Gone (Gone #1)(124)

"Even you can't get on my nerves. That's how happy I am" Caine smirked.

"Where's Jack?" Diana asked. When Caine scowled, she said, "See? I still know how to get cn your nerves."

Diana knew that Jack had been driven from the highway into the desert. Panda and Drake had reported that. But she didn't know what had happened after that. If Caine got his hands on Computer Jack. Diana had no doubt that the techie wizard would give her up. What would Caine do then?

In the meantime, Diana had to play it smart by pretending to be concerned by Jack's escape or defection or whatever it should be called. It would throw Caine and Drake off the scent.

Unless they captured Jack.

She tbught down a wave of fear and hid it by pouring herself a glass of water at the kitchen sink, in the safe house, in addition to Diana and Caine, were Howard, Chunk, Mallet, and Panda. Panda was badly shaken by his run-in with Sam and Dekka. He would occasionally mutter something like "A hole blown right through the wall, could have been my head/*

Chunk had tried entertaining them with the same Hollywood stories they'd all heard a million times before. Caine had threatened to turn him over to Drake if he didn't shut up.

Howard was no less irritating. He sat and stewed and whined from time to time about going to look for Ore. "Ore is a soldier, man, if he made it back here, he'll be over at the house we used to live in. It's not that far. I could sneak over there. He'd be good to have around"

"Ore's dead in the desert," Panda said harshly. "You know those coyotes got him"

"Shut up. Panda!" Howard yelled.

The other person in the little house was Lana. Ever since Lana had demonstrated her healing powers, Caine had insisted on keeping her close. To Diana, she remained a disturbing mystery. Her eyes seemed always to be looking at something far away. She rebuffed attempts at conversation. Not angrily, not like she was upset by any of them, more like she was in a completely different place, worrying, reflecting, seeing something completely different.

There was a shadow over Lana. A hollowness in her eyes.

Caine paced back and forth, from the open kitchen area into the family room, back and forth* back and forth. He had started biting his thumb again in that stupid way he had. He stopped and threw up his hands and asked Diana, "Where is he? Where is Bug?"

Bug was one of the freaks who nad signed up with Caine right at the start. Long before the FAYZ, back when Caine was first discovering his powers, learning to control them and learning to recognize others like himself. In those days it was all about getting control of the school environment: Coates had never been a nice place. Half the kids in the school were one kind of bully or another. Caine had just been determined to be the head bully, the bully who could not be bullied himself.

Bug had always been a little creep in Diana's eyes. He didn't rise to the level of a true bully, he was closer to being a Howard-like creature, a bootlick, a toady. He was just ten years old, a nose-picking gross-out artist. But then his power manifested one day when Frederico threatened to kick his butt. Bug, in terror, had disappeared.

Only he didn't really disappear, it was more (hat he seemed lo blend in, like a chameleon. Ycu could slill see him if you knew he was there. But his skin and even his clothes would lake on ihe protective coloration of whatever was behind him, like a mirror that reflected his background. The result could be pretty creepy. Bug standing in front of a cactus would seem to be green with needles poking out.

"You know* Bug," Diana said. "He'll show up to get his strokes. Unless Sam or one of his people spotted him."

At that moment the front door opened and closed. Something moved that was hard to see, hard to make sense of, like a wave in the wallpaper,

"Here's Bug now," Diana announced.

Caine leaped at him. "What did you see?"

Bug shut down the camouflage and emerged clearly, a short, brown-haired, buck-toothed kid with a freckled nose. "I saw a lot. Sam is in town, right across from the day care. He doesn't look like he's doing anything."

"What do you mean he's not doing anything?"

"I mean, he's standing there eating Mickey D's"

Caine stared. "What?"

"He's eating. Fries. I guess he's hungry."

"Does he know Drake and Pack Leader have the littles?"

Bug shrugged."! guess so."

"And he's just standing there?"

"What did you expect him to do?" Diana demanded. "He knows we've got the kids. He's waiting to hear what we want" Caine bit savagely at his thumb. "He's up to something. He probably figures we have a way lo watch him. So he's making sure we see him. Meanwhile, he's up lo something"

"What can he do? Drake and th* covotes are in there with ihe kids. He has no choice. He has lo do whatever you tell him to do."

Caine wasn't convinced. "He's up to something" Lana stirred herself, looked at Ciine, seeming to hear him for the first time.

"What?" Diana asked her.

"Nothing," Lana said. She patted her omnipresent dog. "Nothingat all"

"I need to go do this now" Caine said,

"The plan was to wait till we were close to the birthday hour. That way he loses no matter what"

"You think he can take me, don't you?"