“Quinn,” Sam called to him.
Quinn didn’t respond, just looked down at the ground.
“Quinn,” Sam said again. “It starts fresh right now. Nothing before counts. Nothing. Brothers, man?”
Quinn struggled with the lump in his throat. But then, in a low voice, he said, “Yeah. Brothers.”
“Okay. Now let’s get everyone some food,” Sam said.
When they started out again, they no longer spread in every direction. They didn’t march like an army, but they came as close as a bunch of traumatized kids could. They walked with their heads a little higher.
Someone actually laughed. It was a good sound.
In a low voice Astrid said, “Nothing to fear but fear itself.”
“I don’t think I said it quite that well.”
Edilio slapped him on the back. “You said it well enough, man.”
“Sam’s back.”
“What?”
“Sam. He’s back. He’s coming down the highway.”
Howard’s chest tightened. He was halfway down the steps of town hall, on his way to McDonald’s for one of Albert’s waffle-burgers.
It was Elwood, Dahra Baidoo’s boyfriend, who had delivered the news. He sounded relieved, there was no denying it. He sounded glad. Howard made a mental note that Elwood was disloyal, but he realized at the same time that he might have bigger issues to worry about than Elwood’s loyalty.
“If Sam’s coming back, it’s on the end of a leash held by Drake Merwin,” Howard blustered.
But Elwood was off to tell Dahra and was no longer listening.
Howard looked around, feeling a little lost, not quite sure what to do. He spotted Mary Terrafino pushing a shopping cart loaded with juice boxes, A&D ointment, and some bruised apples across the plaza toward the day care. Howard trotted down the steps and caught up with her.
“T’sup, Mary?” he asked.
“Um, your time?” Mary said, and laughed at her own wit.
“Yeah, you think? My time’s up?”
“Sam’s on his way.”
“You saw him?”
“I had three different people tell me he’s coming down the highway. You better rush out and stop him, Howard,” Mary crowed.
“He’s one guy, we’ll kick his butt.”
“Good luck with that,” Mary said.
Howard wished Orc was here. With Orc at his side, he didn’t have to put up with any of Mary’s lip. But one-on-one was a different story.
“You want me telling Caine you’re on Sam’s side?” Howard demanded.
“I didn’t say I was on anyone’s side. I’m on the side of the prees I take care of. But here’s what I notice, Howard: I notice you hear Sam’s name and all of a sudden you’re ready to wet yourself. So, you know what? Maybe it’s you who is disloyal. After all, if Caine is so great, why would you be scared of Sam? Right?” She leaned against her basket and got it rolling again.
Howard swallowed hard and argued with his own fear. “It’s no big thing,” he told himself. “We have Caine and Drake and Orc. We’re cool. We’re cool.”
He believed that for a good twenty seconds before he broke and ran for Orc.
Orc was in the house he had taken over and now shared with Howard, just across the street from where Drake lived. It was on a short street, the closest place to town hall that you could live. Kids called it Bully Row.
Orc was asleep on the couch with a DVD of a kung fu movie playing at blasting volume on the TV. Orc had taken to staying up through the night and sleeping days.
It was a lousy house, in Howard’s opinion, badly decorated and smelling of garlic, but Orc hadn’t cared. He wanted to stay close to the action in town. And he wanted to stay close enough to keep an eye on Drake across the street.
Howard searched for the remote and shut off the TV. There were empty beer cans on the glass-topped coffee table, and cigarettes in an ashtray. Orc was now drinking a couple beers a day.
Since Bette. That’s when the drinking had started in earnest. Howard was worried about Orc. Not that he exactly liked him, but Howard’s fate was bound up with Orc’s and he didn’t like the picture of what his world would be like if Orc dumped him.
“Orc, get up, man.”
No response.
“Orc. Get up. We have trouble.” Howard poked him in his shoulder.
Orc opened one slit eye. “Why are you bothering me?”
“Sam Temple is coming back.”
It took Orc a while to process that. Then he sat up quite suddenly and grabbed his forehead. “Oh, man. Headache.”
