Gone (Gone #1)(113)

"That guy Ore He just walked into town, all raggedy-looking"

"Ore? Just Ore? No Howard?"

Dekka shrugged, "I didn't see anyone else. He just walked on in, and that guy Quinn told me I better go tell you. He said he was going to follow Ore home."

That would be the house Ore had shared with Howard. It wasn't a long walk.

"Maybe I should bring a gun," Edilio said darkly.

"I think I can handle Ore now" Sam said. His own confidence surprised him. He'd never before in his life thought he could handle Ore.

Quinn was waiting outside the house. Sam thanked Quinn almost formally.."! appreciate you sending Dekka to me and keeping an eye on things."

"I do what I can," Quinn said, more bitterly than he had probably intended.

Sam and Edilio stood by as Quinn knocked on the door.

The bully's all-too-familiar voice yelled,"Come in, morons"

Ore was popping the top of a can of been

"Let me drink this," Ore muttered. "Then you can kill me or whatever"

Ore had lived a bad couple of days. He was scratched, bruised, battered. One eye was swollen and black. His pants were torn and filthy. His shirt was barely recognizable as a shirt. It had been ripped to tatters, then knotted crudely back together.

He was still big, but he looked less threatening than they'd ever seen him before.

"Where's Howard?" Sam demanded, "With them "Ore said, "With who?"

"Drake. That girl, what's her name, Lana. And a talking dog" Ore smirked. "Yeah. I'm crazy. Talking dog. Was the dogs that took me down. Kipped z hole out of my guts. Ate my thigh"

"What are you talking about. Ore?"

He drank deep. He sighed. "Man, that's good."

"Talk sense. Ore," Sam snapped.

Ore belched loudly. He stood up slowly. He set down his beer. With stiff arms he pulled his ragged shirt up and over his head.

Edilio gasped. Quinn turned away. Sam just stared.

Great patches of Ore's chest and belly were covered by gravel. The individual rocks were the color of muddy water, green-gray. As Ore breathed, the gravel rose and fell.

"It's spreading" Ore said. He seemed bemused by it. He touched it with his finger."It's warm"

"Ore ... how did this happens* Sam asked,

"I told you. The dogs ate out my leg and my guts and some other parts ! ain't telling you about. Then this stuff kind ctf filled it in."

He shrugged, and Sam heard a faint sound like footsteps on a wet gravel driveway.

"It doesn't hurt," Ore said. "It did. But it doesn't hurt now. Itches, though."

"Mother of God " Edilio said softly.

"Anyway" Ore said. "I know you all hate me. So either kill me or get out. I'm thirsty and hungry."

They left him.

Outside, Quinn walked quickly down the street, stopped suddenly, and threw up into a bush.

Sam and Edilio caught up with him. Sam put his hand on Quinn's shoulder

"Sorry" Quinn said. "I guess I m just weak"

"Worse is coming," Sam said darkly, "But all of a sudden a nice easy blink doesn't seem like the wwst thing that could happen, does it?"

"Drake's been gone for two days" Diana said. "We need to look at what we have here" "I'm busy," Caine snapped.

They were standing on the front fawn of Coates. Caine was supervising an effort to repair the hole caused by the earlier power struggle. He teleported bricks, a tew at a time, up to where Mallei and Chaz were attempting to cement them in place.

It had all collapsed twice already. It was one thing to pour concrete into a mold in the ground. It was a lot harder to mortar bricks into place.

"We need to make some kind of deal with . . . with the townies" Diana said.

"Townies. Carefully avoiding having to say 'Sam.* Or 'your brother.'"

"Okay. You caught me," Diana said. "We have to make some kind of deal with your brother, Sam. They still have food. We are running out"

Caine made a show of being distracted as he levitated another stack of bricks out through the front door of the school and up to the second floor, where Mallet and Chaz dodged the arriving load.

"Pm getting better at this" Caine said. "I'm gaining control. Precision"

"Goody for you"

Caine's shoulders sagged. "You know, you could occasionally show some support. You know how I feel about you. But all you ever do is bust me"

"What do you want to do, get married?"

Caine reddened, and Diana erupted in an unusually loud laugh. "You get that were fourteen, right? I mean, I know you think you're the Napoleon of the FAYZ, but we Ye still kids"

"Age is relative. Pm one of the two oldest people in the FAYZ. And the most powerful"

Diana bit her tongue. She had a smart-ass answer ready, but she had tweaked Caine enough for one day. She had bigger issues to deal with than Caine's puppy love. And that's all il was. Caine wasn't capable of real love, the deep kind, the kind that would grow over time.

"Of course, neither am I," Diana muttered.

"What?"

"Nothing" She watched Cain* as he worked. Not what he was doing, but the boy himself. He was the most charismatic person she'd ever known. He could have been a rock star And clearly he thought he was in love with her. It was the reason he tolerated her impertinence.