Gone (Gone 1)

“Yeah. All that. And one more thing.” He held up his hand and inches from her nose squeezed his fingers into a tight fist. “I also felt a rush, Astrid. A rush. I thought, oh my God, look at the power I have. Look what I can do. A huge, crazy rush.”

“Power corrupts,” Astrid said softly.

“Yeah,” Sam said sarcastically. “I’ve heard that.”

“Power corrupts, absolute power corrupts absolutely. I forget who said it.”

“I make a lot of mistakes, Astrid. I don’t want to make that mistake. I don’t want to be that guy. I don’t want to be Caine. I want to…” He spread his arms wide, a gesture of helplessness. “I just want to go surfing.”

“You won’t be corrupted, Sam. You wouldn’t do those things.” He had moved back. She moved to close the distance.

“How can you be so sure?”

“Well, two reasons. First, it’s not your character. Of course you felt a rush from the power. Then, you pushed it away. You didn’t grab at it, you pushed it away. That’s reason number one. You’re you, you’re not Caine or Drake or Orc.”

Sam wanted to agree, wanted to accept that, but he felt he knew better. “Don’t be so sure.”

“And reason number two: you have me,” Astrid said.

“Do I?”

“Yes.”

That drained the anger and frustration from him like someone had pulled a plug. For a long moment he was lost, gazing into her eyes. She was very close. His heart shifted to a deeper rhythm that vibrated his whole body.

There were just inches between them. He closed the distance by half, stopped.

“I can’t kiss you with your little brother watching,” he said.

Astrid stepped back, took Little Pete by the shoulders, and turned him so he was facing away.

“How about now?”

EIGHTEEN

164 HOURS, 32 MINUTES

ALBERT LEFT THE funeral ceremony and crossed the plaza toward the McDonald’s. He wished he had someone to talk to. Maybe if he flipped the lights on, someone would come in for a very late burger.

But the small crowd dispersed before he could unlock the front door of the McDonald’s—his McDonald’s—and the plaza was left empty and silent but for a faint hum from power lines overhead.

Albert stood with his keys in one hand and his McDonald’s-issue cap in his other hand—he had taken it off out of respect for the dead—and let a sense of gloom and foreboding wash over him. He was a naturally optimistic person, but a nighttime funeral of a young girl murdered by bullies…that wasn’t something that exactly perked up your mood.

Albert had enjoyed being alone since the fall of the FAYZ. He worried about his brothers and sisters. He missed his mom. But he had gone in an instant from being the youngest of six, the goat, the victim, the overworked and underappreciated youngster, to being a responsible and respected person in this strange new community.

None of which changed the fact that right now, with the smell of fresh-turned earth in his nostrils and disquiet boring holes in his brain, he would have loved to be watching one of his mother’s favorite gruesome crime shows and sneaking popcorn out of the bowl on her lap.

The big issues in the FAYZ—the what and the why and the how—didn’t bother Albert much. He was a practical person, and, anyway, those were things for someone like Astrid to ponder. As for the events of this night, the killing of Bette, that was for Sam and Caine and those guys to work out.

What had Albert worried was something entirely different: No one was working. No one but Mary and Dahra and occasionally Edilio. Everyone else was moping or wandering or fighting or else just sitting around and playing video games or

watching DVDs. They were all like rats living in an abandoned house: they ate what they found, messed wherever they liked, and left things dirtier and more rundown than they found them.

It couldn’t last. Everyone was just killing time. But if all they did was kill time, time would end up killing them.

Albert believed that. Knew that. But he couldn’t explain it to anyone and make them listen. He couldn’t talk with the smooth assurance of a Caine, or the knowing detachment of an Astrid. When Albert spoke, people didn’t pay attention the way they did to Sam.

He needed someone else’s words to explain what his instincts told him must be true.