Hunger

by Michael Grant

  “Shut up!” Caine said savagely. “I don’t need this from you. Has anyone searched for food?”

  “You don’t think in the last three months Sam’s people have searched this place for food?” Diana said, but with less overt hostility than usual.

  “That’s not what I asked,” Caine yelled. “I asked whether any of you stupid, lazy idiots bothered to look for something to eat. It’s a yes-or-no answer.”

  “No,” Diana answered for all of them.

  “Then get off your butts and go look,” Caine said.

  Diana sighed and got to her feet. “I wouldn’t mind a little walk.”

  Jack got up as well. So did Drake’s two gunmen. The four of them disappeared down various hallways.

  “Just don’t go outside the building,” Caine yelled after them.

  Caine pulled Drake aside. “Has Jack got it worked out yet?”

  “I think so. He was looking smug right before he fell asleep.”

  Caine nodded. “We should move out as soon as we can.”

  “Shouldn’t we try to take Sam out first?” Drake asked.

  Caine snorted a laugh. “You say that like it’s easy. If we could start by taking Sam down, we’d have an easy time of it.” He shook his head. “No. That’s not how we do this. If they catch us, we use the uranium to make them back off.”

  Despite himself, Drake grinned. “Threaten to drop it on them?”

  “Threaten to smash it open,” Caine said. “Threaten to launch it into the air and smash it open.”

  “And everyone will glow in the dark,” Drake said, as if that was a happy thought.

  “I’ll only have one hand free,” Caine said. “So you may finally get a chance to use that gun you love so much.”

  “Should we send Bug to Coates?” Drake asked. “Bring more of our people?”

  “They wouldn’t come,” Caine said flatly.

  There was a commotion and Caine glanced aside to see Computer Jack storming down the hallway trailed by Diana, who tried unsuccessfully to hold him back. Like a two-year-old trying to hold a bull.

  “You!” Jack bellowed.

  He waved his fist in the air and Caine could see naked wires, like hair-thin snakes in his fingers.

  “You said you took these down!” Jack cried accusingly.

  “Oh, gee, I must have missed some,” Drake said. “Hey, did you find your girlfriend while you were looking around?”

  Jack froze. “What?”

  Drake had his arm uncoiled, ready to use. “She must have been doing pretty good speed when she hit the wire. Breezed right through them. Oh wait, I said that wrong. The wire breezed right through the Breeze.”

  “She…what…” Jack gasped.

  “Cut her right in half,” Drake said, laughing with sheer glee. “It was kind of neat to see. You’d have found it interesting, all her insides, sliced right in half. Like a meat cleaver went through her.”

  “I’m going to kill you,” Jack whispered.

  “You don’t have the—”

  But Jack had tossed Diana aside and was running straight at Drake.

  Drake managed to lash him once with his whip hand, but only once. Jack hit him like a linebacker. Drake went flying across the room, flying like he’d stepped out in front of a bus.

  Drake landed hard, but rolled to his feet. He lashed again. There was a loud crack, and a tear appeared in Jack’s shirt.

  Jack never slowed down but went straight for Drake. But then, suddenly, he couldn’t move. He motored his legs, but could not advance.

  Caine with one raised hand held him with an irresistible force.

  “Let me go, Caine,” Jack yelled.

  “He’s yanking your chain, you idiot,” Caine yelled. The temptation to let Jack kill Drake was strong. It would solve a major problem—sooner or later Drake was going to challenge Caine. But for now, Drake was still necessary in a battle.

  Drake slashed at Jack with his whip, but the whip stopped in midair, hitting an invisible barrier.

  “Both of you knock it off,” Caine yelled.

  “You touch me, I’ll kill you!” Drake shrieked at Jack.

  “I said shut up, both of you!” Caine bellowed. He pushed both palms out, one aimed at Jack, the other at Drake. Both boys went flying backward. Jack landed hard on his back. Drake, lighter and without Jack’s superhuman strength, hit the wall and crumpled at its base.

  Caine caught a movement out of the corner of his eye and saw the backs of the two hostages as they bolted from the room.

