Hunger (Gone 2)

A sob escaped from him.

He heard heavy footsteps. Sam, moving like he was drunk, staggering.

“Sam,” Caine said calmly, not taking his eyes off the dark form of Diana, “if you’re going to kill me, go ahead. Now would be a good time.”

Sam said nothing.

Finally Caine looked at him. Through his tears Caine saw the way Sam wobbled, barely able, it seemed, to stay on his feet. He had been cut up badly. The pain must be excruciating.

Drake’s work. Drake had not killed Sam. But he had come close. And it seemed impossible that Sam would survive for long.

Quinn was struggling under the burden of the body he cradled in his arms. The Mexican kid, Caine guessed, or maybe Dekka.

“So. This is the end,” Caine said dully. He stroked Diana’s cropped hair. “I love her. Did you know that, Sam?”

“It’s not over yet,” Sam said. His voice shocked Caine. He’d never heard more pain in a voice. He heard a barely suppressed scream beneath the words.

“She can’t live,” Caine said.

“Edilio’s hurt. Almost gone,” Quinn said. “They shot him. And Dekka…”

“Not me,” Caine said. “Not us. They were both like that when we got here.”

He was not interested in Edilio or Dekka. Not even interested in Sam. So sad that Diana would die this way, all her beautiful hair gone. She looked younger this way. Innocent. Not a word he or anyone else had ever applied to Diana.

“Lana,” Sam said.

Caine felt the faintest flicker. Lana. But where was the Healer?

As if he had heard the question, Quinn said, “She’s in there. She’s in there, with…it.”

Caine looked at the mine shaft. He had been down there before. He knew what lay inside. And now, the fuel rod, too.

“We need to…,” Sam whimpered, unable to finish.

Caine nodded. “She must be dead after that.”

“Maybe not,” Sam managed to say. “Maybe not.”

“There’s no way to get in there now, anyway. It’s a wall of rock. It’s a lot harder to move rock back out. I’d have to move the whole mountain,” Caine said. “Hours. Days.”

Sam shook his head and bit his lip as though he would bite it off. Caine saw him hold on barely as the pain passed through him.

“May have another way,” Sam said finally, staring back down the trail.

“Another way?” Caine asked.

“Duck,” Sam said.

And Caine did, instinctively. There was a rush of wind and a cloud of dust and all at once, there was Brianna.

And towing along behind her, like some crazy balloon on a rope, a kid floating in midair and looking like someone had just taken him on a roller-coaster ride from hell.

“Are we there?” Duck, asked, his eyes squeezed shut. “Am I done now?”

“You wa

nt to eat?” Zil roared from atop his convertible perch.