He stared hard at Diana.
“I’ll get him,” she said.
“I can’t do it without Jack, Diana.”
“I’ll get him,” she said.
“You want Jack? I’ll get him,” Drake said.
Caine said, “You’re thinking of the old Jack, Drake. You have to remember that Jack has powers now.”
“I don’t care about his powers,” Drake snarled.
“Diana will give me Jack,” Caine said. “And then we will turn off the lights and feed the—” He stopped very abruptly. He blinked in confusion.
“Feed?” Drake echoed, puzzled.
Caine almost didn’t hear him. His brain seemed to trip, to skip a step, like a scratch in a DVD when the picture pixilates for a moment before starting up again. The familiar grounds of Coates Academy swam before his eyes.
Feed?
What had he meant?
Who had he meant?
“You can all go,” he said, distracted.
No one moved, so he made it clear: “Go away. Go away and leave me alone!”
Then he added, “Leave her.”
With Diana and Drake gone, Caine knelt before Orsay again. “You saw him, didn’t you? You felt him there. He touched your mind. I can tell.”
Orsay didn’t deny. She met his gaze, unflinching. “He was in the little boy’s dreams.”
“The little boy?” Caine frowned. “Little Pete? Is that who you mean?”
“He needed the little boy. The dark thing, the gaiaphage, he was…” She searched for a word, and when she found it, it surprised her. “He was learning.”
“Learning?” Caine gripped her arm tightly, squeezing meaning from her. She flinched. “Learning what?”
“Creation,” Orsay said.
Caine stared at her. He should ask. He should ask what she meant. What would the Darkness create? What would he learn from the mind of a five-year-old autistic?
“Go inside,” Caine whispered. He let go of her arm. “Go!”
Alone, he searched his mind, his memory. He stared into the trees at the edge of the campus as though the explanation might be hiding there in the early morning shadows.
“And then we will turn off the lights and feed the—”
He had not just misspoken. It wasn’t just…nothing. There had been a definite idea there, something tangible. Something that needed doing.
Hungry in the dark.
It felt like someone had a rope wrapped around his brain. Someone he couldn’t see, someone standing far off in the dark, invisible. The rope disappeared into gloom and mystery, but at this end it was attached to him.
And out there, the Darkness held the other end. Yanked it whenever it liked.