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“Yeah, you think it’s funny. Wait till it’s you,” Edilio said.
Sam was serious again. “I don’t know what’s holding Caine back. It’s been two days. What’s keeping him?”
“What’s the hurry? The more time we have, the more we’re prepared.”
“Dude, tomorrow night I’m out of here,” Sam said.
“You don’t know that for sure, man,” Edilio said, embarrassed.
“I just wish I knew what was going on up at Coates.”
Edilio caught on immediately. “You talking about spying them out?”
Sam pushed his soup away. “I don’t know what I’m talking about, man. I’m halfway thinking we should take it to them, you know? Go up there and do this.”
“We have guns. We have guys who can drive. We got, in addition to you, four other mutants with powers that might be useful. You know, powers you can fight with, not like this one girl where she can disappear but only if she’s really embarrassed.”
Sam smiled despite himself. “You’re kidding.”
“No man, she’s really bashful and all, so you say something like, ‘you have nice hair,’ and suddenly she’s invisible. But she’s still there. You touch her, but you can’t see her.”
“That’s not exactly going to stop Caine.”
“Taylor is working on her teleporting. She can go a couple of blocks now.” Edilio shrugged. “But in terms of useful, we got that kid, he’s nine, he can do like you do with the light, but not as much.”
“Nine. We can’t make a nine-year-old hurt someone,” Sam protested.
“How about an eleven-year-old who can move so fast, you can barely see her?”
“That girl Brianna?”
“She calls herself the Breeze now. Like, as fast as the breeze.”
“The Breeze? Like a superhero name?” He shook his head ruefully. “Great. That’s all we need,” Sam said. It was one of his mother’s favorite phrases, “that’s all we need.” He felt a sharp pang in his chest, but it passed quickly. “What do we have the Breeze do when she’s zipping around?”
Edilio looked uncomfortable. “I guess we give her a gun. She shoots and zooms away and shoots again.”
“Oh, God.” Sam hung his head. “Eleven years old and we’re giving her a gun? To shoot at people? At human beings? It’s sick.”
Edilio didn’t have anything to say to that.
“Sorry, man, I’m not laying this off on you, Edilio. It’s just…I mean, this is nuts. It’s wrong. Bad enough kids our age, but fourth graders and fifth graders?”
There came the clattering of feet on the stairs, and both Sam and Edilio leaped to their feet, expecting the worst.
Dekka, one of the Coates refugees, came barreling into the room and skidded on the waxed floor. Her forehead had been injured, a two-inch gash, and she had refused to let Lana heal it.
“I got that from Drake’s shoe when he kicked me,” she had said. “Heal up my hands from the plastering, but leave my head. I want something to remember it by.”
Sam reflected that that was only the second-most interesting thing about Dekka. Number one would probably be the fact that she seemed to have the power to suspend the force of gravity within a small area.
“What is it, Dekka?” Sam asked.
“That guy Orc. He just walked into town, all raggedy-looking.”
“Orc? Just Orc? No Howard?”
Dekka shrugged. “I didn’t see anyone else. He just walked on in, and that guy Quinn told me I better go tell you. He said he was going to follow Orc home.”
