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At that moment the front door opened and closed. Something moved that was hard to see, hard to make sense of, like a wave in the wallpaper.
“Here’s Bug now,” Diana announced.
Caine leaped at him. “What did you see?”
Bug shut down the camouflage and emerged clearly, a short, brown-haired, buck-toothed kid with a freckled nose. “I saw a lot. Sam is in town, right across from the day care. He doesn’t look like he’s doing anything.”
“What do you mean he’s not doing anything?”
“I mean, he’s standing there eating Mickey D’s.”
Caine stared. “What?”
“He’s eating. Fries. I guess he’s hungry.”
“Does he know Drake and Pack Leader have the littles?”
Bug shrugged. “I guess so.”
“And he’s just standing there?”
“What did you expect him to do?” Diana demanded. “He knows we’ve got the kids. He’s waiting to hear what we want.”
Caine bit savagely at his thumb. “He’s up to something. He probably figures we have a way to watch him. So he’s making sure we see him. Meanwhile, he’s up to something.”
“What can he do? Drake and the coyotes are in there with the kids. He has no choice. He has to do whatever you tell him to do.”
Caine wasn’t convinced. “He’s up to something.”
Lana stirred herself, looked at Caine, seeming to hear him for the first time.
“What?” Diana asked her.
“Nothing,” Lana said. She patted her omnipresent dog. “Nothing at all.”
“I need to go do this now,” Caine said.
“The plan was to wait till we were close to the birthday hour. That way he loses no matter what.”
“You think he can take me, don’t you?”
“I think he’s had a couple of days to prepare,” Diana said. “And he’s got more people. And some of his people, especially the freaks from Coates, really, really want you dead.” She stepped closer to him, right up in his face. “Every step of the way, Caine, you listen to me, then you do exactly what I’ve told you not to do. I told you to let the freaks go who didn’t want to play along. But no, you had to listen to Drake’s paranoid advice. I told you to go into Perdido Beach and make a quick deal for food. You have to go try and take over. Now you’re going to do whatever you want, and you’ll probably end up screwing things up.”
“Your faith in me is touching,” Caine said.
“You’re smart. You’re charming. You have all this power. But your ego is out of control.”
He might have lashed out, but instead, he spread his arms wide in a gesture of helplessness. “What was I supposed to do? Coates? That’s it? How do you not see what an opportunity this is? We’re in a whole new world. I’m the most powerful person in that whole new world. No adults. No parents or teachers or cops. It’s perfect. Perfect for me. All I have to do is take care of Sam and a few others, and I’ll have complete control.” He was making fists by the conclusion of his rant.
“You’ll never have complete control, Caine. This world is changing all the time. Animals. People. Who knows what’s next? We didn’t make this world, we’re just the poor fools who are living in it.”
“You’re wrong. I’m not a fool. This is going to be my world.” He slapped his chest. “Me. I’m going to run the FAYZ, the FAYZ is not going to run me.”
“It’s not too late to walk away.”
He grinned, a dark echo of his once-charming smile. “You’re wrong. It’s time to win. It’s time to send Bug to Sam with my terms.”
