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Petey would not let her look at the gaiaphage.
Astrid’s mind flooded with images of other shadow avatars. Dark avatars. Dead. Victims in the game.
All of these were in neat little rows, like pawns lined up before the soul-killing emptiness that was the gaiaphage.
“Astrid!”
Someone was yelling her name.
“Astrid! Snap out of it!”
The game field disappeared.
Astrid’s eyes saw the plaza, her brother just getting to his feet, and Brianna shaking her roughly.
“Hey, what’s the matter with you?” Brianna demanded, more angry than concerned.
Astrid ignored Brianna and searched for Nerezza. She was nowhere to be seen.
“The girl, there was a girl here,” Astrid said.
“What’s going on, Astrid? I just—” She stopped talking long enough to cough ten, twelve times in startlingly rapid succession. “I just stopped Lance from beating some kid half to death. People all running around like nuts down on the beach. I mean, jeez, I take a day off to get over this stupid flu and suddenly it’s craziness everywhere!”
Astrid blinked, looked around, tried to make sense of way too much information. “It’s the game,” she said. “It’s the gaiaphage. It reached Petey through his game.”
“Say what?”
Astrid knew she’d said too much. Brianna was not the person to trust with the truth about Little Pete. “Did you see Nerezza?”
“What? The girl who hangs out with Orsay?”
“She’s not a girl,” Astrid said. “Not really.” She grabbed Brianna’s arm. “Find Sam. We need him. Find him!”
“Okay. Where?”
“I don’t know,” Astrid cried. She bit her lip. “Look everywhere!”
“Hey,” Brianna said, and then interrupted herself to cough until she was red in the face. She cursed, coughed some more, and finally said, “Hey, I’m fast. But even I can’t look everywhere.”
“Let me think for a minute,” Astrid said. She squeezed her eyes shut. Where? Where would Sam have gone? He was hurt, angry, feeling useless.
No, that wasn’t quite right.
“Oh, God, where?” Astrid wondered.
She hadn’t seen him since he had gone off to deal with Zil and the fire. What had happened to make him run away? Had he done something he was ashamed of?
No, that wasn’t it, either. He had seen the whipped boy.
“The power plant,” Astrid said.
“Why would he be there?” Brianna frowned.
“Because it’s the place that scares him most,” Astrid said.
Brianna looked doubtful. But then her frown lines relaxed. “Yeah,” she said. “That would be Sam.”
“You have to get him, Brianna. He’s Petey’s best piece.”
