Fear (Gone #5)(83)

Roger was the unofficial nurse. Mostly because he seemed nice and was good with kids. He had taken on the job of sewing up Jack’s neck.

He’d said it was like trying to sew a piece of pasta. A piece of pasta that pulsed and sprayed blood.

“Thanks, Roger,” Sam said. “You absolutely stepped up, dude.”

“He’s so pale,” Roger said. “Like a piece of chalk.”

Sam had nothing to say about that. Lana could save Jack. But she was far away, and soon there would be almost no way to even contact her.

Where was that little bimbo Taylor? They needed her.

He had stopped being mad at Brianna, because now he was just too worried about her. If she was out there running around after Drake, Sam would kill her. Hug her first. Then kill her.

This couldn’t be. It just couldn’t. Poor Jack, who had maybe not always been the most stand-up guy in the world but who had never had a mean bone in his geeky body. And Breeze missing. And Diana. Howard dead. Orc … somewhere.

And Astrid.

It was all coming apart in his hands. He was watching his whole world bleed out like Jack.

“We’ve got Astrid, Dekka, Diana—and I hope Brianna—all out there in the desert with Drake,” Sam said. “Orc’s on his way back out. And in an hour they’ll all be in absolute darkness.”

“And Justin,” Roger said, making a point of it.

“And Justin,” Sam agreed.

Edilio wiped his face with his hand, a sign of nervousness in the usually impassive Edilio.

Suddenly Sam remembered the first time he’d run into Edilio after the coming of the FAYZ. It had been up at Clifftop. Edilio had been trying to dig under the barrier. Practical, even then.

“Look,” Sam pressed. “People here have lights. It’s not much, but they have something; they can at least see. What chance do those kids out there in the desert have?”

“Drake’s probably reached the mine shaft by now,” Edilio said.

“No,” Roger said sharply. “No. Don’t do that. Don’t just write Justin off like that.”

Sam saw shame on Edilio’s face. “I’m sorry, babe; you know I love that little guy. I didn’t mean it like that.”

Edilio reached for Roger, then, with a darting sideways glance at Sam, stopped himself.

Roger had made an identical move, and also stopped after an abashed glance at Sam.

Sam stood very still, and for a few very awkward seconds no one spoke.

Finally Sam said, “Edilio, I have to go after them.”

“We can’t risk you, Sam. What if you’re killed? What if there’s no more light, and you’re it; you’re the only thing between us and total darkness?”

“Then we’re all dead anyway, Edilio.” Sam spread his hands in a helpless gesture. “We barely stay alive in this place as it is. In total darkness? A few Sammy suns won’t save us.”

“Look, we have to keep people calm. That’s what’s most important.”

It was a job that suddenly got a lot harder as a gaggle of a dozen kids came pelting madly down the slope past the Pit.

“Help us! Help! Help us!”

The coyotes knew their prey were getting close to safety. That was Sanjit’s conclusion as he watched them begin closing in.

The crowd on the road had grown. Kids had huddled closer together as the darkness deepened. Kids who had started out later ran till they were falling down, desperate to catch up.

Those who had begun with a lead began to doubt the wisdom of being out front. So front and back had joined middle and now they were a mob of thirty kids, spilling off the road, moving as a cluster, walking as fast as they could, crying, whining, complaining loudly, demanding.... Demanding of whom, Sanjit couldn’t guess.

This was officially a fiasco, he knew. One of those efforts that was doomed from the start. His little mission to tell Sam what was happening in Perdido Beach, to hand him Lana’s request for lights in Perdido Beach, all a waste of time.

Too late. And unnecessary, anyway, since the crowd of refugees would have gotten the same point across.

A stupid, wasted effort.

He didn’t blame Lana for sending him. It never occurred to him to blame her. He was head over heels, lost, lost, lost in love with her. But she would agree—if he ever saw her again—that it had not worked out very well.

He could barely see a hundred feet to either side of the road. The gloom that had been weirdly tea colored had now deepened and shifted in the spectrum. The air itself seemed a dark blue. There was an element of opacity to the light that remained. Like it was foggy, but of course it wasn’t.

A hundred feet was enough to see the coyote pack. Their lolling tongues. Their intelligent, hyperalert yellow eyes. The way their ears stood up and swiveled to each new sound.

As soon as it was dark they would come. Unless the kids reached the lake before that happened. Sanjit could read anxiety in their avid expressions and the way they paced back and forth.

“Everyone just stay together and keep moving,” he urged.

Somehow he was in charge. Maybe it was that he was the only one with a gun. Others had the usual assortment of weapons, but his was the only gun.

Or maybe it was his association with the revered Lana. Or the fact that he was among the three oldest kids.

Sanjit sighed. He missed Choo. He missed all his brothers and sisters, but especially Choo. Choo was the pessimistic one, which allowed Sanjit to be the perky optimist.