Little Pete sank to the ground. He coughed once, with incredible violence. And then he, too, simply disappeared.
Astrid and Drake stood side by side, both staring down in horror.
Astrid closed her eyes. Was it over? Was it all finally over?
“I’ll kill you,” Drake said, but his voice was faint.
Astrid opened her eyes and saw his face already changing, melting from the hard-edged shark features to a softer, rounder countenance.
Jack came pounding up the stairs.
Lying on his back with one leg gone, Orc groaned in pain.
“Where is he?” Brittney asked. “Where is Nemesis?”
Astrid barely heard her.
She had done it. She had killed him. She had sacrificed Little Pete.
“Let’s get out of here before Drake comes back,” Jack said. He took Astrid’s arm. But she would not go with him. Not yet.
“You killed him,” Brittney said. She spoke more in wonder than in accusation.
Astrid heaved a shuddering sigh. Tears ran down her face. She had no words.
Brittney was becoming angry. “He’ll get you for this, Astrid. His rage will find you. Sooner or later.”
“Drake or the gaiaphage?” Jack asked.
Brittney bared her braces in a feral grin. “We are the arm of the Darkness. He will send us to take you. Both of you.”
“Let’s go, Astrid,” Jack said, without taking his eyes off Brittney. Astrid felt the strength of his grip on her arm. She yielded.
She was almost blinded by her tears, her mind a confusion of emotions: self-loathing, disgust, anger.
And worst of all: reli
ef.
He was gone. Little Pete was dead. And now it would end at last. The FAYZ wall would be gone. The madness would be over.
Relief. And the sickening realization that she was glad she had done it.
Jack led her down the stairs. He lifted a terribly injured, mangled Orc effortlessly. Orc was moaning in pain and crying that they should leave him to die.
“No one is dying,” Jack said harshly. “We’ve had enough of that.”
Astrid walked obediently behind Jack as he carried Orc down the hill toward town.
And she wondered as she walked, how it could be that the FAYZ was ended and yet Jack was still so strong.
Dahra Baidoo emerged from the so-called hospital for the first time in what felt like days.
Virtue held her up, although he was shaking so badly he could barely walk himself.
Both of them were covered in gore. The hospital was a slaughterhouse. The single bug that had made it inside had simply massacred kids too sick to stand, let alone run.
Virtue told himself that most of those kids were too sick to survive anyway. But that knowledge would never wipe the horror from his memory.