Gone (Gone #1)(55)

"Hold my hands, Sam." she said.

"Don't let me go, Sam" she said.

"I won't, Anna, I won't let you go" Sam said.

"What's going to happen, Sam?"

"I don't know, Anna "

"Will we go to where our men and dad are?"

"I don't know, Anna."

"Am I going to die?"

"No, Anna. You're not going to die"

"Don't let go of me, Sam "

Mary was there now, a baby on her hip. John was there. The prees? some of them, watched with serious, worried looks on their faces.

"I don't want to die" Anna repeated. "I , . , I don't know* what it's like."

"It's okay, Anna.*

Anna smiled. "That was a nice date. When we went out" "It was "

For a split second it was like Anna blurred. Too fast to be real. She blurred, and Sam coulc almost swear that she had smiled at him.

And his lingers squeezed on nothing.

For a terribly long time no one moved or said anything.

The littles didn't cry out. The aider kids just stared.

Sam's fingertips still remembered the feel of Anna's hands. He stared at the place where her face had been. He could still see her pleading eyes.

Unable to stop himself, he reached a hand into the space she had occupied. Reaching lor a (ace lhat was no longer there. Someone sobbed-Someone cried out, other voices then, the prees started crying.

Sam fell sick. When his teacher had disappeared he hadn't been expecting it. This time he had seen it coming, like a monster in a slow-motion nightmare. This time he had seen it coming, like standing rooted on the railroad tracks, unable to jump aside.





TWENTY


131 HOURS, 03 MINUTES

*IT JUST HAPPENED,' Drake announced.

Caine sat in his over-large leaiher chair, the one that had formerly belonged to the mayor of Perdido Beach. Il made him look small. It made him look very young. And to make matters worse, he was chewing on his thumbnail, which made it almost seem that he was sucking his thumb.

Diana was on the couch, lying back reading a magazine and barely paying attention. "What happened?"

"The two girls you had me following. They both just took the big jump. They poofed, as that idiot Quinn says"

Caine jerked to his feet. "lust asl predicted. lust like I said." Caine did not seem to be happy to have been proven right. He came around from behind his desk and to Drake's great enjoyment, snatched the magazine out of Diana's hand and threw it across the room. "You think maybe you could pay attention?"

Diana sighed and sat up slowly, brushed a piece of lint from her blouse. "Don't gel pissy with me, Caine," she warned. "I'm ihe one who said we needed to start collecting birth certificates"

Drake had made time to check out Diana's psych file the day after the FAYZ came. But her file had been missing by then. In its place she had left Drake's file lying open on the doc's desk and drawn a little smiley lace beside the word "sadist"

Drake had already hated her. But after that, hating Diana had become a full-time occupation.

To Drake's disgust, Caine accepted Diana's back talk. "Yeah. That was a good idea" Caine said. "A very good idea"

"Diana's boy Sam was there," Diake said.

Diana did not respond to the provocation.

"He was holding the one girl's hand when she bugged" Drake added. "Looking right into her eyes. See, the first girl goes and they all know what's coming at that point. The second girl, she was weepy over it. I was too tar off to hear what she said, but you could tell she was basically wetting herself"

"Sadism," Diana said. "The enjoyment of another person's pain."

Drake stretched his shark grin. "Words don't scare me."

"You wouldn't be a psychopath f they did, Drake."

"Knock it off, you two," Caine said. He slumped back in the oversized chair and started biting his thumb again, "It's November seventeenth. I have five days to figure out how to beat this."

"Five days," Drake echoed.

"i don't know what we'd do if you bugged out, Caine" Drake said. He sent Diana a look that said he knew exactly what he would do if Caine wasn't around anymore.

Computer Jack came bursting into the room in his usual flustered, goggle-eyed way, carrying an open laptop. "What?" Caine snarled.

"I hacked it," Computer Jack said proudly. When he got blank looks in reaction, he said, "Nurse Temple's laptop."

Caine looked nonplussed. "What? Oh. Great. I have bigger problems. Give it to Diana. And get out"

Computer Jack handed the laptop to Diana and scuttled from the room.

"Scared little worm, isn't he?" Drake said.

"Don't mess with htm. He's useful* Caine warned. "Drake. What did you see exactly when the girl... vacated?"

"The first one, I wasn't looking right at her when it happened. The second one, I kept my eyes on her. One minute there, the next gone"

"At one seventeen?"

Drake shrugged. "Close enough, anyway,"

Caine slammed his hand dowi on the desk. "I don't want close enough, you idiot" he shouied.Tm trying to figure this out. You know, it's not just me, Drake. We all get older. You'll be there someday too, waiting to disappear"