Gone (Gone 1)

“And find your brother.”

“And find my brother.”

She turned away. Sam stayed on the balcony. He couldn’t hear the surf. There was very little breeze. But he could smell flowers from the grounds below. And the salt smell of the Pacific hadn’t changed.

He had told Astrid he was scared, and he was. But there were other feelings, too. The emptiness of the too-quiet night seeped into him. He was alone. Even with Astrid and Quinn, he was alone. He knew what they did not.

The change was so big that he couldn’t get his mind to take it all in.

It was all connected, he was sure of that. What he had done to his stepfather, what he had done in his room, what had happened with the little pigtailed flamethrower, the disappearance of everyone over the age of fourteen, and this impermeable, impossible barrier—all were pieces of the same puzzle.

And his mother’s diary, that too.

He was scared, overwhelmed, lonely. But less lonely in one way than he had been these last months. The little firestarter proved that he was not the only one with power.

He was not the only freak.

He held up his hands and looked at his palms. Pink skin, calluses from waxing his surfboard, a life line, a fate line. Just a palm.

How? How did it happen?

What did it mean?

And if he was not the only freak, did that mean he was not responsible for this catastrophe?

He extended his hands, palms out, toward the barrier as if to touch it.

In a panic he could make light.

In a panic he could burn a man’s hand off.

But surely he could not have done this.

That brought him a sense of relief. No, he had not done this.

And yet someone or something had.

EIGHT

287 HOURS, 27 MINUTES

“SIT STILL, I’M trying to change your diaper,” Mary Terrafino said to the toddler.

“It’s not a diaper,” the little girl said. “Diapers are for babies. It’s my trainee pants.”

“Oh, sorry,” Mary said. “I didn’t know.”

She finished pulling the training pants up and smiled, but the little girl collapsed in tears.

“My mommy always puts my trainee pants on.”

“I know, sweetie,” Mary said. “But tonight I’m doing it, okay?”

Mary wanted to cry herself. She had never wanted to cry more. Night had fallen. She and her nine-year-old brother, John, had handed out the last of the cheddar-flavored Goldfish. They had handed out all the juice boxes. They were almost out of diapers. Barbara’s Day Care wasn’t set up for overnight care. They only had a limited supply of diapers on hand.

There were twenty-eight kids in the larger of the two rooms. Watching over them were Mary and John and a ten-year-old girl named Eloise, like in the books, who mostly kept an eye on her four-year-old brother. Eloise was one of the fairly responsible ones. A couple of other kids, overwhelmed, not knowing how to cope, had just dropped off siblings and made no attempt to stay and help.

Mary and John had prepared formula and filled bottles. They’d made “meals” of whatever was in the day care and whatever John managed to scrounge up. They had read picture books aloud. They had played the Raffi CDs over and over again.