Close to the fire sat Caine. People left plenty of room for him. He smelled. And he still cried out in pain as a new pair of kids—the third pair—chipped away at his hands by firelight. They were down to the small stuff now. The very painful, small strokes that often drew blood.
Every now and then Lana would come by to heal a cut or two so that the blood didn’t render the concrete too slippery for the chisel.
Quinn was there at the moment when a firm blow separated Caine’s hands so that they were no longer attached to each other.
“The palms first,” Caine ordered, still somehow commanding, despite everything.
They used needle-nose pliers to pry pieces off. Skin came away, too. Each time they asked him if it was okay, and each time he gritted his teeth and said, “Do it!”
His hands were being skinned. Piece by piece.
Quinn could barely stand to watch it. But he had to admit one thing: Caine might be a thug, an egomaniac, a killer, but he was no coward.
Lana pulled Quinn aside a little way, into the dark beyond the reach of firelight. Down Alameda Avenue until Quinn could see nothing. Not even the hand in front of his face. “I wanted you to see just how dark it is,” she said.
She was inches from him. He could see nothing.
“Yeah. It’s dark.”
“Do you have a plan?”
Quinn sighed. “For total darkness? No, Lana. No plan.”
“They’ll burn buildings if the fire goes out.”
“We can keep the bonfire going for a while. We’ll feed the whole town in, piece by piece if we have to. And we have water. Little Pete’s cloud is still producing. It’s the food.”
They both had too many memories of hunger. Silence.
“We’re bringing all the food in. From storage at the Ralphs, from Albert’s compound. People didn’t have much in their homes. Add it all up and we’ve got maybe two days’ short rations. Then it starts.”
“Starvation.”
“Yeah.” He didn’t know what the point of this conversation was. “Do you have a plan?”
“It won’t take two days, Quinn. You feel what this darkness does to you? The way it closes in around you? All of a sudden kids realize they’re in this big fishbowl. Fear of the dark, fear of being closed in. Most will be okay for a while, but it’s not about ‘most.’ It’s about the weakest links. The kids who are already about as messed up as they can be.”
“Anyone goes nuts, we’ll deal with him,” Quinn said.
“And Caine?”
Quinn said, “You’re the one who put me in charge, Lana. I hope you didn’t think I had some magic answer.”
A third breathing sound could be heard. “Hi, Patrick. Good boy.”
Quinn heard her fumbling around in the dark, looking for his ruff, finding it, then scratching it vigorously.
“They’ll start going crazy,” Lana said. “Absolutely crazy. When that happens … ask Caine for help.”
“What’s he going to do?” Quinn asked.
“Whatever it takes to keep people under control.”
“Wait a minute. Whoa.” He had an instinct to grab her arm. But he didn’t know where her arm was. “Are you telling me to turn Caine loose on anyone who gets out of line?”
“Can you stop some bunch of kids if they decide to steal the food for themselves? Or go nuts and start burning things?”
“Lana. Why does it matter?” he asked. He felt the energy draining from him. She had asked him to take over. Now she was telling him to use Caine like a weapon. For what? “What does anything matter, Lana? Can you tell me that? Why should I hurt some kid for losing his mind when anyone could lose their mind?”