“It’s called a hangover,” Howard snapped. Then, when Orc shot him a murderous look, he softened and said, “I have some Tylenol in the kitchen.” He filled a glass of water and tapped two pills into his palm and brought them back for Orc.
“What’s the big deal?” Orc asked. He’d never been exactly quick, but now Orc’s thick-headedness was really irritating Howard.
“The big deal? Sam is coming back. That’s the big deal.”
“So?”
“Come on, Orc. Think about it. You figure Sam is cruising into town and he doesn’t have some kind of plan? Caine isn’t here, man, he’s up the hill. Drake, too. Which means it’s you and me in charge.”
Orc reached for one of the beer cans, rattled it, sighed contentedly when he heard an inch of beer sloshing. He poured it down his throat.
“So we have to go kick Sam’s butt?” Orc asked.
Howard hadn’t thought that far ahead. If Sam was back, that wasn’t good. Sam was back and Caine wasn’t? It was hard to figure that out.
“We go spy him out, man. We see what he’s up to.”
Orc squinted. “If I see him, I’ll kick his butt.”
“We have to at least figure out what he’s after,” Howard cautioned. “We should get whoever is around at town hall. Mallet, maybe. Chaz. Whoever we can find.”
Orc stood up, belched, and said, “I gotta pee. Then we’ll get the Hummer. Go kick some butt.”
Howard shook his head. “Orc. Listen to me. I know you don’t want to hear this, but backing Caine may not be the winning move.”
Orc stared his blank, stupid stare.
“Orc, man, what if Sam wins this? I mean, what if Sam gets over on Caine? Where does that leave us?”
Orc didn’t answer for so long, Howard was sure he hadn’t heard him. Then Orc heaved up a sigh that was almost a sob. He grabbed Howard’s arm, something he never did.
“Howard: I killed Bette.”
Howard said, “You didn’t mean to, Orc.”
“You’re the smart one,” Orc said sadly. “But sometimes you’re dumber than me, you know that?”
“Okay.”
“I killed someone didn’t do me any harm. Astrid ain’t ever going to even look at me again unless she’s hating me.”
“No, no, no,” Howard argued. “Sam is going to need help. He’s going to need someone tough. If we go to him now, eat crow, you know, say, ‘Yeah, you’re the man, Sammy.’”
“You kill somebody, you burn in hell,” Orc said. “My mom told me that. Once my dad was beating on me, we was in the garage, so I grabbed up a hammer.” Orc now pantomimed the scene. Grabbing the hammer, looking at it, raising it. Then he let it drop. “She said, ‘You kill your father, you’ll burn in hell.’”
“What happened then?”
Orc held up his left hand. He pushed it close to Howard’s face. There was a scar, almost perfectly round, no more than a quarter inch across.
“What’s that?” Howard asked.
“Power drill. Three-sixteenths bit.” Orc laughed ruefully. “Guess I’m lucky it wasn’t the three-quarter-inch, huh?”
“That’s messed up, man,” Howard said. He’d always known that Orc came from a tough home. But a power drill was off the hook. He himself came from a fairly average home, neither of his parents was a drunk or violent or anything. Howard did what he had to do to survive, being small and weak and not popular. He
liked being in charge, having people scared of him, so being Orc’s friend had worked out for him.
But now Howard was starting to see that though Orc was stupid, he wasn’t wrong. Orc and School Bus Sam, the big hero, were never going to get along.
And now, Howard was as trapped as Orc.
Trapped.
“Okay, then,” Howard said. “We go to Caine.”
Orc belched loudly. “Caine’s mad at us.”
“Yeah,” Howard said. “But he still needs us.”
THIRTY-SIX
84 HOURS, 41 MINUTES
“HOLD HIM DOWN,” Diana yelled.
The sound of her voice was far off. Drake Merwin heard it bubbling up through a red scream that filled his brain.
Screaming, screaming, screaming everywhere, all through his brain, from a million mouths, rising and falling, gasping for breath.
“I can hold him,” a voice said. Caine. “Back away on three. One…two…”
Drake flailed madly, unbound, shrieking, thrashing, hurting himself but unable to stop. The pain…he had never felt anything like it, never imagined anything could be like it.
