “I’ll get the backhoe. Got a lot of holes to dig.”

FINAL