Gone (Gone 1)

Sam and Edilio had carried Bette’s body the few dozen feet from the church basement to the plaza.

They couldn’t figure out a gentle or dignified way to lower Bette into the hole, so in the end they just rolled her in. She made a sound like a dropped backpack.

“We should say something,” Anna suggested. “Maybe things we remember about Bette.”

So they did, telling what few stories they could remember. None of them had been close friends of hers.

Astrid began the Lord’s Prayer. “Our father who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name.” Little Pete said it along with her. More words than anyone had ever heard him speak. The others, all but Sam, joined in.

Then they each shoveled a spadeful of dirt over her and stood back while Edilio used the backhoe to finish the job.

“I’ll make her a cross tomorrow,” Edilio said when he was finished.

As the ceremony was breaking up, Orc and Howard appeared, ghosts in the mist, watching. No one spoke to them. They left after a few minutes.

“I shouldn’t have let her go home,” Sam said to Astrid.

“You’re not a doctor. There was no way you could know she had internal bleeding. And, anyway, what could you have done? The question is, what are we going to do now?”

“What do you want to do?” Sam asked.

“Orc murdered Bette,” Astrid said flatly. “Maybe he didn’t mean to, but it’s still murder.”

“Yes. He killed her. So what do you want to do?”

“At least we can demand that something be done to Orc.”

“Demand of who?” Sam said. He zipped his jacket. It was chilly. “You want to go demand justice from Caine?”

“Rhetorical question,” Astrid commented.

“Does that mean it’s a question I don’t expect you to be able to answer?”

Astrid nodded. Neither of them had anything to say for a while. Mary and the twins, with Bette’s little brother in tow, headed back to the day care.

Elwood said, speaking to no one in particular, “I don’t know if Dahra can keep this up much longer.” Then he squared his shoulders and marched back toward the hospital.

Edilio came and stood with Sam and Astrid. “This can’t just be something that happened,” he said. “You hear me? We let this go, where does it stop? People can’t be beating each other up so bad, they die.”

“You have a suggestion?” Sam asked coldly.

“Me? I’m the wetback, remember? I’m not from around here, I don’t even know these people. I’m not the big genius, and I’m not the one with this power thing, man.” He kicked at the dirt, hard, like it was someone he wanted to hurt. He seemed like he might say more, but he bit his lip, spun, and strode away.

Sam said, “Caine has Drake and Orc, Panda and Chaz, and I hear Mallet has made peace with him. And maybe a half dozen other guys.”

“Are you afraid of them?” Astrid asked him.

“Yeah, Astrid, I am.”

“Okay,” she said. “But you were scared of going into a burning building, too.”

“You don’t get this, do you?” Sam demanded with enough heat that Astrid took a step back. “I know what you want, okay? I know what you and a bunch of other people want. You want me to be the anti-Caine. You don’t like the way he’s doing things and you want me to go kick him out. Well, here’s what you don’t know: even if I could do all that, I wouldn’t be any better than him.”

“You’re wrong about that, Sam. You’re—”

“That night when I first used the power? When I hurt my stepfather? How do you think I felt?”

“Sad. Regretful.” Astrid looked at his face like the answer would be written there. “Scared, probably.”