A force pressed down on him like a thousand hands holding him with firm pressure.
“You have the saw?” Diana’s voice asked. Not smug now, not smug at all, but raw and horrified.
Drake struggled against the invisible force, but Caine had him pinned down with his telekinetic power. Drake could only scream and curse, and could barely move his facial muscles enough for that.
“I am not doing this,” Panda said, weeping. “I’m not sawing off his arm, man.”
The words sent a shock of terror to join the pain. His arm? They were…
“He’ll kill me if I do it,” Panda said.
“I’m not doing it,” various voices chimed in. “No way.”
“I’ll do it,” Diana said, disgusted. “You’re all such big tough guys. Give me the saw.”
“No, no, no!” Drake screeched.
“It’s the only way to stop the pain,” Caine said, almost showing some emotion, some pity. “The arm is done for, Drake-man.”
“The girl…the freak…,” Drake gasped. “She could fix it.”
“She’s not here,” Caine said bitterly. “She’s gone with Sam and the rest of them.”
“Don’t cut off my arm,” Drake cried. “Let me die. Just let me die. Shoot me.”
“Sorry,” Caine said. “But I still need you, Drake. Even one-handed.”
There was the sound of someone bursting into the room. “All I could find was Tylenol and Advil,” Computer Jack said.
“Let’s get this over with,” Diana snapped.
Impatient to maim him. Looking forward to it.
“You do this, he’s going to kill you,” Panda warned.
“Oh, Drake’s already decided he wants to do that,” Diana said. “Tighten the tourniquet.”
“He’s going to bleed to death,” Jack warned. “There must be big arteries in his arm.”
“He’s right,” Caine said. “We need a way to seal the stump.”
“It’s already cauterized,” Diana said. “I just need to cut below the burn.”
“Yeah, okay,” Caine agreed.
“I can’t reach him through your force field,” Diana said. “Can you pull it back to keep his left side paralyzed, and maybe Panda and some of these other supposedly tough guys can grab on to his stump.”
“Let me get a towel, at least. I don’t want to touch that,” Panda said with revulsion.
“Nobody cuts my arm,” Drake rasped. “I’ll kill anyone who touches me.”
“Let him up, Caine,” Diana snapped.
The elephant was off Drake’s chest, he could move again. But now Diana’s face was inches from his, her dark hair hanging down on his tear-streaked face.
“Listen, you stupid thug,” Diana said. “We’re cutting off the pain. As long as that burned stump is there, you’ll be like this. You’ll be screaming and crying and wetting your pants. Yeah, you’ve peed yourself, Drake.”
Somehow that fact shocked Drake into silence.
“You have one hope. Just one. That we cut off the dead part of your arm and do it without starting the bleeding again.”
“Anyone cuts me dies,” Drake said.
Diana pulled back, out of Drake’s view.
Caine said, “Do it. Panda. Chunk. Grab that stump.”
The pressure was on Drake again, immobilizing him. He didn’t feel the towel that was wrapped around his arm or the grip of hands. That part of his arm was naked bone, all flesh melted away, nerves burned off, dead. The pain started higher up, where just enough nerve endings still survived to slam his fevered brain with wave upon wave of agony.
“It’s not Diana or Panda or Chunk or even me,” Caine said. “It’s none of us, Drake. It’s Sam. It’s Sam who did this to you, Drake. You want him to get away with it? Or do you want to live long enough to make him suffer?”
Drake heard a shimmery, metallic sound. The saw was too big for Diana to handle easily. The blade wobbled a little as she lined it up.
“Okay,” Diana said. “Hold on to him. I’ll be as quick as I can be.”
Drake lost consciousness, but his dreams were as pain-racked as his waking. He weaved in and out, awake and screaming, asleep and crying.
He heard a distant thump as his arm dropped to the floor.
And then a sudden frenzy of running and yelling, shouted orders and confusion, a flash of Diana threading a needle with bloody fingers. Hands all over him, the pressure squeezing the air from his lungs.
Staring up from the bottom of a deep well, Drake saw lunatic faces looking down at him, eyes wild, bloody faces like monsters.
“He’ll live, I think,” a voice said.
