Her heart wasn’t beating.
She wasn’t alive.
No, that was wrong, she told herself. Dead things don’t hear. Dead things cannot move their one good hand, squeezing the fingers ever so slightly so no one would notice.
There could be only one explanation. Caine and Drake had killed her. But Jesus had not taken her up into Heaven to be reunited with her brother. Instead, He had granted her this power. To live, still, a while, though she was dead.
To live long enough to accomplish His will.
“A phage is code. Software that sort of eats other software,” Jack said in his pedantic way.
Brittney had no doubt what God had chosen her to do. Why He had kept her alive.
She could still see, barely, though one eye was obscured. She could see across the floor to where Mike had left the pistol, just the way she had told him to.
She would have to move with infinite patience. Millimeter by millimeter. Imperceptible movements of her hip and arm. The gun was underneath the table, far in a corner, seven, eight feet away.
Satan walked the earth in this evil trinity of Caine, Drake, and Diana. And Brittney had been chosen to stop them.
Watch me, Tanner, she prayed silently. I’m going to make you proud.
Quinn and Albert were silent as they drove back to Perdido Beach.
The truck was heavier by many pounds of gold.
Lighter by two kids and a dog.
Finally Quinn spoke. “We have to tell Sam.”
“About the gold?” Albert asked.
“Look, man, we lost the Healer.”
Albert hung his head. “Yeah.”
“Sam has to know that. Lana’s important.”
“I know that,” Albert snapped. “I said that.”
“She’s more important than some stupid gold.”
For a long time Albert didn’t respond. Then, finally, “Look, Quinn, I know what you think. Same as everyone else. You think I’m just all about me. You think I’m just into being greedy or whatever.”
“Aren’t you?”
“No. Well, maybe,” Albert admitted. “Okay, maybe I want to be important. Maybe I want to have a lot of stuff and be in charge and all that.”
Quinn snorted. “Yeah. Maybe.”
“But that doesn’t make me wrong, Quinn.”
Quinn didn’t have anything to say to that. He was sick at heart. He would be blamed for losing Lana Arwen Lazar. The Healer. The irreplaceable Healer. Sam would be disgusted with him. Astrid would give him one of her cold, disappointed looks.
He should have stuck to fishing. He liked that. Fishing. It was peaceful. He could be alone and not be bothered. Now, even that was ruined with him having Albert’s guys working under him. Having to train them, supervise them.
Sam was going to blow up. Or else just borrow Astrid’s cold, disappointed look.
They bounced out onto the highway.
“The streetlights are out,” Albert said.
“It’s almost morning,” Quinn said. “Maybe they’re on a timer.”
“No, man. They aren’t on a timer.”
They reached the edge of Perdido Beach. It began to dawn on Quinn that something very big was very wrong. Maybe even something bigger and wronger than losing the Healer.
“Everything’s dark,” Quinn said.
“Something’s happened,” Albert agreed.
They drove down pitch-black streets to the plaza. It was eerie. Like the whole town had died. Quinn wondered if that’s what had happened. He wondered if the FAYZ was in some new phase. Just he and Albert left, now.
Quinn pulled the truck up in front of the McDonald’s.
But just as Quinn was pulling up to park, he spotted something. He turned the truck around to aim the headlights at town hall.
There, spread across one wall, in letters two feet tall, was spray-painted graffiti. Bloodred paint on the pale stone.
“‘Death to freaks,’” Quinn read aloud.
TWENTY-EIGHT
16 HOURS, 38 MINUTES
THE PICKUP TRUCK’S battery was dead. It had been sitting for more than three months.
But Hermit Jim was a prepared guy. There was a gasoline-powered generator and a charger for the battery. It took an hour for Lana and Cookie to figure out how to start the generator and hook up the battery. But finally Lana turned the key and after several attempts the engine sputtered to life.
Cookie backed the truck up to the gas tank.
It took some hard, sweaty work to shift the tank into the truck’s bed.
By the time they were done, so was the night. Lana cautiously opened the warehouse’s door and looked outside. In the shadow of the hills it wasn’t possible to speak of true dawn, but the sky was tinged with pink, and the shadows, still deep, were gray and no longer black.
A dozen coyotes lounged in an irregular circle, a hundred feet away. They turned to stare at her.
“Cookie,” Lana said.
“Yeah, Healer?”
“Here’s what I want you to do. I’m taking the truck, right? You should hear an explosion. Wait ten minutes after that. I’ll be back. Maybe. If not, well, you need to wait until the sun is all the way up—coyotes are more dangerous at night. Then walk back to the cabin, and from there head home.”
“I’m staying with you,” Cookie said firmly.
“No.” She said it with all the finality she could manage. “This is my thing. You do what I say.”
“I ain’t leaving you to those dogs.”
Lana said, “The coyotes won’t be the problem. And you have to leave. I’m telling you to. Either the explosion happens or it doesn’t. Either way, if I don’t come back, I need you to get to Sam. Give him the letter.”