Light (Gone 6)

“Diana, tell Edilio what you know about Gaia.”

Diana did, but Edilio needed it repeated. It was impossible to focus. Mental images of Roger dead . . . floating on the lake. Or maybe only terribly injured, lying somewhere.

Had Roger even had a chance to think? Had he seen it coming? Had he seen Justin die before his eyes? That by itself would have killed him. Justin had become a little brother to Roger.

“Listen, Edilio. Gaia’s going to kill everyone,” Astrid said. “The only good news is that we took Drake down. Well, Brianna did. Again, Brianna.”

“What?” Edilio asked, confused. He hadn’t followed anything they’d told him.

Astrid and Diana exchanged a look. “Diana . . .,” Astrid said, and nodded at Edilio.

“Come with me, Edilio; we’re just going to have a seat over on the steps,” Diana said.

“What was the scream about?” Sam demanded, checking Caine for injuries. “Are you hurt?”

Caine was breathing hard, bent over, like he’d been kicked in the belly. “She got me.”

The air smelled of smoke. Something was burning.

“Where?” Sam asked. “Where did she get you?”

Caine straightened slowly. His face was grim. “Here,” he said, jabbing a finger angrily against his temple.

“What’s that supposed to mean? We had her!”

“We had nothing!” Caine yelled. To Sam’s amazement it almost seemed he had tears in his eyes.

Sam decided to take a less confrontational tack. He didn’t need a fight with Caine. “Listen, dude, whatever is going on, you need to tell me. You’re supposed to watch my back.”

Caine brushed dirt from his knees and avoided looking Sam in the eye. “The gaiaphage owned me, okay? Back a long time ago, back after our first big fight, the one in Perdido Beach. I imagine you remember.”

“Yeah, I remember,” Sam snapped. “You and Drake tried pretty hard to kill me.”

“After that I went to the mine shaft. You know all this. And the gaiaphage . . . Look, it’s not something I can explain, okay, or at least not something you can understand.”

“But you fought against the gaiaphage later.”

“It was already weakening. And it was focused on Lana and Little Pete. It’s stronger now. Much stronger.”

Sam frowned. “Why Lana? Why would it care about Lana?”

“It . . . she . . . hates Lana. Lana lost it, Lana was taken, same as me, but Lana shut it down. I don’t know if it’s because of Lana’s healing power or what, but Lana . . . the girl is tough and strong. The gaiaphage doesn’t like that.”

“Okay,” Sam said, not knowing what else to say. It had cost Caine to admit vulnerability. It cost him more to admit that Lana could do what he couldn’t.

Smoke stung Sam’s eyes. All this smoke couldn’t be from the one rotted limb he’d torched.

Caine was trying to explain. “It’s like, like, we’re all here in this world, but there’s some other place, some other connection. I can’t see it, but I can kind of see it. Like something you see out of the corner of your eye, only when you turn to look at it, it’s not there. And the gaiaphage can reach me through there.”

“What happens when it reaches you?”

“Pain.”

“Bad?”

Caine gritted his teeth and had to squeeze the words out. With his hand he held an imaginary knife and slowly twisted it into the side of his head. “Like someone took a white-hot knife and stabbed it into your head and twisted it back and forth, again and again.”

Sam had felt pain. He had wept and cried under Drake’s lash. He had felt helpless. He had lost control of himself. He understood what it meant and what pain like that did to you. He was about to reach out and put a hand on Caine’s shoulder but caught himself. The gesture would not be appreciated.