Lies (Gone 3)

But he wasn’t the only one to be terrorized by Drake. Drake had come after her, early on. If she thought about it, she could still almost feel the sting of his slap on her face.

He’d made her…

He’d bullied her into calling Little Pete a retard. He’d terrorized her into betraying the person she loved most in the world.

She had managed to put it out of her mind. Why couldn’t Sam do the same?

Howard laughed. “Sammy didn’t want people using the ‘Z’ word.”

“The what?” Astrid snapped.

“Zombie.” Howard made a booga-booga face and stretched his hands out like a sleepwalker.

“Taylor, get out of here,” Astrid said.

“Hey, I—”

“This is council business now,” Astrid said, putting all the frost she could command into her voice.

Taylor hesitated, looked to Sam for guidance. He didn’t look up or stir. Taylor took a second to give Astrid a middle-finger salute and then popped out of the room.

“Sam, I know you’re upset over what happened with you and Drake,” Astrid began.

“Upset?” Sam echoed the word with an ironic smirk.

“But that’s no excuse for you keeping secrets from us.”

“Yeah,” Howard said, “Don’t you know only Astrid is allowed to keep secrets?”

“Shut up, Howard,” Astrid snapped.

“Yeah, we get to lie because we’re the smart ones,” Howard said. “Not like all those idiots out there.”

Astrid turned her attention back to Sam. “This is not okay, Sam. The council has the responsibility. Not you alone.”

Sam looked like he could not care less about what she was saying. He looked almost beyond reach, indifferent to what was going on around him.

“Hey,” Astrid said. “We’re talking to you.”

That did it. His jaw clenched. His head snapped up. His eyes blazed. “Don’t push me. That wasn’t you with your skin whipped off and covered in blood. That was me. That was me who went down into that mine shaft to try to fight the gaiaphage.”

Astrid blinked. “No one is minimizing what you’ve done, Sam. You’re a hero. But at the same time—”

Sam was on his feet. “At the same time? At the same time you were here in town. Edilio had a bullet in his chest. Dekka was torn to pieces. I was trying not to scream from the…You and Albert and Howard, you weren’t there, were you?”

“I was busy standing up to Zil, trying to save Hunter’s life,” Astrid yelled.

“But it wasn’t you and your big words, was it? It was Orc who stopped Zil. And he was there because I sent him to rescue you. Me!” He stabbed a finger at his own chest, actually making what looked like painful impact. “Me! Me and Brianna and Dekka and Edilio! And poor Duck.”

Suddenly, there was Taylor again. “Hey! One of Edilio’s soldiers just came staggering in from the gas station. He says someone attacked, took the place over.”

That silenced the argument.

Sam, with exquisite contempt, turned to his girlfriend and said, “You want to go deal with it, Astrid?”

Astrid flushed red.

“No? I didn’t think so. Guess it will be up to me then.”