Fear (Gone 5)

“You were with it,” Lana said. “I know you still feel it sometimes.”

Caine scowled. “No. I don’t.”

Lana snorted. “Uh-huh.”

He wasn’t going to argue about it. They both knew the truth. That was something he shared with the Healer: too much up-close-and-personal time with the gaiaphage. And yes, it left scars, and yes, it was sometimes as if the creature could touch the edge of Caine’s consciousness.

He closed his eyes and the nightmare came on like a storm-driven wave. It had been all hunger then. The gaiaphage needed the uranium at the power plant. That hunger had been so huge, so frantic, Caine could still feel it as a stifling, heart-throttling, choking feeling.

CLANG!

“AHHHH!” Through grinding teeth he said, “I don’t let the Darkness touch me.”

The chisel was cutting closer now, with more than half the concrete chipped away. Penny hadn’t mixed a very good batch, really. No gravel. It was gravel that gave it hardness. He and Drake had learned that.

“Sorry,” Lucas said, not really meaning it.

CLANG!

No, Caine thought, no gentle concern for Caine’s wellbeing. They needed him, but that didn’t mean they liked him.

“The sun is setting,” Lana remarked almost without emotion. “Kids will lose it. They’ll set fires. That’s the big worry, probably, that they’ll finish Zil’s work by burning down the rest of the town.”

“If I ever get out of this, I’ll stop them,” Caine snarled, biting back a cry of pain as the hammer rose and fell again.

“It’s going after Diana,” Lana said. “It wants the baby. Your baby, Caine.”

“What?”

The hammer waited, suspended. This wasn’t exactly a private conversation, and Paul was shocked. He snapped out of it and dropped another awful blow.

CLANG!

“Don’t you feel it?” Lana demanded.

“All I feel is my fingers being broken!” Caine yelled.

“I’ll fix your fingers,” Lana said impatiently. “I’m asking you: do you feel it? Can you? Will you let yourself?”

“No!”

“Scared?”

His lips drew back in a snarl. “You’re damned right I’m scared of it. I got away from it. You’re saying I should open myself up to it again?”

CLANG!

“I’m not scared of it,” Lana said, and Caine wondered if she really wasn’t. “I hate it. I hate myself for not killing it when I had the chance. I hate it.” Her eyes were dark but hot, like smoldering coals.

> “I hate it,” she repeated.

CLANG!

“Oh. Ohhhh!” He was breathing in short gasps. “I won’t… What makes you so sure it’s going after Diana?”

“I’m not sure. That’s why I’m talking to you. Because I thought you might give a damn if that monster is after your kid.”

Caine’s hands felt lighter. The concrete block had split. There was a wedge about the size of a double slice of pie hanging from his left hand. His hands were still locked together in a crumbly mass that looked like the stone from which a sculptor might chisel a pair of hands.