Hunger_A Gone Novel

by Michael Grant

and I’ll die.

  “Stop, Caine.

  “Don’t do it.”

  Caine tried to answer, but his mouth was dry and

  clenched.

  Step by step. Up the trail. To it. To him.

  Jack was up there. And Drake. Drake talking to Jack. There

  was a dead coyote lying in the path, headless.

  And Dekka, maybe alive, maybe not. Not his concern. Her

  problem. Shouldn’t have backed Sam. Shouldn’t have fought

  against Caine.

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  Not his problem.

  He reached the top of the trail. There was the mine shaft

  entrance.

  The fuel rod hovered in the air.

  Feed me.

  Caine moved closer.

  “Do it!” Drake cried.

  “Caine, stop!” Diana said.

  Caine moved more easily now on level ground. Closer.

  Close enough. He could hurl the rod from here. Like a javelin.

  Right into the shaft.

  Like a spear.

  Easy.

  “Don’t,” Diana said. Then, “Jack. Jack, you have to stop

  this.”

  “No way,” Drake snarled.

  “Shut up, you psychotic!” Diana shouted in sudden rage,

  all subtlety abandoned. “Go die, you filthy, stupid thug!”

  Drake’s eyes went dead. The dangerous, giddy light went

  out in them. He stared at her with black hatred.

  “Enough,” Drake said. “I was going to wait. But if it has to

  be now, let’s do it.”

  His whip lashed out.

  FORTY-THREE

  13 MINUTES

  D R A K E ’ S W H I P H A N D spun Diana like a top.

  She cried out. That sound, her cry, pierced Caine like an

  arrow.

  Diana staggered and almost righted herself, but Drake was

  too quick, too ready.

  His second strike yanked her through the air. She flew and

  then fell.

  “Catch her!” Caine was yelling to himself. Seeing her arc

  as she fell. Seeing where she would hit. His hands came up,

  he could use his power, he could catch her, save her. But too

  slow.

  Diana fell. Her head smashed against a jutting point of

  rock. She made a sound like a dropped pumpkin.

  Caine froze.

  The fuel rod, forgotten, fell from the air with a shattering

  crash.

  It fell within ten feet of the mine shaft opening. It landed

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  atop a boulder shaped like the prow of a ship.

  It bent, cracked, rolled off the boulder, and crashed heavily

  in the dirt.

  Drake ran straight at Caine, his whip snapping. But Jack

  stumbled in between them, yelling, “The uranium! The uranium!”

  The radiation meter in his pocket was counting clicks so

  fast, it became a scream.

  Drake piled into Jack, and the two of them went tumbling.

  Caine stood, staring in horror at Diana. Diana did not

  move. Did not move. No snarky remark. No smart-ass joke.

  “No!” Caine cried.

  “No!”

  Drake was up, disentangling himself with an angry curse

  from Jack.

  “Diana,” Caine sobbed.

  Drake didn’t rely on his whip hand now, too far away to use

  it before Caine could take him down. He raised his gun. The

  barrel shot flame and slugs, BAM BAM BAM BAM BAM.

  Inaccurate, but on full automatic, Drake had time. He

  swung the gun to his right and the bullets swooped toward

  where Caine stood like he was made of stone.

  Then the muzzle flash disappeared in an explosion of

  green-white light that turned night into day. The shaft of light

  missed its target. But it was close enough that the muzzle of

  Drake’s gun wilted and drooped and the rocks behind Drake

  cracked from the blast of heat.

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  Drake dropped the gun. And now it was Drake’s turn to

  stare in stark amazement. “You!”

  Sam wobbled atop the rise. Quinn caught him as he staggered.

  Now Caine snapped back to the present, seeing his brother,

  seeing the killing light.

  “No,” Caine said. “No, Sam: He’s mine.”

  He raised a hand, and Sam went flying backward along

  with Quinn.

  “The fuel rod!” Jack was yelling, over and over. “It’s going

  to kill us all. Oh, God, we may already be dead!”

  Drake rushed at Caine. His eyes were wide with fear. Knowing he wouldn’t make it. Knowing he was not fast enough.

  Caine raised his hand, and the fuel rod seemed to jump off

  the ground.

  A javelin.

  A spear. He held it poised. Pointed straight at Drake.

  Caine reached with his other hand, extending the telekinetic power to hold Drake immobilized.

  Drake held up his human hand, a placating gesture.

  “Caine . . . you don’t want to . . . not over some girl. She was a

  witch, she was . . .”

  Drake, unable to run, a human target. The fuel rod aimed

  at him like a Spartan’s spear.

  Caine threw the fuel rod. Tons of steel and lead and uranium.

  Straight at Drake.

  Drake, quick as a snake, twisted his shoulder and neck to

  the side. The fuel rod did not hit him full in the chest, but

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  struck his shoulder and sent him flying down the dark shaft.

  The fuel rod disappeared with him.

  There came a loud crash. Dust billowed out of the hole.

  Silence.

  No sound, but the skitter of falling pebbles inside the

  shaft.

  “Oh, God, did it break open?” Jack moaned. “Oh, my God,

  I don’t want to die.”

