Monster (Gone 7)

“And she was unaccounted for after the barrier came down,” Peaks said.

He was sitting beside her, so that she had to turn to meet his steady gaze with her own. “Taylor was a malicious little gossip and troublemaker.”

“Taylor was? Past tense?”

Dekka said, “She used to be a girl—a normal-looking girl, kind of pretty, really. She had the power of teleportation, and sometimes she was actually helpful. But toward the end, something happened that turned her into . . . into, I don’t even know. Some kind of weird gold Play-Doh creature.”

“Who had powers. Still has powers. Even now, even long after the dome came down. That video is just six months old.”

“Looks like,” Dekka drawled, refusing to speculate further. She’d always assumed the tape was a clever fake.

“Any idea why she didn’t take food but did take magazines?”

Dekka shrugged. “She doesn’t eat. Didn’t eat, not after she, you know, became that. And she always was a superficial little ninny, so gossip rags would be about right.”

To Dekka’s relief, Peaks didn’t press it further: she’d been avoiding thinking about it, preferring to believe it was all some fake. Her relief was short-lived.

“Now,” Peaks said, “I want to show you something you have not seen on YouTube, because we’ve got the only copy.” He tapped the keyboard and a window with the logo of the NSA—the National Security Agency—came up. More tapping, a password. And then, a view window.

It was an aerial shot and looked like it had been taken from hundreds of feet above. “Drone?” Dekka asked. Peaks did not answer. And then something came into view. A person. Dekka saw the top of his head, his shoulders, the tips of his toes as he walked. Then . . .

“Jesus!” Dekka was on her feet, her chair knocked over, her whole body electric, tingling.

“It’s a bit hard to make out,” Peaks said laconically, playing it cool. “You can see much better in slow motion.” He pointed the mouse and the video advanced more slowly.

And there it was.

There it was: the ten-foot-long tentacle that snapped like a bullwhip, and snatched up what may have been a rat or a frog.

Dekka stared and breathed hard. Speech was impossible. Her attitude of cool indifference was gone. Her eyes blazed.

“I think we both know who that is,” Peaks said with sincere sympathy.

“Drake.” Dekka’s voice was flat. She could barely breathe.

“Drake Merwin.” Peaks nodded. “A violent, sadistic psychopath. A rapist. A torturer. A murderer.”

“All that,” Dekka snarled, transfixed by the freeze-frame Peaks had left on-screen.

Drake!

Brianna had chopped him into bits, and yet he lived.

Sam Temple had watched him burn to ashes, and yet he lived.

Peaks closed the laptop. “More coffee?”

“You have beer?” Dekka rasped, and her trembling hand twitched toward the cigarettes she no longer carried.

An aide appeared out of nowhere and Peaks sent him off to return moments later with two bottles of Sierra Nevada—apparently the official beer of the Ranch—and two glasses.

“I’m sure you can see why we are concerned,” Peaks said, pouring the foamy liquid for both of them.

“He’s a monster. I mean that.” She stabbed a finger down on the tabletop for emphasis. “A monster in body and mind.”

“Yes,” Peaks agreed. “But that’s not why we are worried. The problem both Taylor and Drake represent is this: they have somehow retained the powers they had in the PBA, the FAYZ if you prefer, while people like you have not. We think we know why.”

“Okay. Why?”