Hunger (Gone 2)
Page 191
“I’ll take care of him later,” Brianna said. “You first.”
The alarm had stopped blaring.
He tried to sit up, but she pushed him back down. “Dude, you are hurt bad.”
“Yeah,” Sam admitted. “Hurts. Like fire.”
“There’s this,” she said doubtfully. She held up an ocher-colored blister pack. The label read “Morphine Sulfate Injection USP. 10 mg.”
Sam squeezed his eyes shut and gritted his teeth. The pain made him want to scream. It was beyond anything he could endure. Like his flesh was burning, like someone was pressing a red-hot iron against his skin.
“I don’t know,” Sam said through his teeth.
“We need Lana,” Brianna said.
“Yeah,” Sam said. “Too bad I sent Dekka to kill her.”
He lay there feeling waves of pain so great, they made him want to throw up. The morphine would dull the pain. But it would also probably take him out of the battle. No one else could stop Caine. No one else…
He had to function…had to…
He cried out in agony, unable to hold it in, unable to stop himself.
Brianna tore open the blister pack and jabbed the syringe into his leg.
A wave of relief swept through him. But with it, weariness, weirdness, and a dreamy indifference. He was sinking down and down and down into a dark place. Letting himself fall away, leaving Brianna staring down at him as he fell toward the center of the earth.
A resource, some wisp of his remaining consciousness was thinking.
A weapon.
“Breeze,” Sam managed to say.
“What, Sam?”
“Breeze…”
“I’m here, Sam.”
It would be ready. The creature knew their powers. Knew their limits. Knew everything Lana knew. Probably everything Caine and Drake knew.
But not everything there was to know.
With a sudden, spasmodic lurch, Sam managed to grab her arm and squeeze it tight. “Breeze. Breeze…get Duck.”
“I’m not leaving you, boss,” Brianna argued.
“Breeze. The radiation. You were exposed.”
He couldn’t see the expression on her face. But he heard the sharp intake of breath.
“Am I going to die?” Brianna asked. She made an unconvincing laugh. “No way.”
She was so far away now. Miles away from Sam. In another world. But he still had to reach her.
“Oh, God,” Brianna cried.
“Breeze. Get Duck. The mine. Lana.”