Lies

looked on in helpless horror.
    “Now that,” Caine shouted, “was a mistake, Zil.”
    Zil and his crew turned tail and ran. Caine laughed and lowered himself into the second boat. Five of his people were still in the water, calling out and waving and then cursing and raging as the motorboat roared away.

TWENTY-SEVEN
13 HOURS, 32 MINUTES
    “ GET UP,” PEACE whispered. She shook Sanjit’s shoulder.
    Sanjit had long been accustomed to being awakened at odd hours. That part of being the oldest kid in the Brattle-Chance family had long since lost its charm.
    “Is it Bowie?” he said.
    Peace shook her head. “No. I think the world is burning.”
    Sanjit raised a skeptical eyebrow. “That seems kind of extreme, Peace.”
    “Just come.”
    Sanjit groaned and rolled out of bed. “What time is it?”
    “It’s almost morning.”
    “The key word being ‘almost,’” Sanjit complained. “You know what’s a better time to get up? Actual morning. Much better than ‘almost’ morning.”
    But he followed her down the hall to the room she shared with Bowie and Pixie. The house had twenty-two bedrooms, but only Sanjit and Virtue had chosen to sleep by themselves.
    Pixie was asleep. Bowie tossed and turned, still under attack from the fever that would not go away.
    “The window,” Peace whispered.
    Sanjit went to the window. It was almost floor-to-ceiling, a stunning view during the day. He stood there gazing toward the far-distant town of Perdido Beach.
    “Go get Choo,” he said after a moment.
    She came back with a poisonously cranky Virtue, rubbing sleep from his eyes and muttering.
    “Look,” Sanjit said.
    Virtue stared, just as Sanjit had done. “It’s a fire.”
    “You think?” Sanjit shook his head, awestruck. “The whole town must be on fire.”
    Red and orange flames were a bright dot on the horizon. In the gray predawn light he saw a massive pillar of black smoke. The scale seemed ridiculous. The bright fire was a dot, but the smoke seemed to be miles high, shaped like a twisted funnel.
    “So that’s where I’m supposed to fly the helicopter?” Sanjit said.
    Virtue left and returned a few moments later. He was carrying a small telescope. It wasn’t very powerful. They’d used it at times to try to see details in the town or on the wooded shore closest to the island. It had never shown much. It showed no more now, but even slightly magnified the fire looked terrifying.
    Sanjit looked at Bowie, who was whimpering in his sleep.
    “I’m getting a very bad feeling,” Virtue said.
    “It’s not like the fire can spread here,” Sanjit said, trying to sound nonchalant and failing.
    Virtue didn’t say anything. He just stared. And it dawned on Sanjit that his brother and friend was seeing more than just the fire.
    “What is it, Choo?”
    Virtue sighed, a heavy sound that edged toward a sob. “You never ask me about where I came from.”
    Sanjit was surprised by the turn in the conversation. “Africa. I know you come from Africa.”
    “Africa’s a continent, not a country,” Virtue said with a faint echo of his normal pedantry. “Congo. That’s where I’m from.”
    “Okay.”
    “That doesn’t mean anything to you, does it?”
    Sanjit shrugged. “Lions and giraffes and all?”
    Virtue didn’t even bother to sneer. “There’s been war there for, like, ever. People killing one another. Raping. Torturing. Stuff you don’t even want to know about, brother.”
    “Yeah?”
    “I wasn’t in an orphanage when Jennifer and Todd adopted me. I was four years old. In a refugee camp. All I remember is being hungry all the time. And no one taking care of me.”
    “Where were your real mom and dad?”
    Virtue didn’t answer for a long time, and some instinct warned Sanjit not to push him.
    Finally, Virtue said, “They came and started burningdown our village. I don’t know why. I was just a little kid. I just know my mother—my birth mom—told me to run and hide in the bush.”
    “Okay.”
    “She told me not to come out. Or look. She said, ‘Hide. And close your eyes tight. And cover your ears.’”
    “But you didn’t.”
    “No,” Virtue whispered.
    “What did you see?”
    “I…” Virtue took a deep, shuddering breath. In a strained, unnatural voice he said, “You know what? I can’t tell you. I can’t use words for it. I don’t want the words to come out of my mouth.”
    Sanjit stared at him, feeling as if he was looking at a stranger. Virtue had never talked about