Hunger

to Edilio?” Brianna demanded. He was lying on the ground. Silent. Not even the sound of breathing.
    Quinn answered. “Edilio’s been shot. I don’t think he has long.”
    “I can’t believe Dekka let him get hurt,” Brianna said. “Where is she?”
    Quinn’s involuntary glance was all Brianna needed. She flew to where Dekka lay, crumpled like a doll someone had tossed aside.
    Brianna breathed hard. Stared. There was a rushing waterfall in her ears. A roar. Then a blur as the world around her screamed past and she hit Caine with all the speed and fury at her command. Caine went sprawling.
    Brianna was on him before he could draw breath, and now a rock was in her hand.
    “Breeze! No!” Sam yelled.
    Brianna froze. Caine was on his back. He did nothing. He did not raise his hands. Barely seemed to notice her as she squatted, poised to hit him with the rock, poised to hit him a hundred times before he could flinch.
    “No, Breeze,” Sam said. “We need him.”
    “I don’t need him,” Brianna hissed.
    “Breeze. Dekka’s gone. Edilio will be dead in a few minutes. If he isn’t already,” Quinn said, speaking for Sam, who was clenching his teeth with such force that Brianna thought his molars might splinter. “And Sam…”
    “What can this piece of filth do?” Brianna demanded.
    “We need Lana,” Sam managed to say.
    Caine picked himself up and brushed the dirt from his shirt. “Diana is dying. The Mexican kid is dying. Dekka, well,you saw her. And Sam doesn’t look too good,” Caine said. “Lana’s in there.” He jerked his head toward the collapsed mine shaft.
    “What I don’t get,” Caine continued, “is how we’re getting in there to find her. The whole mine collapsed. It will take me a lot longer to dig out than it did to collapse it. I pull stuff out, more falls in.”
    “Duck,” Sam said. “He’s going to drill a tunnel.”
    “Um…what?” Duck said.
    “Like when they rescue miners,” Sam said. “They drill a shaft down to the original shaft.”
    “Um…what?” Duck repeated.
    Quinn explained to an obviously baffled Caine, “It seems Duck has the power to sink right down through the ground.”
    “I don’t really think I’m…,” Duck said.
    “He can control his density,” Brianna confirmed. “That’s why I could carry him here. It was like carrying a backpack. But with more wind resistance.”
    “He drills,” Sam said. “We go in. You’ve been down there, haven’t you, Caine? Is there a place where—” A spasm of pain rocked him so hard, he seemed to lose consciousness for a minute.
    “Guys, I don’t really…,” Duck said.
    “Don’t you want to be a hero?” Quinn asked.
    “No,” Duck said honestly.
    “Yeah, me neither,” Quinn admitted. “But, Edilio, he’s a hero. He’s the real thing. And, Sam…well, I don’t have totell you what Sam has done for all of us.” Quinn took Duck’s arm and said, “We need you, Duck. Only you. Only you can do this.”
    “Dude, I mean, I want to help, but…”
    “You get the next fish I catch,” Quinn said.
    “Not if I’m buried alive,” Duck argued.
    “Fried. Fried up so tender and flavorful.”
    “You can’t buy me with food,” Duck huffed. “I…I want a swimming pool, too.”

FORTY-FOUR
    7 MINUTES
    THE MINE SHAFT was collapsed.
    Lana stood facing a wall of debris. And for a fleeting moment, she felt hope that this, at last, spelled the end of the monster that had enslaved her.
    But from that wall, the battered, blunted end of the fuel rod protruded.
    The billions of crystals that were all the body the gaiaphage had swarmed over the spilled uranium pellets.
    Lana felt the gaiaphage’s anticipation, its rush of bliss. The fear of destruction drained from the creature. And for a while, Lana’s mind was almost her own as the gaiaphage reveled in its dark joy.
    It was no blessing recovering her senses. Lana knew now beyond any doubt that it had been she who had pulled the trigger and shot Edilio. She who had failed to blow up the cave. She who had allowed this to happen.
    Too weak.
    A fool, easily manipulated into delivering herself into theservice of the monster. Too weak to resist it.
    And as it grew stronger, as its fear ebbed, it would reach into her mind again and use her power to build the body that would emerge from this lair. Burying the creature would not stop it. It would create the body that could tunnel its way out, the cunningly designed monster-within-monster nesting doll that