  Caine twisted to aim for them, but they were out of his line of sight. He heard footsteps pelting away. “Get them!” he yelled.

  But Drake was slow getting up and Jack would be no help. Drake’s two thugs stood stock still, paralyzed. Caine realized that they were loyal to Drake, awaiting his orders and not Caine’s.

  He spun, raised his hands, lifted both the punks off the floor, and hurled them bodily down the hallway after the hostages.

  “Bring them back!” Caine bellowed.

  “Look out!” Diana cried.

  Gunfire erupted. Insanely loud. Caine heard bullets fly past his ear like buzzing dragonflies.

  Brittney!

  Not dead. Just playing dead and slowly, slowly working her way toward a gun she must have known was stashed under the counter.

  She was still in a heap on the floor, unable to stand, unable even to sit up, lying on her side firing.

  Caine leaped aside as bullets flew.

  He slammed heavily into the table, rebounded, and fell to his knees. He brought his palms up, but the barrel of the gun moved faster.

  But faster still, was Drake’s whip hand. It snapped and wrapped around Brittney’s wrist. The gun fired, but the bullets hit wall and ceiling.

  Caine, enraged, aimed his full power at the girl. She skidded across the floor and hit the wall, so quickly that Drake was still attached and was drawn along with her.

  Caine jumped to his feet, holding his focus on Brittney, raised her from the ground, suspended in midair.

  “You piece of—” Brittney said, and then she was a bullet herself, rocketing through the air.

  She flew through the hole Sam had burned earlier.

  That had not been Caine’s intention. The girl was lucky.

  Or someone was looking out for her.

  Outside, standing faithful guard, Dekka heard the eruption of gunfire from the control room.

  She leaped toward the wall just as something flew through the burned-out hole. It landed with the unmistakable sound of a human body hitting the ground.

  Dekka stared, too stunned to react.

  Then, off to her right, gunfire from inside the turbine building. Bright yellow flashes outlined the doorway.

  She broke her trance and ran toward the door. Edilio’s soldiers jumped up off the ground and fell in behind her.

  “Orc! Orc!” Dekka shouted.

  She heard rather than saw the monster stir. He’d been asleep in the back of the SUV. The springs squeaked as he clambered out.

  Two of Caine’s gunmen appeared as shadows in the doorway. Their guns aimed at the fleeing forms.

  Gunfire and one of the shapes fell without even crying out. Collapsed onto his face and did not move. The other ran, ran, ran.

  “I got him! I got him!” someone cried, more terror than pride in his voice.

  “Taylor!” Dekka yelled. “Distract them!”

  “Bouncing!” Taylor yelled back and disappeared.

  “Oh, my God, I think I killed him,” the voice moaned.

  Dekka raised her hands and both gunmen floated up off the ground. One smacked the top of the doorway. The other slid back inside, out of Dekka’s reach. The firing stopped. The running hostage collapsed, gasping, behind a vehicle.

  One second Taylor was running beside Dekka.

  A split second later she was staggering, still half running, across the control room of the power plant.

  “You stupid psycho!” Caine screamed at Drake.


  Drake had gone bone white, all but his cold gray eyes. “I just saved your life!”

  “You were being an idiot! You pushed Jack just to watch him squirm,” Caine yelled. “And look what happened. I’m busy keeping you two apart and look what happened, you stupid thug!”

  “Hey!” Diana yelled.

  It took Taylor a moment to recognize her. Her head was practically shaved.

  “Hey!” Diana yelled again, pointing at Taylor. “We have company!”

  Caine whirled and swung his deadly hands up, but Taylor bounced across the room to appear in a far corner, behind him.

  “Jack, you traitor!” Taylor yelled, and bounced out of the room.

  Taylor popped back, right in Dekka’s face. “They’re freaking out in there. We should hit them now!”

  Dekka came to a stop. She added quickly in her mind. She had Orc and Taylor and herself. She had three of Edilio’s guys. The hostages were no longer an issue.

  But Caine and Drake were still alive. Still very, very dangerous. Plus at least two gunmen, maybe more.

  “No,” she said, feeling deflated. “Not without Sam.”