  Caine raised his hands and stood, arms outstretched, right

  before the mouth of the mine.

  The ground began to rumble.

  Rock snapped and creaked.

  No! the hated voice cried in Caine’s mind.

  “I’m no one’s slave,” Caine grated.

  No! You will not!

  Caine faltered. There were knives in his brain, knives stabbing and stabbing, and the agony was beyond imagining.

  “Won’t I?” Caine said.

  Caine raised his hands high. He reached with his power

  into the cave and yanked his arms back.

  Tons of loose rock, wooden support beams, the shattered

  fuel rod, a battered old pickup truck, the body of Hermit Jim,

  and the writhing, cursing figure of a wounded but still living

  Drake Merwin, came flying out of the cave. Like the cave had

  vomited up its contents.

  The mass of it froze in midair. And then, as Caine formed

  his hands into a bowl, the suspended mass began to twirl. It

  swirled like a tornado.

  And then, with Drake’s cries lost in the howling madness,

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  Caine swept his arms forward and threw the entire spinning

  mass down the mine shaft entrance.

  The noise was so great that Jack clapped his hands over

  his ears.

  Then, a slow-motion rumble and crack and a sudden,

  overwhelming, earthquake jolt as the mine shaft collapsed.

  Millions of pounds of rock closed the shaft forever.

  Caine walked o
n wobbly legs to Diana. He knelt beside her.

  She wasn’t moving. He put his ear next to her lovely mouth.

  He heard no sounds of breathing.

  But when he laid his palm on her back, he felt the slightest

  rise and fall.

  Gently he rolled her over. The damage to the side of her

  head was awful to the touch. He couldn’t see clearly, tears

  filled his eyes, but he could feel a warm slipperiness where

  her temple should be smooth.

  A sob escaped from him.

  He heard heavy footsteps. Sam, moving like he was drunk,

  staggering.

  “Sam,” Caine said calmly, not taking his eyes off the dark

  form of Diana, “if you’re going to kill me, go ahead. Now

  would be a good time.”

  Sam said nothing.

  Finally Caine looked at him. Through his tears Caine

  saw the way Sam wobbled, barely able, it seemed, to stay

  on his feet. He had been cut up badly. The pain must be

  excruciating.

  Drake’s work. Drake had not killed Sam. But he had come

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  close. And it seemed impossible that Sam would survive for

  long.

  Quinn was struggling under the burden of the body he

  cradled in his arms. The Mexican kid, Caine guessed, or

  maybe Dekka.

  “So. This is the end,” Caine said dully. He stroked Diana’s

  cropped hair. “I love her. Did you know that, Sam?”

  “It’s not over yet,” Sam said. His voice shocked Caine. He’d

  never heard more pain in a voice. He heard a barely suppressed scream beneath the words.

  “She can’t live,” Caine said.

  “Edilio’s hurt. Almost gone,” Quinn said. “They shot him.

  And Dekka . . .”

  “Not me,” Caine said. “Not us. They were both like that

  when we got here.”

  He was not interested in Edilio or Dekka. Not even interested in Sam. So sad that Diana would die this way, all her beautiful hair gone. She looked younger this way. Innocent.

  Not a word he or anyone else had ever applied to Diana.

  “Lana,” Sam said.

  Caine felt the faintest flicker. Lana. But where was the

  Healer?

  As if he had heard the question, Quinn said, “She’s in

  there. She’s in there, with . . . it.”

  Caine looked at the mine shaft. He had been down there

  before. He knew what lay inside. And now, the fuel rod, too.

  “We need to . . . ,” Sam whimpered, unable to finish.

  Caine nodded. “She must be dead after that.”

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  “Maybe not,” Sam managed to say. “Maybe not.”

  “There’s no way to get in there now, anyway. It’s a wall of

  rock. It’s a lot harder to move rock back out. I’d have to move

  the whole mountain,” Caine said. “Hours. Days.”

  Sam shook his head and bit his lip as though he would

  bite it off. Caine saw him hold on barely as the pain passed

  through him.

  “May have another way,” Sam said finally, staring back

  down the trail.

  “Another way?” Caine asked.

  “Duck,” Sam said.

  And Caine did, instinctively. There was a rush of wind and

  a cloud of dust and all at once, there was Brianna.

  And towing along behind her, like some crazy balloon on

  a rope, a kid floating in midair and looking like someone had

  just taken him on a roller-coaster ride from hell.

  “Are we there?” Duck, asked, his eyes squeezed shut. “Am

  I done now?”

  “You want to eat?” Zil roared from atop his convertible

  perch.

  The crowd roared its assent. Though not every voice.

  Astrid clung to that fact: there was grumbling and uncertainty as well as acquiescence.

  “Then grab on to the rope!” Zil cried.

  The rope stretched across the plaza. It ended around

  Hunter’s neck. It would take no more than half a dozen willing executioners to do the foul deed.

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  Astrid began to pray. She prayed in a loud voice, hoping

  it would shame them, hoping that somehow it would reach

  through the madness.

  “Grab on!” Zil cried, and he jumped down and seized the

  rope himself. The rest of his crew did the same.

