Light (Gone 6)

She had been interviewed on the Today show.

The interview had been a bit unusual, because there was no way for Matt Lauer to actually speak to Brianna, and no way for Brianna to speak back. Communications with the outside world were purely visual. The world could see in. The kids in the FAYZ could see out. That was it.

Which meant that an interview was done with what amounted to a sort of primitive Twitter. The interviewer would write a question on a pad, or in the case of the Today show, since they were a little more high-tech, light it up on an HD monitor that had been set up to be visible within the dome. Then whoever was inside the dome could write the answer and hold it up to the cameras outside.

This made for extraordinarily tedious interviews. The interviewer could have a bunch of questions preloaded, but the kid on the inside would have to write his or her answer out, and that was slow. Very. Very. Slow.

For anyone except the Breeze.

Brianna had ripped a segment of chalkboard off from the school, and had found some chalk, and with her superhuman speed she could write faster than most people could talk.

Unfortunately, Brianna was not the most cautious or sensible person in the FAYZ. She was bold, fearless, very, very dangerous in a fight, and had a sort of reckless charm. But she was not a person who carefully thought out her answers.

So when Matt Lauer had asked whether kids had died in the FAYZ, Brianna’s chalked answer had been: A bunch. Kids have been dying all over the place. This isn’t Disneyland.

Which was okay in itself, although it sent shockwaves of fear through the parent community.

It was the follow-up question that caused the problem.

Matt Lauer: Have you taken a life?

Brianna: Absolutely. I’m the Breeze. I am the most badass person in here except for maybe Sam and Caine.

Then before Matt could put up his next question, Brianna went on happily scribbling and holding her chalkboard up for the cameras, then rubbing it with her sleeve and scribbling some more.

There’s some more I want to kill but sometimes it’s hard. I’ve cut Drake up with wire and a machete and blown his head off with a shotgun. He’s still not dead! LOL.

And then:

What I’m thinking about doing is slicing him up and then zooming the pieces all around, like up in the mountains, out in the water. Let’s see if he can put himself back together then. LOL.

So basically Brianna had confessed to several killings—despite the fact she hadn’t actually killed anyone unless you counted bugs and coyotes—and bragged that she intended to go on killing and was in fact contemplating murder right then.

And grinning.

And striking poses for the cameras.

And adding a jaunty “LOL.”

And demonstrating just how fast she could twirl a bowie knife, a machete, and a garrote. And brandishing the sawed-off shotgun for which she had modified a runner’s backpack.

All of this got back to Sam.

Sam was not happy about it.

“Oh, my God. Are you out of your mind? ‘LOL’? Really?” he demanded. “I thought I told everyone: no talking to people unless it’s your parents. I told you and Edilio told you. And then, because I knew perfectly well that you would pay no attention to that and do whatever you wanted, I looked you right in the eyes”—he pointed at her eyes for emphasis—“right in those eyes, and I said something along the lines of, ‘Breeze, don’t go telling horror stories.’”

“He believes he said that.”

That last was from Toto, the truth teller. The boy could not restrain himself from announcing the truth or falsity of everything he heard. And he was 100 percent accurate. And 100 percent annoying.

Sam, Astrid, Brianna, and Toto were on the top deck of the houseboat at the lake. Two days had passed since the dome went transparent. Two days since they had seen the outside world for the first time in almost a year.

Two days since Sam had burned Penny to ashes while his mother watched.

And two days since the evil child, Gaia, and her mother, Diana, along with the foul Drake/Brittney creature, had retreated in pain and confusion.

“In the eyes. Me looking straight at you,” Sam said, insisting, even as Brianna adopted a transparently false What, me? look.