Gone

thirteen,” Louise said, like anyone cared. “Someone will come rescue us in a year, right?”
    “Sooner would be better,” Drake drawled, “what with me having a month.”
    “I got till June,” Chunk said. “You know what that makes me? I’m a Cancer.”
    “Got that right,” Drake muttered.
    “Sign of the crab,” Chunk added.
    “I have to go,” Drake said. He climbed down out of the SUV they were in and walked to the edge of the lookout, up to the railing. He started peeing over the side and that’s when he saw it. It looked like a match being carried through the night. Impossible to tell distances.
    “Chunk! Get the binoculars.”
    Chunk came hustling up a few seconds later. Drake had watched as the tiny, flickering light went racing in zigzags far below.
    Chunk said, “This is like being up in the Hollywood Hills, you know? Up on Mulholland Drive, which is where all thesefamous actors and stuff live. One time I went to this guy’s house, he was, like, a director that my dad reps, right? And—”
    Drake yanked the binoculars from Chunk’s hands and tried to capture the spark in his field of vision. Almost impossible. He would catch it and then lose it. Even when he managed to follow it for a few seconds, he couldn’t make anything out, it was just an orange flame wandering through a featureless void. But it was almost surely moving too fast to be carried by a person, even a fast person.
    Then the spark stopped moving. And gradually Drake realized the flame was growing.
    He peered intently and thought he could make out some kind of structure, like a house or something in the spreading glow.
    Panda had limped over to join them. Drake handed him the binoculars. “What do you think that is?”
    Panda peered through the binoculars and at that moment there was a flash of light and he tore the binoculars away and yelled.
    The second flash was even clearer, and now there were sparklers making light trails through the darkness of early morning.
    Panda looked again. “There’s some kind of house…and a tower or something. And there’s, like,…like dogs or something.”
    A third blinding light and now even more of the number of crazily weaving sparklers.
    “I don’t know, man,” Panda said.
    “I think maybe we just found what we were looking for,” Drake said.
    Chunk, scared, said, “You think that’s this kid you’re trying to catch? Dude’s got the power, man. Like in that movie—”
    Drake yanked the gun from his belt and said, “No, Chunk: this is the power. And I’ve got it.”
    That shut Chunk up for a few seconds.
    “The fire is spreading,” Louise pointed out. “It’s probably all dry down there and bushes and stuff catching fire.”
    Drake had noticed the same thing. He glanced back in the direction they’d come from, tried to make sense of the topography. “Coates is back that way. The barrier is over that way.” He pointed. “There’s no wind, so the fire is going to climb the hill. Which means they’ll be coming this way, toward Coates. They’ll pass down below us.”
    “What are you going to do, shoot them when they walk past?” Chunk asked, eager and afraid.
    “Yeah, that’s right, three thousand feet down this hill and I’m going to shoot them with a handgun,” Drake said sarcastically. “Moron.”
    “So what do we do?” Panda asked. “No wonder Caine’s scared of this guy. Dude can do all that?”
    “That’s a four bar, right there, I bet,” Chunk opined. “I seen all kinds of stuff at Coates with Benno and Andrew and Frederico, none of them could do that kind of stuff. You think he can take Caine down?”
    Drake spun and smacked Chunk in the mouth with the back of his free hand. When Chunk staggered back, Drakemoved in and kicked him in the groin.
    Chunk grabbed himself and fell to his knees. He whimpered, “Why’d you do that, man?”
    “Because I’m sick of listening to you,” Drake snapped. “I’m sick of all this powers crap. You saw what we did to freaks at Coates? Who do you think it was that took care of that? All these kids with their stupid so-called powers. Starting fires and moving stuff around and reading your mind and all? Who do you think it was grabbed them one by one in their sleep and beat them down and when they woke up their hands were setting up in a block of cement?”
    “It was you, Drake,” Panda said, placating him. “You got them all.”
    “That’s right. And I didn’t even have a gun then. It’s not about