Fear (Gone #5)(63)

No. But a boat. Definitely a boat.

Nice.

Now what? He still had to get to Diana.

Easier said than done. First, he had to know where he was. He spent a good twenty minutes trying to squirm his body in such a way as to bring his head up against the hatch. He couldn’t hold the position for long.

He held himself in place by wedging his hand against the engine block, then used the tip of his tentacle to push gently, gently upward on the hatch.

It moved up easily enough. A quarter of an inch. A half an inch. And then he could see a long, very narrow slice of the world beyond. A single spoke of a steering wheel. A bucket. Then a foot.

He lowered the hatch as quietly as he had raised it.

Something had bumped against the side of the boat. He heard a muffled voice, a guy.

Then a second male voice that froze his marrow. Sam.

Sam!

Drake heard sounds of someone clambering up the side. Now he could hear the voices more distinctly.

“T’sup, Roger?” Sam said. “Hey, Justin, hey, Atria. How are you guys holding up?”

The first male voice, presumably “Roger,” whoever that was, said, “We’re fine. Doing fine.”

“Good. Well, I’m just here to hang some lights for you.”

“Sammy suns? So…” Roger hesitated. “Why don’t you kids go play? Old-people talk here.” The sound of running feet, but no high-pitched voices. Then, “So it’s like that?”

“Well, Roger, we don’t know for sure.” Sam sounded weary.

Could Drake take him? Right here and now when he was alone, without Brianna or Dekka to add to his power?

No, Drake told himself. He would never get up out of this hatch before Sam started burning him. And his mission was to get Diana, not kill Sam.

“Is it going to be totally dark?” Roger asked in a voice that quavered just a bit.

“Not totally dark,” Sam said reassuringly. “That’s why I’m here. You’ll have plenty of light on board. Is she up or is she asleep?”

They wandered out of earshot at that point, presumably into the cabin. But Drake had heard a female pronoun.

Was it possible? Was Diana on this very boat?

He grinned in the darkness. He would wait and be sure. The opportunity would arise. His faith in the gaiaphage had not failed him yet.

From boat to boat, one after the next, Sam rowed.

At each boat he climbed aboard and crouched to enter whatever cabin they had. In the smaller sailboats or motorboats he installed one or two Sammy suns.

Sammy suns were the long-lasting manifestation of his power. Rather than firing light in a killing beam he could form balls of light, which then burned without heat and hung in the air. They experimented a bit and discovered that the Sammy sun would stay in place relative to the boat when it moved, a rather important consideration.

Some of the boats, like the houseboats, got as many as three or four Sammy suns.

Halfway through the process, Sam realized he was feeling very weary. He’d had this same feeling after battles where he’d had to use his powers. He’d always assumed it was just the depression that followed any fight. Now he was wondering if the use of the power itself had some kind of tiring effect.

Maybe. But it didn’t matter. The Sammy suns were reassuring to kids. No one—least of all Sam—could tolerate the idea of being trapped in perpetual darkness. It was inconceivable. It struck terror right down to his core.

The last Sammy suns were for the big houseboat. Five in all, including an especially large one floating beside the front railing.

They would be in the dark. But they would not be totally blind.

“That helps,” Edilio said, welcoming him back.

“For a while,” Sam said grimly.

“For a while,” he agreed.

He couldn’t help but pick up his binoculars and scan the shore. Orc was still out searching. Good. If they were lucky he might find Drake, and Sam would rush to help.

But he wasn’t really interested in watching Orc. It was Astrid he searched for.

If she made it to Perdido Beach, what was the earliest she could get back? It had to be before the sky closed. If she was trapped out there in the dark, she would have to literally crawl along the road. And not everything needed light to hunt and kill. The darkness might keep Drake at bay, but the coyotes and snakes and zekes…

He had to do something. But he didn’t know what. It ate out his insides, that not knowing what to do.

“I could hang Sammy suns along the road,” he said.

“Once we have a deal with Albert and Caine,” Edilio agreed. “But if we do it now, it will just be a beacon enticing all of Perdido Beach to come. We aren’t ready for that.”

Sam clenched his mouth shut. He hadn’t really expected Edilio to say anything about it. He was just thinking out loud. And he was still mad at Edilio. He needed to be mad at someone, and Edilio was there.

Worse, Edilio did not seem to fear the coming darkness. He was his usual calm, capable self. Normally that was reassuring. But Sam was having a hard time just taking a full breath. He was exhausted from hanging suns and making all sorts of reassuring noises to his people on the boats.

He didn’t believe what he was saying. Astrid was out there somewhere. Darkness was coming. The endgame was being played. And he had no plan.

He had no plan.