  “We should go now, right now!” Taylor yelled. She pointed at the bloody mess on the ground. “Look what they did. Look what they did! Look at what those animals did!”

  Dekka put a calming hand on the girl’s shoulder. “We go in now, we’ll lose,” she said. And even if Sam were there…She’d never seen Sam acting the way he had earlier. Like the fire had gone out in him.

  “You’re just scared,” Taylor said.

  “Don’t be up in my face, Taylor,” Dekka warned. “We don’t have the power. Simple as that. We attack now, we’ll lose. Sam will have more bodies for Edilio to bury. I don’t know if Sam can…” She stopped herself. Too late.

  “What about Sam?” Taylor demanded.

  Dekka shrugged. “Nothing. Boy’s just tired, is all. I think maybe he doesn’t need another fight tonight.”

  Taylor looked like she might argue some more. Then her shoulders sagged. “Yeah. Whatever.”

  “You head back to town. Tell Sam what went down. Tell him what you saw inside there.”

  “It’ll take me a few minutes. I can’t do it all in one bounce,” Taylor said.

  “Then get going.”

  Taylor disappeared and Dekka kicked furiously at the dirt. It had all happened too fast for her to do much more than watch.

  Mike Farmer was creeping from behind the truck where he’d hidden. Mickey was facedown and terribly still. The remains of Brittney were a nightmare.

  Dekka felt a flash of anger at Sam. He had run off and left her in charge. Well, she didn’t want to be in charge. Sam wasn’t the only one who was hanging on by his fingernails.

  Brianna…The thought was like a knife to the stomach, twisting, twisting.

  She had never even told Brianna how she felt. And now it was too late.

  Something landed on the pavement next to Dekka. She stared at what looked a great deal like chicken bones. Cooked chicken bones.

  Dekka looked up. She moved back and back to get a clear view.

  Ten stories up, eerie in the blazing light atop the turbine building, someone was waving her arms. Very fast.

  Time seemed to stand still. Dekka couldn’t breathe. She stared hard, not wanting to be wrong, not willing to believe until she was sure.

  “Breeze?” Dekka whispered, amazed.

  Dekka lowered her head for just a moment and thanked God. Brianna. Alive.

  Alive and as impatient as ever, by the look of it.

  No way Brianna could hear her over the noise of the plant. How Brianna had managed to get herself up there was a mystery, but judging from her frantic semaphore of waving arms, she wanted to get down.

  Dekka waved. She even displayed a rare smile. Brianna, alive.

  Brianna stuck her hands on her hips as if to say, “What’s keeping you?”

  Dekka considered for a moment. Then she pointed to a spot just at the base of the wall, well away from the door where Caine’s boys crouched hidden with guns.

  Brianna nodded.

  Dekka raised her hands.

  Brianna leaped into midair. And stayed in midair. No gravity dragged her down.

  Dekka took a deep breath. She switched off her power for a second and Brianna fell. On again and Brianna stopped falling. Off. On. Until Brianna floated just a few feet off the pavement.

  Dekka released her and Brianna landed lightly, taking the shock in her knees. Dekka steadied her.

  “What is going on down here?” Brianna demanded. “I heard guns. Woke me up.”

  “Good to see you, too, Brianna,” Dekka said dryly. “Everyone thought you were dead.”

  “Well, I’m not. Duh.”

  Dekka shook her head in tolerant amazement.

  They joined Mike behind the truck, leaving Edilio’s soldiers in place watching the door, guns leveled.

  Mike was surprised. “Hey, Drake told Jack you were dead! Jack totally lost it believing him.”

  Brianna grinned. “Oh he did, did he?”

  “Totally. He went all Aragorn on Drake. Tried to kill him. That’s how we…I mean, how I, got away.” He burst into tears then, weeping uncontrollably and covering his face with his hands.

  “You have a thing with Computer Jack?” Dekka asked. She carefully modulated her voice, giving nothing away of her inner turmoil. This was no time to burden Brianna with feelings she wouldn’t reciprocate. Feelings that might even make her mad at Dekka. The two of them hadn’t exactly been friends while they were at Coates. Dekka wasn’t sure Brianna even knew Dekka was gay.

