She didn’t stop until she had turned the bag inside out and licked the plastic clean. “Do you have any more?” she begged.
“First, you do your thing. Then we go back to town and talk.”
“We’re doing this for the Perdido Beach kids?” Orsay asked.
Bug snorted. “We’re doing this for whoever gives us the best offer. Right now, Sam’s guys have some fish. So we’re with them. But if Drake gets hold of us, somehow, we’ve been on his side all along. Right?”
“I’m too weak to walk a long way,” Orsay said.
“We only have to get as far as the highway. A guy will be there with a car.”
THIRTY-FOUR
06 HOURS, 3 MINUTES
EDILIO DROVE THE creepy little mutant, Bug, and the girl he’d brought along with him. He wasn’t happy about having to do this. Mostly he wanted to stay in town. Nightfall could bring trouble. And Sam . . . well, Sam wasn’t acting like Sam.
Sam had looked like a zombie listening to Quinn and Albert’s confession last night.
And then, this morning, Bug told his story. It was every kind of bad news rolled into one shamefaced confession after another, and Sam had just stared. Fortunately Astrid had stepped up.
Sam, Edilio, Brianna, Taylor, Quinn, Albert, Astrid—the seven of them in Astrid’s living room, listening as Bug alternately groveled and whined.
Then, Astrid read Lana’s letter.
Sam:
I’m going to try to kill the Darkness. I’d explain what that means, but I don’t even know. I only know that it’s the scariest thing you can imagine. I guess that’s not too helpful.
I had no choice. It had its hooks in me, Sam. It was in my head. It’s been calling to me for days. It needs me for something, I don’t know what. But whatever it is, I can’t let it happen.
Hopefully I’ll be fine. If not, take care of Patrick. Cookie, too.
—Lana
“I knew she was having some problems,” Quinn said, sounding guilty. “I didn’t know about this, though. I mean . . . it’s like Lana used me and Albert so she could get back out to the desert.”
“That would be putting a convenient spin on your own sneakiness, Quinn,” Astrid had snapped.
“She brought up the gold to me,” Albert said thoughtfully, not at all intimidated by Astrid’s anger. “It was a good suggestion. So I jumped at it. But it came from her, originally. Maybe what we need to think about is whether Lana is working with this creature.”
“No,” Quinn said.
Everyone waited for him to explain. He shrugged and repeated, “No.” And then he added, “I don’t think so.”
“We need Lana,” Sam said, finally breaking his gloomy silence. “It almost doesn’t matter if she’s helping this thing. Friend or enemy, we need Lana.”
“Agreed,” Albert said, as though the conversation were one between him and Sam, like it was just the two of them debating what to do. For a guy who had been caught breaking various rules, Albert didn’t seem too worried.
But then he wouldn’t, would he? Edilio reflected. He had food. Food was power now. Even Astrid wasn’t really going after Albert, although she obviously didn’t like him much.
“We need to know what this creature is,” Albert said.
Sam looked at Bug, who had been ordered to remain visible. “What’s this Orsay girl’s thing?”
Bug shrugged. “She sees people’s dreams, I think.”
“And Caine wants her to spy on the creature.” Almost despite himself Sam was becoming more engaged. Edilio had seen the wheels begin to turn again in his friend’s head. It was a huge relief. “If Caine wants it, maybe we want it, too,” Sam had said, and one by one the others nodded agreement. “Albert’s right: we need to know what we’re dealing with.”
Which was how Edilio had ended up playing chauffeur to Bug and this strange girl.
“What’d you say your name was?” Edilio asked, making eye contact with her in the rearview mirror.
“Orsay.”
She probably wasn’t bad looking, under normal circumstances. But right now she looked terrified. And gaunt. Her hair was all over the place. And although Edilio wasn’t one to complain, one or both of them back there smelled, and not just like Quinn and Albert’s fish.
“Where you from, Orsay?”
“I lived at the ranger camp. In the Stefano Rey.”
“Huh. That’s kind of cool.”
She didn’t look as if she agreed. Then she said, “You have a gun.”
Edilio glanced at the machine pistol on the seat beside him. Two full clips rattled with each bump. “Yeah.”
“If we see Drake, you have to shoot him.”
Edilio pretty much agreed. But he had to ask, anyway. “Why?”
“I’ve seen his dreams,” Orsay said. “I’ve seen inside him.”
They were off-road, heading vaguely toward the hills. They had found Hermit Jim’s shack—Edilio had a good sense of direction—but none of them had ever been to this mine shaft. All they had were the directions Caine had given Bug. The sun was setting behind the hills, turning them an ominous dark purple. Night would come too soon. No way Orsay could do whatever it was she was supposed to do in time for them to get back to town before full night fell.
“What exactly are you supposed to be doing?” Edilio asked.
“What do you mean?”