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An hour later, Caine found Diana. She was sitting in a chair in her room, watching the sunlight’s first rays touch the treetops. He sat on her bed. The springs creaked. She was in shadow, almost invisible in the faint light, nothing but the glitter of her eyes and the outline of a hollow cheek.
In the dark, Caine could still pretend that she was her old self. Beautiful Diana. But he knew that her luscious dark hair was brittle and tinged with rust. Her skin was sallow and rough. Her arms sticks. Her legs unstable pins. She didn’t look fourteen anymore. She looked forty.
“We have to give it a try,” Caine said without preamble.
“You know he’s lying, Caine,” Diana whispered. “He’s never been to the island.”
“He read about it in some magazine.”
Diana managed an echo of her old snarky laugh. “Bug read a magazine? Yeah. Bug’s a big reader.”
Caine said nothing. He sat still, trying not to think, trying not to remember. Trying not to wish there had been more to eat.
“We have to go to Sam,” Diana said. “Give ourselves up. They won’t kill us. So they’ll have to feed us.”
“They will kill us if we give ourselves up. Not Sam, maybe, but the others. We’re the ones responsible for turning out the lights. Sam won’t be able to stop them. If not freaks like Dekka or Orc or Brianna, then Zil’s punks.”
The one thing they still had at Coates was a pretty good idea of what was going on in town. Bug had the ability to walk unseen. He was in and out of Perdido Beach every few days, sneaking food for himself, mostly. But also overhearing what kids were saying. And supposedly reading torn magazines he didn’t bother to sneak back to Coates.
Diana let it go. Sat quietly. Caine listened to her breathing.
Had she done it? Had she committed the sin herself? Or was she smelling it on him now and despising him for it?
Did he want to know? Would he be able to forget later that her lips ha
d eaten that meat?
“Why do we go on, Caine?” Diana asked. “Why not just lie down and die. Or you…you could…”
The way she looked at him made him sick. “No, Diana. No. I’m not going to do that.”
“You’d be doing me a favor,” Diana whispered.
“You can’t. We’re not beat yet.”
“Yeah. I wouldn’t want to miss this party,” Diana said.
“You can’t leave me.”
“We’re all leaving, Caine. All of us. Into town to be taken out one by one. Or stay here and starve. Or step outside as soon as we get our chance.”
“I saved your life,” he added, and hated himself for begging. “I…”
“You have a plan,” Diana said dryly. Mocking. One of the things he loved about her, that mean streak of mockery.
“Yeah,” he said. “Yeah. I have a plan.”
“Based on some stupid story from Bug.”
“It’s all I’ve got, Diana. That, and you.”
Sam walked the silent streets.
He felt unsettled by his encounter with Orsay. And unsettled, too, by his encounter with Astrid in his bedroom.
Why hadn’t he told her about Orsay? Because Orsay was saying the same thing Astrid was saying?
Let it go, Sam. Stop trying to be all things to all people. Stop playing the hero, Sam. We’re past all that.
