Fear (Gone #5)(118)

Penny had dropped and rolled, the fire was out, but her skin was the color and texture of a well-glazed ham.

Sam ran to where she lay gasping with pain, real pain, no illusion, and straddled her and aimed his hands down at her.

“You’re too dangerous to live,” Sam said.

His own flesh suddenly caught fire, but he was too close, too ready. He was already there and all he had to do now was to think and—

—and a chunk of pavement, a slab of concrete two feet across and shedding the dirt from which it had been ripped, smashed down on Penny’s head with such force that the ground bounced beneath Sam’s feet.

Her body ceased moving instantly. Like a switch had been thrown.

Caine stood over her, breathing hard. “Payback,” he snarled. He kicked the slab of cement for emphasis.

Drake’s melted face had begun to repair itself, but he still looked like a microwaved action figure. His whip, however, was in perfect working order.

He struck and Sam cried out in pain.

Caine raised the rock he’d used to kill Penny and readied it to smash down on Drake.

“No, Daddy,” said Gaia.





THIRTY-EIGHT

15 SECONDS

“IT BLOWS UP and kills us all,” Connie said quietly, weirdly calm. “Or it does … something else.”

Abana took her hand. The two of them.

And other vehicles were coming down the highway. Not police—there were no sirens. The police and soldiers had been withdrawn to a safe distance.

These were a handful of private cars and vans. Parents. Friends. People who had gotten the emails and tweets and were rushing to stop what could not now be stopped.

Connie and Abana looked at each other. A look full of fear and sadness and guilt: they had brought these people here to die.

Connie looked at the MPs. The chopper pilot, a woman with blond hair and captain’s bars, had joined them after roundly cursing the damage to her craft.

“I’m sorry,” Connie whispered. “I’m sorry I did this to you.”

She heard a cracking sound. Like slow-motion thunder, or like a world-size eggshell breaking open. Everyone fell silent and listened. It went on for a long time.

“It’s opening,” Abana whispered. “The barrier, it’s cracking open!”

Too late, Connie thought. Too late.

Connie went to Darius and they waited, side by side, for the end.

The baby. It was no longer in Diana’s arms. It stood. All on its own, a glowing, naked two-year-old, by all appearances.

Caine flew back. He was pressed against the barrier, in full contact, yelling at the pain, then barely making a sound at all as the pressure grew stronger, relentless.

Sam could see him being squashed; he could quite literally see Caine’s body flatten as if a truck were pushing against him, squashing him like a bug against the barrier.

“Make her stop!” Sam yelled at Diana.

“I…” Diana looked stricken. Like she was coming out of a nightmare into a worse reality.

“She’s killing him!”

“Don’t,” Diana said weakly. “Don’t kill your father.”

But there was a determined look on the child’s face. Her cherub lips drew back in a weird snarl.

Sam raised his hands, palms out.

“Get back, Diana,” Sam said.

Diana did not move.

Sam glanced at Caine. A bug against a windshield.

Sam fired. Twin beams of murderous light hit the child dead center.

And the entire world exploded in blinding light.

Caine slid to the ground. Diana reeled back, covering her eyes. Drake used his tentacle to cover his eyes.

Sam was blinded by it. It was not the light of his hands. It was not the light of the baby.

Sunlight.

Sunlight!

Brilliant, blazing, Southern California midday sunlight.

No sound. No warning. One second the world was black, with only the pitiful light of a few Sammy suns. And the next instant it was as if they were staring into the sun itself.

Sam squeezed open one eye. What he saw was impossible. There were people. Adults. Four, no five, six adults.

A wrecked helicopter.

A Carl’s Jr. The same flash of the world outside Sam had seen for only a millisecond once before. But now the vision lingered.

The barrier was gone!

Drake cried out in a sort of ecstatic fear. He ran straight at the barrier, his whip swishing at his side.

Caine, groggy, injured, stood up.

But something was wrong about it. Caine was leaning on something, propping himself up, then pulling his hand sharply away.

From the barrier.

Drake hit the wall. He ran with his whip hand lashing straight into something unyielding but invisible.

The adults, the women, the soldiers, all stared, mouths open.

They were seeing!

Seeing Diana screaming.

Seeing Drake lashing viciously in every direction with his whip.

Seeing the brutally pulverized head and face of a young girl named Penny driven half into the pavement.

Seeing a little girl, a toddler, untouched, unharmed by Sam’s now-extinguished light.

Faces everywhere. They pressed closer; they tried to walk, but Sam could see them touching, then jumping back from the barrier.

The barrier was still there. But now it was transparent.