“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.
Patrick was lowest of all in status, lower even than Lana. He was a big, strong dog, but he bounded along with his tail wagging, his tongue lolling, which the swift, efficient coyotes seemed to find contemptible.
The coyotes were solitary hunters, catching even the fastest rabbits or squirrels. Patrick was left to his own devices, and since he was much slower, he was going hungry.
Lana had been offered one of Pack Leader’s kills—a half-eaten, still half-alive jackrabbit, but she wasn’t that hungry. Yet.
She had almost forgotten that none of this was possible. Amazing how quickly she had come to accept a world defined by a giant barrier. Absurd that she knew she could heal with a touch. Ridiculous that she had accepted the fact that Pack Leader could speak. In words. In English, however garbled.
Madness.
Insanity.
But what had happened down in that mine, down where the seething darkness hid, far from the sun, far from the world of reason, had killed whatever doubt remained for Lana: the world had gone crazy.
She had gone crazy.
Lana’s task now was to survive, not to analyze or understand, just to survive.
Her shoes were already beginning to fall apart. Her clothing was ripped in several places. She was filthy. She’d had to urinate and defecate in the open, like a dog.
Her legs and hands had been repeatedly torn by sharp rocks, sliced by thorns, stabbed by mosquitoes. She had even been bitten by a cornered raccoon. But the wounds never lasted long. They hurt, each time they hurt, but Lana healed them.
They had run throughout the night, the coyotes, chasing the next meal.
It had been just twelve hours or so, but already it seemed like forever.
“I’m a human,” she told herself. “I’m smarter than he is. I’m superior. I’m a human being.”
But here in the wild, in the dark desert night, she wasn’t superior. She was slower and more clumsy and weaker.
To keep her spirits up, Lana talked to Patrick, or to her mother. That, too, was crazy.
“Really enjoying my time here, Mom,” Lana said. “I’m losing a little weight. The coyote diet. Don’t eat anything and run all the time.”
Lana fell into a hole and felt her ankle twist and break. The pain was excruciating. But the pain would last only a minute. The exhaustion was far deeper, the despair more painful.
Pack Leader appeared, looking down at her from a jutting rock.
“Run faster,” Pack Leader ordered.
“Why are you keeping me prisoner?” she demanded. “Kill me or let me go.”
“The Darkness says no kill,” Pack Leader said in his tortured, high-pitched, inhuman voice.
She did not ask him what he meant by “the Darkness.” She had heard its voice in her head, down at the bottom of Hermit Jim’s gold mine. It was a scar on her soul, a scar her healing power could not touch.
“I’m only slowing you down,” Lana sobbed. “Leave me here. Why do you want me around?”
“Darkness say: You teach. Pack Leader learn.”
“Learn what?” she cried. “What are you talking about?”
Pack Leader leaped at her, knocked her flat on her back, and stood over her with his teeth bare above her exposed throat. “Learn to kill humans. Gather all packs. Pack Leader leader of all. Kill humans.”
“Kill all humans? Why?”