Fear: A Gone Novel

Snakes grew wings and developed a new form of metamorphosis. Some of us developed powers. So far there’s been a lot of strange, but not a lot of stupid. This, though, this”—she aimed her finger at the carcass of the monstrosity—“is just stupid.”
    “The gaiaphage?” Sam asked, feeling in his gut it was the wrong answer.
    Astrid held his gaze for a moment but her brain was somewhere else. “Not stupid,” she said.
    “You just said it was—”
    “I was wrong. It’s not about stupid. It’s ignorant. Clueless.”
    “Is there—” He wasn’t surprised when she interrupted him as if he hadn’t even been talking.
    “Unbelievable power,” Astrid said. “And absolute ignorance.”
    “What does that mean?” Sam asked.
    Astrid wasn’t listening. She was slowly turning her head, eyes aimed all the way to the right, as if she thought someone was sneaking up on her.
    It was so compelling that Sam followed the direction of her gaze. Nothing. But he recognized the movement: how many times in the last months had he done the same himself? A sort of paranoid, sidelong glance at something that wasn’t there?
    Astrid shook her head slowly. “I’m… I have to go. I’m not feeling well.”
    He watched her walk away. It was irritating, to put it mildly. Infuriating.
    In the old days he’d have called her out on it, demanded to know what she was thinking.
    But he sensed that what he had with Astrid was fragile. She was back, but not all the way back. He didn’t want to start a battle with her. There was a war coming, no time for battles with someone he loved.
    But her abrupt departure had the effect of leaving him with only one thread to follow, one thing to think about: the solution.
    The solution that did not exist.
    Penny lived alone in a small house on the eastern edge of town. From her upstairs bedroom window she could see just a narrow slice of the ocean and she liked that.
    She wanted to move into Clifftop. But Caine had denied that request. Clifftop was Lana’s to do with as she pleased. Even when Lana had moved to the lake—temporarily, as it turned out—Clifftop had remained a no-go zone.
    “No one messes with Lana,” Caine had decreed.
    Lana, Lana, Lana. Everyone just loved Lana.
    Penny had spent some time with her when Lana fixed her shattered legs. It had taken a long time, in fact, because there were so many breaks in the bones. Penny found Lana stuck-up. It was certainly a relief to have her legs fixed, and it was very nice not to have that pain, but that didn’t mean Lana had a right to act all high-and-mighty and above it all.
    And have an entire massive hotel all to herself. Deciding who could come or go.
    It bothered Penny that Lana had that kind of respect. Because Penny knew she could leave Lana crawling and crying and tearing her eyes out like Cigar had done.
    Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Five minutes alone with Little Miss Healer. See how she liked it. See how high-and-mighty she was then.
    The only problem was that Caine would kill Penny. Caine felt nothing for Penny. She had hoped after Diana took off… But no, there was no disguising Caine’s look of contempt whenever he saw Penny.
    Even now, even with all Penny’s power, Caine was still the big man, the popular guy, the good-looking guy who would spit on someone like Penny, with her scraggly hair and awkward, bony arms and flat-as-a-board chest. Even now life was all about who was hot and who was not.
    But Caine wasn’t the only boy around.
    There was a soft knock at the back door. Penny opened it for Turk.
    “Were you careful?” she asked.
    “I went way out of the way. Then I jumped a couple of fences.” He was breathing hard and sweating. She believed him.
    “All that just to see me?” Penny asked.
    He didn’t answer. He flopped down in one of the easy chairs, sending up a cloud of dust. He leaned his gun against the side of the chair. Then he pulled off his boots, making himself comfortable.
    Suddenly a scorpion crawled onto his arm. He yelled, swatted at it frantically, jumped out of his chair.
    Then he saw the smile on her face.
    “Hey, don’t do that to me!” Turk cried.
    “Then don’t ignore me,” she said. She hated the pleading sound in her own voice.
    “I wasn’t ignoring you.” He sat back down, carefully inspecting for scorpions—as if it had been real.
    Turk wasn’t the smartest guy, Penny acknowledged with a sigh. He was no Caine. Or Sam. Or even Quinn. Maybe they could ignore Penny, and not even