Fear (Gone #5)(82)

“Do you like boys?” Dekka asked, her voice strained.

Brianna shrugged. Every part of this made her uncomfortable. “I don’t know, jeez. I made out with Jack a couple of times. But that’s because I was bored.”

“Bored.”

“Yeah. And it didn’t help that much.”

“You’re not in love with Jack?”

Brianna barked out a surprised laugh. “Jack? Computer Jack? I mean, I like him okay. He’s nice. I mean, he’s sweet. And if I’m reading a book I don’t understand he can always explain stuff. He’s smart. But he’s not—” And there she stopped herself.

To Brianna’s surprise that drew an incredulous laugh from Dekka. “This is you, isn’t it? The real you.”

Brianna squinted. What kind of question was that?

“All this time…” Dekka didn’t finish the thought. “Why didn’t you just tell me?”

“What?”

Dekka balled her fists up. “I swear to God I’m going to kill you if you keep playing dumb!”

“I like boys, okay? I think. I guess. Probably. I mean, I’m just thirteen! Jeez! I know it’s the FAYZ and all, but I’m really just … a kid.”

Brianna blushed. Why had she said that? She wasn’t a kid. She was the Breeze. She was the most dangerous person … okay, third most dangerous person … not a kid, though. Not like a little kid.

Well, she was fast, but she couldn’t snatch words back. Jack probably dying. The light going out. Maybe it was just okay to say stuff.

A sharp intake of breath from Dekka. “You are, aren’t you?” Dekka said softly. “I forget.” She repeated it sadly. “I forget.”

“I mean, it’s like, you know, I have a crush on Sam or whatever, like every other girl—well, except you, I guess—but it’s not like that. It’s like … you know…” She tapered off lamely. Then added, “I just like being The Breeze. Capital ‘T,’ capital ‘B.’”

All the anger was gone from Dekka. “I forget, Brianna. I mean, I see you do stuff that’s so crazy brave.... And I see how Sam depends on you. How everyone does. And I see you run into a fight with Drake and, wow, I mean, I look at you and you’re, like, everything I ever wanted in a girlfriend. And I forget you’re still just a kid.”

“I’m not that young,” Brianna said, now really wishing she could take some of it back.

Dekka sighed a deep, long sigh.

“I mean, maybe in a couple of years,” Brianna said, definitely feeling like she was coming out on the worse end of this conversation.

Dekka laughed. “No, Brianna. No. A crush on Sam? Making out with Jack? Nope. Nope. I was letting my own… I was seeing what I wanted to see. That’s what I was doing. I wasn’t seeing you.”

“But you and me. We’re cool?”

Dekka was crying again, but this time she wiped the tears away with a laugh. “Breeze, how could we not be cool? We are definitely the badass sisters.”

“What do we do now? I can’t run very fast in the dark.”

“Yep. But we still go after Drake. He’s got Diana, and we can’t leave her to him. He hates women, you know.”

“Yeah. I did notice that about him.” Brianna felt energy flowing through her again. The tiredness, the frustration, they were gone. And the coming darkness? Well, she could still swing a very, very fast machete. “The boy hates chicks, right? Let’s go give him a good reason to.”

Astrid walked holding Cigar’s hand. Sometimes it would freak him out and he’d be convinced she was going to eat him. His mind was gone. Or if not gone forever, then gone for now. Gone until he somehow got help.

But he could see what she could not. He could see her brother. She had sensed it from the start when she had seen the coyote with the human face. Not stupid, but ignorant, heedless. Something or someone with staggering power and no idea how to use it.

Little Pete was an unseen, almighty god who played ignorant, heedless games with the helpless creatures in the FAYZ.

Maybe the stain was his, too.

Maybe he was the one shutting down the light.

Well, it would figure, wouldn’t it? Sooner or later the game had to end.

She walked on tired feet toward Perdido Beach, knowing now that it was a hopeless effort.

They were all mere humans, after all. And the closest thing they had to a god was a reckless, indifferent child.





TWENTY-EIGHT

10 HOURS, 35 MINUTES

“THAT’S THE BEST I can do,” Roger said. The lower half of his face and the front of his shirt were covered with blood. The deck was smeared with it.

Sam looked down at Jack, covered with a blanket. They couldn’t move him. They couldn’t really do much for him unless they found a way to bring Lana to him.

Roger had started with green thread. At first that was all anyone could find. That was what he had used to sew up the artery or vein or whatever it was that lay slit and exposed by the angry slash in Jack’s neck.

The outer part of the wound was sewn up with white thread, though formerly white was more like it. It was red now.

They had smeared a little of their precious stock of Neosporin on the wound and covered it with a bandage torn from an old flag. Jack’s neck was red, white, and blue, though the bandage was soaking through with seeping blood as well.