Hunger

comforting.”
    “No,” he admitted. “Sorry. You’re right: I didn’t come to see Astrid my girlfriend. I came to see Astrid the Genius.”
    Astrid had never liked that nickname much, but she’d accepted it. It gave her a place in the dazed and frightened community of the FAYZ. She wasn’t a Brianna or a Dekka, or a Sam, with great powers. What she had was her brain and her ability to think in a disciplined way when required.
    “I’ll dissect it, see what I can learn. Are you okay?”
    “Sure. Why not? This morning I was responsible for 332 people. Now I’m only responsible for 331. And part of me is almost thinking, okay, one less mouth to feed.”
    Astrid leaned close and kissed him lightly on the mouth. “Yeah, it sucks to be you,” Astrid said. “But you’re the only you we have.”
    That earned her a bleak smile. “So, shut up and deal with it?” he said.
    “No, don’t ever shut up. Tell me everything. Tell me anything.”
    Sam looked down, unwilling to make eye contact. “Everything? Okay, how about this: I burned the body. E.Z. I burned the mess they left behind.”
    “He was dead, Sam. What were you supposed to do? Leave him for the birds and the coyotes?”
    He nodded. “Yeah. I know. But that’s not the problem. The problem is, when he burned? He smelled like meat cooking, and I…” He stopped talking, unable to go on. She waited while he mastered his emotions. “A dead sixth grader wasburning, and my mouth started watering.”
    Astrid could too easily imagine it. Even the thought of burning meat made her mouth water. “It’s a normal, physiological reaction, Sam. It’s a part of your brain that’s on automatic.”
    “Yeah,” he said, unconvinced.
    “Look, you can’t go around moping because something bad happened. If you start acting hopeless, it will spread to everyone else.”
    “Kids don’t need my help to feel hopeless,” he said.
    “And you’re going to let me cut your hair,” Astrid said, pulling him close and ruffling his hair with one hand. She wanted to get his mind off the morning’s disaster.
    “What?” He looked confused by the sudden change of topic.
    “You look like a fugitive from some old 1970s hair band. Besides,” she argued, “Edilio let me cut his hair.”
    Sam allowed himself a smile. “Yeah. I saw. Maybe that’s why I keep accidentally calling him Bart Simpson.”
    When she glared at him, he added, “You know, the spiky look?” He tried to kiss her, but she drew back.
    “Oh, you’re just so clever, aren’t you?” she said. “How about I just shave your head? Or hot-wax it? Keep insulting me, people will be calling you Homer Simpson, not Bart. Then see how much Taylor makes goo-goo eyes at you.”
    “She does not make goo-goo eyes at me.”
    “Yeah. Right.” She pushed him away playfully.
    “Anyway, I might look good with just two hairs,” Sam said.He looked at his reflection in the glass front of the microwave.
    “Does the word ‘narcissist’ mean anything to you?” Astrid asked.
    Sam laughed. He made a grab for her but then noticed Little Pete eyeing him. “So. Anyway. How’s LP doing?”
    Astrid looked at her brother, who was perched on a kitchen counter stool and gazing mutely at Sam. Or, anyway, in Sam’s direction—she could never be sure what he was really looking at.
    She wanted to tell Sam what had been happening with Little Pete, what he had started doing. But Sam had enough to worry about. And for a moment—a rare moment—he wasn’t worrying.
    There would be time later to tell him that the most powerful person in the FAYZ seemed to be…what would the right term be for what Little Pete was doing?
    Losing his mind? No, that wasn’t quite it.
    There was no right term for what was happening to Little Pete. But, anyway, this wasn’t the time.
    “He’s fine,” Astrid lied. “You know Petey.”

THREE
    106 HOURS , 11 MINUTES
    LANA ARWEN LAZAR was on her fourth home since coming to Perdido Beach. She’d first stayed in a house she’d liked well enough. But that house was where Drake Merwin had captured her. It felt like a bad place after that.
    Then she’d moved in with Astrid for a while. But she quickly discovered that she preferred being alone with just her Labrador retriever, Patrick, for company. So she’d taken a house near the plaza. But that had made her too accessible.
    Lana didn’t like being accessible. When she was accessible, she had no privacy.
    Lana had the power to heal. She’d first