  “I didn’t think I did,” Brianna answered, looking pleased with herself. “I guess I do.”

  “Okay,” Dekka said, swallowing hard. The important thing was Brianna was alive. And Mickey and Brittney were not. Dekka was in charge here, she had to make some decisions. “You going to tell me how you came to be up on the roof?”

  “Um…no. But here’s the thing: There’s a door up there that leads down inside. If I had a crowbar or something, I could get it open, get in and out of there before they know it. Smack the—”

  “No, no,” Mike said through heaving sobs. “The wires are still up.”

  “What wires?” Brianna demanded.

  “Drake. He stretched wires all over the place so if you came in, they’d cut you up.”

  Dekka noted the look of shock on Brianna’s usually cocky face.

  “That’s why Jack was trying to kill Drake,” Mike said. “Jack told him he had to take them all down, and Drake pretended like he did, but he didn’t.”

  Dekka said, “Guess it’s a good thing Jack likes your act, Breeze. Mike here got away.”

  Brianna had no answer.

  “Don’t let it shake you up, girl,” Dekka said. “You had a bad day. We’ve all had a very bad day.” She sat down beside Mike and put her arm around his shoulders. “I’m so sorry about Mickey. I know you guys were buds.”

  Mike shook her off. “You don’t care about Mickey. You care about her because she’s a freak, like you.”

  Dekka decided to let that go. Couldn’t blame Mike for being a little crazed. Couldn’t really blame him if he fell apart completely.

  To Brianna, Dekka said, “You had a close call. But right now the important thing is you start listening to other people and not do crazy stuff that leaves you trapped on a roof when we need you. Or worse yet, sliced up.”

  “Yeah,” Brianna said, abashed. Then, recovering a little of her usual sass, she added, “Thanks, Mom.”

  Dekka loved that. Brianna’s wild recklessness. She loved that. So much the opposite of Dekka herself. She didn’t let Brianna know she loved it because right now Dekka was in charge, responsible. But Brianna wouldn’t be Brianna without the crazy part.

  Alive. She was alive.

  And had a thing for Jack.

  But alive.

  THIRTY-ONE

  13 HOURS, 35 MINUTES

 
COME TO ME. I have need of you.

  “I can’t breathe,” Lana said, although if she spoke with her mouth, she heard no sound from it, nor did she feel her tongue and lips moving.

  The gas compound deprives you of oxygen.

  Yes. That was it. The gas. One spark and…somewhere she had a lighter. One spark and she would be free. Dead. Dead-free.

  She laughed and the laughter became crimson daggers stabbing into her brain. She clutched her head and cried out in pain. She heard no sound. She did not feel her hands pressed against her temples.

  Crawl to me.

  Body not working. Was it? Was she on her hands and knees? Was her body still real?

  Was she blind, or was it too dark to see?

  Had she been unconscious? How long?

  Moving, she was sure she was moving. Only maybe it was a breeze blowing past her.

  I expel the carbon-hydrogen compound.

  The…what? Carbon…what? Her mind was reeling, swirling, round and round and as it swirled out came the knives of pain to stab at her, to torture her. Head exploding. Heart hammering in her chest, trying to escape, ripping her ribs apart to get out of her.

  No, all hallucination. Madness and lies.

  But the pain was real. She could feel that, the pain. And the fear.

  The oxygen-nitrogen mix flows.

  Air. Replacing the gas. It did nothing to lessen the pain in her head. But her heart slowed.

  She could see again, just a little, the headlights of the truck throwing the faintest light down the mine shaft to where she lay face down on rock. Lana brought her hand up in front of her face. Fingers. She could not quite make them out, but she knew they were there.

  She touched her face. She could feel her hand. She could feel her cheek. Wet with tears.

  Come to me.

  No.

  But she was on hands and knees now, moving. The rock tore the flesh of her palms and knees.

  No. I won’t come to you.

  But she came. Moved. Hands and knees. Crawled.

  Had it ever been possible to resist it?

  No.

  I am the gaiaphage.

  You are mine.

  I am Lana Arwen Lazar. My mother named me for…For something. Someone…My…