The dome was black. The sky was a blue hole in a black sphere.
Caine began to notice kids in the street, all walking toward the plaza. Their voices had that giddy, jumpy sound kids got when they were scared. He watched the backs of heads as they craned to look up at the sky.
People were walking hunched over, like they thought the sky might fall on them.
It was a while longer before the first person noticed Penny and Caine. That kid’s cries turned every eye toward Caine.
He didn’t know what to expect. Outrage? Joy?
What he got was silence. Kids would be talking, then turn to see him dragging his cement block, and the words would die in their mouths. Their eyes would widen. If there was any pleasure there it was very well concealed.
“What’s happening to the sky?” Penny demanded, finally noticing something beyond herself. She glared at the nearest kids. “Answer me or I’ll make you wish you were dead!”
Shrugs. Shakes of the head. Backing away quickly.
“Keep moving,” she snarled at Caine.
They were in the plaza now and Penny shoved Caine in the direction of town hall.
“I need water,” Caine rasped.
“Get up the stairs,” Penny said.
“Drop dead.”
And instantly a pair of rabid dogs, their necks bearing massive iron collars, their teeth glowing pink from behind mouths full of rabid foam, attacked him from behind.
He could feel their teeth sinking into his buttocks.
The pain—no, no, he told himself, the illusion, the illusion. But it was too real; it was impossible not to believe it as the dogs ripped at him and he cried out in agony and rage and dragged his burden away, up the first step.
The dogs fell back, but snarled and foamed and barked so loud he felt he might go deaf.
Caine dragged his burden up one step after the next.
At the top, in the very place where he had often addressed crowds as king, he collapsed, shaking with fatigue. He fell onto his imprisoned hands.
After a while someone pushed his head back and he felt a jar touch his lips. He drank the water, gulping it down, choking but not caring.
Caine opened his eyes and saw that the crowd had grown. And it had edged forward. Their faces wore expressions of horror and fear.
He had made enemies during his four months in charge. But what was happening now obliterated all of that. Right now this crowd was scared. Deep-down scared. Eyes went skyward again and again, checking to see if there was still any light, any light at all.
Caine searched the crowd through bleary eyes. He had one hope: Albert.
Albert would not let this stand. Albert had armed guards. He was probably figuring out right now how to save Caine.
But another part of Caine’s mind was yammering that there was no way to escape the concrete. He knew: he had inflicted this on freak
s early on. And the only reason any of them had been able to escape was that Little Pete had intervened.
Caine hadn’t known at the time that it was Little Pete’s doing. He had been deaf, dumb, blind, and stupid not to realize the little autistic creep was the real power. And now Little Pete was dead and gone.
Which left breaking the concrete chip by chip with a sledgehammer.
The pain would be unbearable. It would break every bone in his hands. Lana might be able to help, but first would come the pain.
As soon as Albert dealt with Penny.