Fear (Gone #5)(16)

Feeling worried now, Quinn headed into the building. He climbed the stairs to the detention room where Cigar would be.

He found the door easily enough. He listened and heard nothing from inside. “Cigar? You in there?”

The door opened, revealing Penny. She was still wearing a summer dress, and she was still barefoot. She blocked the door.

“It’s not time yet,” Penny said.

There was blood on her dress.

Blood on her narrow feet.

Her eyes were feverish. Lit up. Ecstatic.

Quinn took it all in at a glance. “Get out of my way,” Quinn said.

Penny looked at him. Like she was trying to see something inside his head. Considering. Measuring.

Anticipating.

“What have you done, you witch?” Quinn demanded. His breath was coming short. His heart was pounding. The skin on his sunburned arms was cracking, turning deathly white and cracking like dried mud. Deep cracks.

“You’re not threatening me, are you, Quinn?”

The eruption on Quinn’s arm stopped, reversed itself, and his skin was back to what it should be.

“I want to see Cigar,” Quinn said, swallowing his fear.

Penny nodded. “Okay. Okay, Quinn. Come on in.”

Quinn pushed past her.

Cigar was in a corner. He seemed at first to be asleep. But his shirt was soaked with blood.

“Cigar, man. You okay?”

Cigar did not move. Quinn knelt by him and raised his head. It took Quinn a few terrible seconds to make sense of what he was seeing.

Cigar’s eyes were gone. Two black-and-red holes stared from the front of Cigar’s face.

Then Cigar screamed.

Quinn jumped back.

“What have you done? What have you done?”

“I never touched him,” Penny said with a happy laugh. “Look at his fingers! Look at his wrists! He did it all himself. It was funny to watch.”

Quinn’s fist was drawn back before he knew it. Penny’s nose exploded. Her head snapped back hard and she fell on her behind.

Quinn grabbed Cigar’s bloody forearm in a strong grip. Over Cigar’s screams, Quinn said, “We’re going to Lana.”

Penny snarled and all at once Quinn’s flesh caught fire. He bellowed in terror. The flames quickly burned away his clothing and ate at his flesh.

Quinn knew it wasn’t real. He knew it. But he couldn’t believe it. He could not refuse to feel the agony of the illusion. He could not help but smell the smoke of burning, popping flesh and—

He aimed a desperate kick.

His sneaker caught Penny in the side of her head.

The fire went out instantly.

Penny rolled over, got to her feet, trying to get control of her scattered mind, but Quinn was behind her now and had his powerful arm around her neck.

“I will snap your neck, Penny. I swear to God, I will snap your neck. Nothing you can do will stop me.”

Penny went limp. “You think the king will let you get away with this, Quinn?” she hissed.

“Anyone messes with me, Penny, you or anyone else, and I go on strike. See how well you enjoy life without me and my crews. Without food.”

Quinn shoved her away and took Cigar’s arm again.

Some jobs were tougher than others. Blake and Bonnie had the worst job you could have: maintaining the septic tank. Also known as the Pit.

Dekka had used her powers to help dig the pit, although it had still taken twenty other kids to clear the levitated dirt away. The result was a hole in the ground ten feet deep, twelve feet long, and three feet across. Give or take: no one had exactly used a tape measure.

It was basically one long slit trench. The trench had been covered with an entire side of one of the Nutella train’s steel boxcars. Sam had cut it free and Dekka and Orc had hauled it the miles from the train crash site.

Sam had then burned five two-foot holes in the steel.

And that was where Blake and Bonnie came in. Alone neither of them had any special talent for building, but somehow the two of them joined had a strange sort of genius, recognized by Edilio, their direct supervisor. Together (with some help from Edilio) they had taken on the job of creating five outhouses perched above those holes. This they had done by taking shipping crates, removing the tops, and sawing out a sort of doorway. The end result was an open-topped wooden crate with a narrow door covered with a shower curtain to provide some privacy.

The open top had the disadvantage that the heads of tall people could be seen. The advantage, however, was that the smell of the septic tank wasn’t trapped in a closed space.

The individual outhouses had benches made of desk tops brought from the Air National Guard base. Sam had burned holes in each of these, and Blake and Bonnie had thoughtfully attached actual toilet seats to these.

There was something pleasant—once you got used to it—about relieving yourself under the stars or sun. Except for the lack of toilet paper.

Blake and Bonnie solved this problem—partly—by selling various leaves, official reports and records from the Air National Guard facility, and out-of-date reference books.

And, of course, the two Bs were responsible for keeping the facility clean. This wasn’t terribly hard usually, because Bonnie in particular had no reluctance to call someone out for making a mess.

And the hours weren’t bad. Since absolutely no one wanted their jobs, Blake and Bonnie were given plenty of time off. And since they were seven and six years old, respectively, they spent their time off swimming, collecting rocks, and playing a more or less continuous game of war that involved various action figures, the severed heads of Bratz dolls and interesting insects.