Gone (Gone 1)

“Listen, you stupid thug,” Diana said. “We’re cutting off the pain. As long as that burned stump is there, you’ll be like this. You’ll be screaming and crying and wetting your pants. Yeah, you’ve peed yourself, Drake.”

Somehow that fact shocked Drake into silence.

“You have one hope. Just one. That we cut off the dead part of your arm and do it without starting the bleeding again.”

“Anyone cuts me dies,” Drake said.

Diana pulled back, out of Drake’s view.

Caine said, “Do it. Panda. Chunk. Grab that stump.”

The pressure was on Drake again, immobilizing him. He didn’t feel the towel that was wrapped around his arm or the grip of hands. That part of his arm was naked bone, all flesh melted away, nerves burned off, dead. The pain started higher up, where just enough nerve endings still survived to slam his fevered brain with wave upon wave of agony.

“It’s not Diana or Panda or Chunk or even me,” Caine said. “It’s none of us, Drake. It’s Sam. It’s Sam who did this to you, Drake. You want him to get away with it? Or do you want to live long enough to make him suffer?”

Drake heard a shimmery, metallic sound. The saw was too big for Diana to handle easily. The blade wobbled a little as she lined it up.

“Okay,” Diana said. “Hold on to him. I’ll be as quick as I can be.”

Drake lost consciousness, but his dreams were as pain-racked as his waking. He weaved in and out, awake and screaming, asleep and crying.

He heard a distant thump as his arm dropped to the floor.

And then a sudden frenzy of running and yelling, shouted orders and confusion, a flash of Diana threading a needle with bloody fingers. Hands all over him, the pressure squeezing the air from his lungs.

Staring up from the bottom of a deep well, Drake saw lunatic faces looking down at him, eyes wild, bloody faces like monsters.

“He’ll live, I think,” a voice said.

“God help us if he lives,” a voice said.

“No. God help Sam Temple.”

And then nothing.

“Astrid, I need you to start talking to these kids,” Sam said. “Find out their powers. Find out how much control they have. We’re looking for anyone who might be able to help in a fight.”

Astrid looked uncomfortable. “Me? Shouldn’t Edilio be doing that?”

“I have a different job for Edilio.”

They were in the plaza, sitting wearily on the steps of town hall, Sam, Astrid, Little Pete, and Edilio. Quinn was gone, no one knew where. The liberated Coates kids—the Coates Freaks, as they now proudly called themselves—had been fed at Ralph’s and were being fed again by Albert, who was walking among them handing out burgers. Some of the kids had eaten too much all at once and had thrown up. But most still had room for a hamburger—even if it was on a toasted chocolate chip waffle.

Lana was just about finished healing the hands of the refugees. She was staggering from exhaustion and finally, as Sam watched, her legs folded under her and she fell to the grass. Before he could even get up to help, some of the Coates kids stretched her out with gentleness bordering on reverence. They rolled jackets to make her a pillow and borrowed a blanket from a tattered pup tent to spread over her.

“Okay, I’ll talk to them,” Astrid said. But she still looked reluctant. “I can’t read people like Diana does.”

“That’s what’s bothering you? You’re not my Diana. And hopefully I’m not Caine.”

“I guess I was hoping this would all kind of be over. At least for a while.”

“I think it will be over. For a while. But first we have to plan and make sure we’re ready when Caine comes back.”

“You’re right.” She smiled wanly. “Anyway, it’s not like I was dreaming of a big meal, a hot shower, and hours and hours of sleep.”

“Yeah. You wouldn’t want to start getting soft now, would you?” Something else occurred to him. “But hey, keep L. P. happy, huh? I don’t want you disappearing suddenly.”

“That would be a shame, wouldn’t it?” she said dryly. “Maybe I’ll try Quinn’s trick: Hawaii, Petey, Hawaii.”