Fear (Gone #5)(24)

Taylor bellowed in pain and terror.

Her flailing caused her to topple over. The stumps of her legs didn’t do a very good job of holding her in place. She rolled once, fell the four feet to the pavement, landed on her chest.

Shaking with fear, she fumbled for and reached the door handle and used it to pull herself up into a seated position. Her legs ended in neat stumps, just above the knees. Just like her left hand.

No blood.

But so much pain.

Taylor screamed and fell back and lost consciousness.

Astrid had found the sight of a visibly pregnant Diana disturbing.

It was strange enough to see a fifteen-year-old girl pregnant in any context. In the FAYZ it was far more jarring. The FAYZ was a trap, a prison, a purgatory maybe. But a nursery?

Each week that had gone by from that first day, the number of kids alive in the FAYZ had gone down. Always down, never up. The FAYZ was a place of sudden, horrifying death. Not a place of life.

And who had changed all that? A cruel, sharp-tongued girl and a boy who had never been anything but evil.

Astrid had taken a life. Diana was bringing one into the world.

Astrid sat on the sticky plastic cushions around the houseboat’s tiny dining table. She put her elbows on the table and held her head in her hands.

Edilio came in, nodded at Astrid, and poured himself a glass of water from the jug on the counter. He was being discreet, not asking her questions, not wanting, probably, to scare her off.

“You like irony, Edilio?” Astrid asked him.

For a moment she thought she’d embarrassed him by using a word he didn’t understand. But after a long, reflective pause Edilio said, “You mean like the irony of an illegal from Honduras ending up being what I am?”

Astrid smiled. “Yeah. Like that.”

Edilio gave her a shrewd look. “Or maybe like Diana having a baby?”

That forced a laugh from Astrid. She shook her head ruefully. “You are the most underestimated person in the FAYZ.”

“It’s my superpower,” Edilio said dryly.

Astrid invited him to sit down. He laid his gun down carefully and slid into a seat opposite her.

“Who would you say are the ten most powerful people in the FAYZ, Edilio?”

Edilio raised a skeptical eyebrow. “Really?”

“Yes.”

“Number one is Albert,” Edilio said. “Then Caine. Sam. Lana.” He thought about it for a moment longer and said, “Quinn. Drake, unfortunately. Dekka. You. Me. Diana.”

Astrid folded her arms in front of her. “Not Brianna? Or Orc?”

“They’re both powerful, sure. But they don’t have the kind of power that moves other people, you know? Brianna’s cool, but she’s not someone who other people follow. Same with Jack. More so with Orc.”

“You notice something about the ten people you named?” Astrid asked. Then she answered her own question. “Four of the ten have no powers or mutations.”

“Irony?”

“And Diana’s importance isn’t about her power. It’s about her baby. Diana Ladris: mother.”

“She’s changed,” Edilio said. “So have you.”

“Yeah, I’m a bit more tanned,” Astrid said evasively.

“I think it’s more than that,” Edilio said. “The old Astrid would never have just disappeared like you did. Wouldn’t have stayed out there all on her own.”

“True,” Astrid acknowledged. “I was… I was doing penance.”

Edilio smiled affectionately. “Old-school, huh? Like a hermit. Or a monk. Holy men … women, too, I guess … going off to the wilderness to make peace with God.”

“I’m not a holy anything.”

“But you made peace?”

Astrid took a deep breath. “I’ve changed.”

“Ah. Like that?” Her silence was confirmation. “Lots of people, they go through bad times, they lose their faith. But they come back to it.”

“I didn’t lose my faith, Edilio: I killed it. I held it up to the light and I stared right at it and for the first time I didn’t hide behind something I’d read somewhere, or something I’d heard. I didn’t worry about what anyone would think. I didn’t worry about looking like a fool. I was all alone and I had no one to be right to. Except me. So I just looked. And when I looked…” She made a gesture with her fingers, like things blowing away, scattering in the wind. “There was nothing there.”

Edilio looked very sad.

“Edilio,” she said, “you have to believe what’s right for you, what you feel. But so do I. It’s hard for someone who has had to carry the nickname ‘Astrid the Genius’ to admit she was wrong.” She made a wry smile. “But I found out that I was … not happier, maybe; that’s not the right word.... Not about happy. But … honest. Honest with myself.”

“So you think I’m lying to myself?” Edilio asked softly.

Astrid shook her head. “Never. But I was.”

Edilio stood up. “I have to get back out there.” He came to stand beside her, put his arms around her shoulders, and she hugged him, too.

“It’s good to have you back, Astrid. You should get some sleep.” He nodded. “Use Sam’s bunk.”