“God help us if he lives,” a voice said.
“No. God help Sam Temple.”
And then nothing.
“Astrid, I need you to start talking to these kids,” Sam said. “Find out their powers. Find out how much control they have. We’re looking for anyone who might be able to help in a fight.”
Astrid looked uncomfortable. “Me? Shouldn’t Edilio be doing that?”
“I have a different job for Edilio.”
They were in the plaza, sitting wearily on the steps of town hall, Sam, Astrid, Little Pete, and Edilio. Quinn was gone, no one knew where. The liberated Coates kids—the Coates Freaks, as they now proudly called themselves—had been fed at Ralph’s and were being fed again by Albert, who was walking among them handing out burgers. Some of the kids had eaten too much all at once and had thrown up. But most still had room for a hamburger—even if it was on a toasted chocolate chip waffle.
Lana was just about finished healing the hands of the refugees. She was staggering from exhaustion and finally, as Sam watched, her legs folded under her and she fell to the grass. Before he could even get up to help, some of the Coates kids stretched her out with gentleness bordering on reverence. They rolled jackets to make her a pillow and borrowed a blanket from a tattered pup tent to spread over her.
“Okay, I’ll talk to them,” Astrid said. But she still looked reluctant. “I can’t read people like Diana does.”
“That’s what’s bothering you? You’re not my Diana. And hopefully I’m not Caine.”
“I guess I was hoping this would all kind of be over. At least for a while.”
“I think it will be over. For a while. But first we have to plan and make sure we’re ready when Caine comes back.”
“You’re right.” She smiled wanly. “Anyway, it’s not like I was dreaming of a big meal, a hot shower, and hours and hours of sleep.”
“Yeah. You wouldn’t want to start getting soft now, would you?” Something else occurred to him. “But hey, keep L. P. happy, huh? I don’t want you disappearing suddenly.”
“That would be a shame, wouldn’t it?” she said dryly. “Maybe I’ll try Quinn’s trick: Hawaii, Petey, Hawaii.”
Astrid rounded up her brothe
r, made sure he was okay, then plunged into the crowd.
Sam motioned Edilio closer. “Edilio. I have something I need you to do.”
“Whatever you want.”
“It involves driving. And it involves keeping a secret.”
“The secret is no problem. Driving?” He gulped theatrically, like a cartoon character doing a double take.
“I need you to get a truck and go to the power plant.” He explained what he wanted, and Edilio’s expression grew darker with each word. When he was done, Sam asked, “Can you handle that? You’ll need to take at least one other guy with you.”
“I can do it,” Edilio said. “I’m not happy about it, but you know that.”
“Who will you take with you?”
“Elwood, I guess, if Dahra will let me borrow him.”
“Okay. Go take an hour or two to figure out how to drive.”
“A day or two more like it,” Edilio said. But then he executed a mock salute and said, “No problem, General.”
Sam sat alone now, shoulders hunched, head buzzing from lack of sleep and the aftereffects of pain and fear. He needed to think, he told himself, needed to prepare. Caine would be planning.
Caine. His brother.
His brother.
How long did he have? Three days.
In three days he would…disappear.
And so would Caine.
Maybe die. Maybe be changed in some way. Maybe just pop neatly back into the old universe with lots of incredible stories to tell.
And leave Astrid behind.
If Caine had been a normal, well-adjusted person, he might spend his last days preparing for whatever the poof meant—death, disappearance, escape. But Sam doubted Caine would do that. Caine would need to triumph over Sam. That need would be even greater than the need to be ready for the end.
“I never have liked birthdays,” Sam muttered.
Albert Hillsborough had finished handing out burgers to grateful Coates kids. He climbed the steps to Sam.
“Glad you’re back, man,” Albert said.
For some reason, Sam felt compelled to stand and offer his hand to the kid. Albert shook it solemnly.
“It’s cool what you’ve done, keeping the Mickey D’s open.”
Albert looked faintly annoyed. “We don’t call it Mickey D’s. It’s McDonald’s. It will always be McDonald’s. Although,” he allowed, “I’ve strayed pretty far from the standard operating manual.”
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