She carried it downstairs to the one light in the house. That light was a small ball that floated in midair in her “family room.” A Sammy Sun, kids called them. Sam had made it for her, using the weird power he had. It burned night and day. It was not hot to the touch, had no wire or other source of energy. It simply burned like a weightless lightbulb. Magic. But magic was old news in the FAYZ. Dekka had her own.
Dekka rummaged in her cupboard and found a cold, boiled artichoke. There were a lot of artichokes to be had in the FAYZ. Not exactly bacon and eggs and hash browns, but better than the alternative, which was starving. The food supply in the FAYZ—the mordantly named Fallout Alley Youth Zone—was tenuous, generally unpleasant, and, occasionally, literally sickening, but Dekka had endured protracted hunger in earlier months, so a breakfast artichoke was fine with her.
In any case, she’d lost some weight. She supposed that was a good thing.
She felt more than heard a rush of air. The door slammed, a sound that arrived at the same time as Brianna. Brianna came to a vibrating stop in the middle of the room.
“Jack’s hacking up a lung! I need cough medicine!”
“Hi, Brianna,” Dekka said. “It’s kind of the middle of the night.”
“Whatever. Nice pj’s, by the way. You pick those up at Gap for Truck Drivers?”
“They’re comfortable,” Dekka said mildly.
“Yeah. For you and your twelve closest friends. You’ve got curves—unlike me—you should show proud, that’s all I’m saying.”
“Jack’s sick?” Dekka reminded her, hiding a smile.
“Oh, yeah. Coughing. All achy and grumpy.”
Dekka suppressed her jealousy that Brianna was caring for a sick boy. And Computer Jack, at that. Computer Jack was a tech genius who, as far as Dekka could tell, had absolutely zero moral center. Wave a keyboard under his nose and he’d do whatever you wanted.
“Sounds like the flu,” Dekka opined.
“Well, duh,” Brianna said. “I didn’t say he had anthrax or black plague or whatever. But you don’t get it: Jack coughs, he doubles up, right? Maybe stomps his foot or smacks the bed, right?”
“Ah.” Jack, much to his own dismay, had developed a mutant power. He was as strong as ten grown men.
“He broke my bed!”
“He’s in your bed?”
“He didn’t want to smash any of his stupid computers at his stupid place. So he came over to my place. And now he’s smashing my place. So here’s my plan: You come over, right? And you levitate him, right? If he’s in the air, he can’t do any damage.”
Dekka peered at Brianna. “You’re loony, you know that? If there’s one thing we have plenty of, it’s houses. Stick him somewhere unoccupied.”
“Huh,” Brianna said, sounding a bit deflated. “Yeah.”
“Unless you just want me to come over and keep you company,” Dekka said, hating the hopeful tone in her own voice.
“Nah, that’s cool. Go back to bed.”
“You want to check upstairs for cough medicine?”
Brianna held up a half-empty bottle of some red liquid. “I already did. You were talking. Saying something. Thanks.”
“Okay,” Dekka said, unable to entirely conceal her disappointment that Brianna had refused her offer of help. Not that Brianna would notice. “Flu usually goes away on its own after a week or so. Unless it’s a twenty-four-hour flu. Either way, Jack won’t die of it.”
“Yeah, okay. Later,” Brianna said. And she was gone. The door slammed.
“Of course sometimes flu can be fatal,” Dekka said to emptiness. “A girl can hope.”
FOUR
62 HOURS, 33 MINUTES
THEY BROUGHT HIM a leg. A calf, to be specific. Caine was still the leader of the dwindling tribe of Coates kids, after all. Down to fifteen of them now, with Panda gone.
Bug had found a wheelbarrow and rolled Panda to the school. He and some of the others had built a fire of fallen branches and a few desks.
The smell had kept everyone awake through the rest of the night.
And now, in the hour before dawn, their own faces smeared with grease, they’d brought him a leg. The left one, Caine guessed. A token of respect. And an unspoken desire that he join them in their crime.
As soon as Bug left, Caine began trembling.
Hunger was a very powerful force. But so were humiliation and rage.
Down in Perdido Beach the kids had food. Not much, maybe, but Caine knew that the threat of starvation had receded for them. They weren’t eating well in Perdido Beach. But they were eating much better than the kids at Coates.
Everyone who could have defected from Coates already had. Those who were left were kids with too many problems, too much blood on their hands….
It was down to Caine and Diana, really. And a dozen creeps and losers. Only one was any real help in the event of trouble—Penny. Penny, the monster bringer.
There were days when Caine almost missed Drake Merwin. He’d been an unstable mental case, but at least he’d been useful in a fight. He didn’t make people think they were seeing monsters, like Penny. Drake was the monster.
Drake wouldn’t have stared at this…this thing on the table. This all-too-recognizable object, charred and blackened. Drake wouldn’t have hesitated.
An hour later, Caine found Diana. She was sitting in a chair in her room, watching the sunlight’s first rays touch the treetops. He sat on her bed. The springs creaked. She was in shadow, almost invisible in the faint light, nothing but the glitter of her eyes and the outline of a hollow cheek.