  Then four . . . five . . . ten . . .

  Kids Astrid knew by name took hold of the rope.

  “Pull!” Zil screamed. “Pull!”

  The rope tightened. More came forward and took hold.

  But others, just a couple, changed their minds and let go.

  It was a confusion of hands. A mess that turned suddenly

  to a shoving match.

  The rope still tightened. It became a straight line.

  And Astrid, to her eternal horror, saw Hunter lifted off his

  feet.

  But the fight over the rope had turned nastier. Kids were

  pummeling one another, shouting, swinging wild fists.

  The rope slackened. Hunter’s kicking feet touched the

  ground.

  Kids rushed to pull on the rope. Others blocked their way.

  It was becoming a kind of full-scale riot. And then a couple of

  kids rushed at the meat, pushing past Antoine and Hank and

  Turk, literally walking over them in their desperation.

  Astrid took advantage of the melee to climb to her feet.

  Zil, enraged at losing control, at seeing the venison snatched

  away by desperate hands, shoved her hard.

  “Down on the ground, you freak-lover!”

  Astrid spit at him. She could see the color drain from Zil’s

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  furious face. He grabbed a baseball bat, raised it over her.

  And then he flew into the air.

  In his place stood Orc.

  Zil was dangling from his fist. Orc drew Zil to within an

  inch of his own frightening face. “No one hurts Astrid,” Orc

  bellowed so loud, Zil’s hair was blown back.

  Orc took a slow spin. Then a second, faster one, and

  launched Zil through the air.

  “You okay?” Orc asked Astrid.

  “I guess so,” she managed to say. She knelt beside Little

  Pete and touched the egg-sized lump on his head. He moved

  slightly, then opened his eyes.

  “Petey. Petey. Are you okay?” There was no answer, but for

  Little Pete, that wasn’t abnormal. Astrid looked up at Orc.

  “Thanks, Charles.”

  Orc grunted. “Yeah.”

  Howard appeared, threading his way through the scattering mob. “My man, Orc,” he said, and slapped Orc on his massive granite shoulder. Then, to the fleeing crowd, many

  loaded down with chunks of venison, he yelled, “Yeah, you

  better run away. You are some sorry fools messing with Sam’s

  girl. If Orc doesn’t get you, Sammy will.”

  He winked at Astrid. “Your boy so owes us.”

  “Yeah,” Orc agreed. “Someone better beer me pretty

  soon.”

  “What happened to Edilio?” Brianna demanded. He was lying

  on the ground. Silent. Not even the sound of breathing.

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  Quinn answered. “Edilio’s been shot. I don’t think he has

  long.”

  “I can’t believe Dekka let him get hurt,” Brianna said
.

  “Where is she?”

  Quinn’s involuntary glance was all Brianna needed. She

  flew to where Dekka lay, crumpled like a doll someone had

  tossed aside.

  Brianna breathed hard. Stared. There was a rushing waterfall in her ears. A roar. Then a blur as the world around her screamed past and she hit Caine with all the speed and fury

  at her command. Caine went sprawling.

  Brianna was on him before he could draw breath, and now

  a rock was in her hand.

  “Breeze! No!” Sam yelled.

  Brianna froze. Caine was on his back. He did nothing. He

  did not raise his hands. Barely seemed to notice her as she

  squatted, poised to hit him with the rock, poised to hit him a

  hundred times before he could flinch.

  “No, Breeze,” Sam said. “We need him.”

  “I don’t need him,” Brianna hissed.

  “Breeze. Dekka’s gone. Edilio will be dead in a few minutes. If he isn’t already,” Quinn said, speaking for Sam, who was clenching his teeth with such force that Brianna thought

  his molars might splinter. “And Sam . . .”

  “What can this piece of filth do?” Brianna demanded.

  “We need Lana,” Sam managed to say.

  Caine picked himself up and brushed the dirt from his

  shirt. “Diana is dying. The Mexican kid is dying. Dekka, well,

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  you saw her. And Sam doesn’t look too good,” Caine said.

  “Lana’s in there.” He jerked his head toward the collapsed

  mine shaft.

  “What I don’t get,” Caine continued, “is how we’re getting

  in there to find her. The whole mine collapsed. It will take me

  a lot longer to dig out than it did to collapse it. I pull stuff out,

  more falls in.”

  “Duck,” Sam said. “He’s going to drill a tunnel.”

  “Um . . . what?” Duck said.

  “Like when they rescue miners,” Sam said. “They drill a

  shaft down to the original shaft.”

  “Um . . . what?” Duck repeated.

  Quinn explained to an obviously baffled Caine, “It

  seems Duck has the power to sink right down through the

  ground.”

  “I don’t really think I’m . . . ,” Duck said.

  “He can control his density,” Brianna confirmed. “That’s

  why I could carry him here. It was like carrying a backpack.

  But with more wind resistance.”

  “He drills,” Sam said. “We go in. You’ve been down there,

  haven’t you, Caine? Is there a place where—” A spasm of pain

  rocked him so hard, he seemed to lose consciousness for a

  minute.

  “Guys, I don’t really . . . ,” Duck said.