Gone

sloshing. He poured it down his throat.
    “So we have to go kick Sam’s butt?” Orc asked.
    Howard hadn’t thought that far ahead. If Sam was back, that wasn’t good. Sam was back and Caine wasn’t? It was hard to figure that out.
    “We go spy him out, man. We see what he’s up to.”
    Orc squinted. “If I see him, I’ll kick his butt.”
    “We have to at least figure out what he’s after,” Howard cautioned. “We should get whoever is around at town hall. Mallet, maybe. Chaz. Whoever we can find.”
    Orc stood up, belched, and said, “I gotta pee. Then we’ll get the Hummer. Go kick some butt.”
    Howard shook his head. “Orc. Listen to me. I know you don’t want to hear this, but backing Caine may not be the winning move.”
    Orc stared his blank, stupid stare.
    “Orc, man, what if Sam wins this? I mean, what if Sam gets over on Caine? Where does that leave us?”
    Orc didn’t answer for so long, Howard was sure he hadn’t heard him. Then Orc heaved up a sigh that was almost a sob. He grabbed Howard’s arm, something he never did.
    “Howard: I killed Bette.”
    Howard said, “You didn’t mean to, Orc.”
    “You’re the smart one,” Orc said sadly. “But sometimes you’re dumber than me, you know that?”
    “Okay.”
    “I killed someone didn’t do me any harm. Astrid ain’t ever going to even look at me again unless she’s hating me.”
    “No, no, no,” Howard argued. “Sam is going to need help. He’s going to need someone tough. If we go to him now, eat crow, you know, say, ‘Yeah, you’re the man, Sammy.’”
    “You kill somebody, you burn in hell,” Orc said. “My mom told me that. Once my dad was beating on me, we was in the garage, so I grabbed up a hammer.” Orc now pantomimed the scene. Grabbing the hammer, looking at it, raising it. Then he let it drop. “She said, ‘You kill your father, you’ll burn in hell.’”
    “What happened then?”
    Orc held up his left hand. He pushed it close to Howard’s face. There was a scar, almost perfectly round, no more than a quarter inch across.
    “What’s that?” Howard asked.
    “Power drill. Three-sixteenths bit.” Orc laughed ruefully. “Guess I’m lucky it wasn’t the three-quarter-inch, huh?”
    “That’s messed up, man,” Howard said. He’d always known that Orc came from a tough home. But a power drill was off the hook. He himself came from a fairly average home, neither of his parents was a drunk or violent or anything. Howard did what he had to do to survive, being small and weak and not popular. He liked being in charge, having people scared of him, so being Orc’s friend had worked out for him.
    But now Howard was starting to see that though Orc was stupid, he wasn’t wrong. Orc and School Bus Sam, the big hero, were never going to get along.
    And now, Howard was as trapped as Orc.
    Trapped.
    “Okay, then,” Howard said. “We go to Caine.”
    Orc belched loudly. “Caine’s mad at us.”
    “Yeah,” Howard said. “But he still needs us.”

THIRTY-SIX
    84 HOURS , 41 MINUTES
    “HOLD HIM DOWN,” Diana yelled.
    The sound of her voice was far off. Drake Merwin heard it bubbling up through a red scream that filled his brain.
    Screaming, screaming, screaming everywhere, all through his brain, from a million mouths, rising and falling, gasping for breath.
    “I can hold him,” a voice said. Caine. “Back away on three. One…two…”
    Drake flailed madly, unbound, shrieking, thrashing, hurting himself but unable to stop. The pain…he had never felt anything like it, never imagined anything could be like it.
    A force pressed down on him like a thousand hands holding him with firm pressure.
    “You have the saw?” Diana’s voice asked. Not smug now, not smug at all, but raw and horrified.
    Drake struggled against the invisible force, but Caine had him pinned down with his telekinetic power. Drake couldonly scream and curse, and could barely move his facial muscles enough for that.
    “I am not doing this,” Panda said, weeping. “I’m not sawing off his arm, man.”
    The words sent a shock of terror to join the pain. His arm? They were…
    “He’ll kill me if I do it,” Panda said.
    “I’m not doing it,” various voices chimed in. “No way.”
    “I’ll do it,” Diana said, disgusted. “You’re all such big tough guys. Give me the saw.”
    “No, no, no!” Drake screeched.
    “It’s the only way to stop the pain,” Caine said, almost showing some emotion, some pity. “The