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“Hmmm. That’s a surprise. Because none of us ever thought of making a phone call to 911 and saying ‘get us out of here.’ Should have thought of that.” It wasn’t that Diana was enjoying this, exactly. But it was a reminder of just how much she had endured, how much she had survived.
Still here, she thought. Still alive. Still sane, mostly.
He opened his camera app and aimed it at Gaia’s back. Then he slid the phone back in his pack. He had to use his knees to hold the pack.
“I’m going to die,” Alex moaned.
“Not yet,” Diana said darkly. “Not until she finds another food source.”
The implication stopped him in his tracks. He hung back, and then Diana heard the sound of his footsteps scrambling away.
Without even looking back Gaia simply raised a hand, and Alex flew through the air to land hard at her feet.
“Leave me alone!” Alex cried up at Gaia.
“I could kill you and carry the nutritious parts with me,” Gaia said. “But that would be harder, carrying all that meat. So you’ll carry yourself until I find better food. If you try to run away, I’ll do something very painful to you. It won’t kill you, but you’ll wish you were dead.”
“What are you?” he begged, rising to his knees. “What are you?”
“I am the gaiaphage,” Gaia said proudly. “I am your . . . your master. Obey me.”
Gaia found that amusing, obviously, as her young face broke out in a grin that she shared with Diana, as though the two of them were coconspirators in dismembering Alex. As though Diana would see the humor in it all.
Gaia walked on, and Diana helped Alex to his feet.
It was strange. The first adult she had spoken to in almost a year. Sometimes she had pictured this moment. The fantasy had usually involved firemen and cops rushing in, offering help and food and comfort. Safety.
But this adult wasn’t here to rescue her. He was just another lost, desperate fool, more scared than she was.
“I just want to go home,” he moaned. He started crying again.
Diana’s stomach clenched with a hunger pain. That familiar pain reached into her memory and dragged out images she could not stand to look at. It was a terrible feeling. So was the fact that she was eyeing the cooked arm and salivating.
No, she told herself. Not again. I’ll die first. She thought of Alex’s knife, supposedly in his backpack. Not the wrist—that could be too easily fixed by Gaia if she chose to. It would have to be an artery in her throat. A quick, deep, assured, stabbing thrust. And death before the evil creature, her daughter, could stop her.
But then hope, that cruel thing, came to taunt her. Caine would come for her, wouldn’t he? He would know she needed rescue. Because deep down he cared for her, didn’t he?
But when he did come, if he did come, Gaia would kill him, wouldn’t she?
And then I’ll do it, Diana told herself. Then the quick, deep, assured thrust. Not before.
Albert had taken three people to the island with him. Leslie-Ann was his maid, a mousy little thing. She was mostly useless, but she had saved his life once upon a time.
Pug—she had an actual name, but Albert didn’t recall what it was—was a big girl, strong and not very bright, and loyal to Albert, though he wasn’t quite sure why. She was not clever enough to make trouble.
And finally, Alicia. Alicia had been trained by Edilio to handle a gun. She’d been part of his security force until he’d caught her extorting bribes. At which point Albert had hired her, informally, as a spy. She was clever, a good observer, and had done a good job of keeping him aware of everything.
She was also tall, about five inches taller than Albert, which he liked, and she had large breasts, which Albert also liked. But she was not loyal like Leslie-Ann or Pug; she was too unstable for loyalty. She had been one of the first Coates kids to abandon Caine and come over to the Perdido Beach side. Later she had rejoined Caine for a time, and later still had lurked at the edges of Zil’s Human Crew.
She was on the island because Albert had lately begun to develop an interest in girls. When it had seemed that the FAYZ would be plunged into permanent darkness, Albert had thought that under the circumstances . . . well . . . But, no. None of that had happened.
And now he was stuck with her.
At present, she was shining a flashlight down, watching Quinn come up the rope hand over hand, climbing the cliff with the agility and ease of an ape.
“He’s strong,” Alicia said.
“He rows a boat all day long.”
