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Sam had passed out, or maybe it was just sleep. Hard to differentiate. He expected to wake up at any moment to find Gaia gloating down at him.
Instead when he woke it was to realize that Quinn and one of his crewmen were lifting him up off the pavement. Taylor stood a short distance away, saw, then disappeared.
Sam said something brilliant like, “Huh?”
And then either passed out or went back to sleep. Hard to differentiate.
He wasn’t quite conscious enough to put names to the sounds of a low-power motor or waves slapping the bow, but they were comforting.
He woke once more as they were bundling him up onto the dock. He said, “Astrid?”
“She was okay last I saw her,” Quinn said.
“Then evr’thin’ ’kay,” Sam slurred.
“I wish that was true, my friend,” Quinn said.
TWENTY-THREE
15 HOURS, 57 MINUTES
“WHERE ARE YOU in all this, Caine?” Edilio asked him.
They stood on the road, staring out into the dark. Dekka still wept. No one had tried to take Brianna’s body away from her.
Orc had come back from a futile attempt to find Gaia. Jack was standing a few feet away from Brianna. There were tears running down his face, but he hadn’t been able to find a way to go closer. Jack and Brianna had had a complicated relationship. He had flirted with her in his own awkward way; they had made out once or twice, neither of them really enjoying the experience much. Brianna was too fierce for Jack, and he was too geeky for her. But he had cared for her. Just not with the intensity of Dekka.
So he just stood, awkward, bearing silent witness.
“Me?” Caine said. He sounded exhausted. Defeated. He was staring at Brianna. “We fought side by side once, me and Breeze. Against the bugs. She was badass.”
Edilio made an impatient sound. His voice was ragged. “Listen, Caine, I have no time. For all we know that monster will be back in five minutes.”
Edilio saw pride flare in Caine’s eyes, but then it died. “The truth is she . . . it . . . it has its hooks in me,” he said. “It’s stronger now. Or maybe I’m weaker. Either way, the pain she hits me with . . . you don’t want to know what it’s like.”
Edilio could see the truth of it in his haggard expression.
“Without you and Sam both we probably can’t beat her,” Edilio said.
“Yeah, well, Sam’s lying out there busted up. Maybe dead for all I know.”
“Then we have to get him,” Edilio said urgently.
“Walk down that road right now?” Caine asked. “Are you out of your mind?”
“I’m not sitting here while—”
“Go out there and she’ll pick you off easy,” Caine said. “Take anyone with you and you’re just getting them killed, too.”
Caine looked around, lost. “If I try to fight her, she’ll make me crazy. You don’t know . . . Anyway, Sam and I already tried . . .” He shook his head. “We can’t beat her. We can’t beat the gaiaphage; we never could. It was always going to end this way with all of us being hunted down, one by one. We were always the sheep and it was the wolf.”
“Shut up, Caine,” Edilio said in a voice so soft it was almost a whisper.
Anger, a dangerous anger, flared in Caine. “Who are you to talk to me that way?”
“You’ve been the problem, Caine. From the start. You’re the one who kept us from ever really being able to unite, to fight this thing. You and your ego and your stupid need to control everyone. Don’t you come here now all sheepish, all head hanging down and tell me you’re scared.” Edilio stabbed a finger in Caine’s chest. It was such an un-Edilio moment it surprised both of them.
Edilio knew his own fear was pushing him now, because he knew Caine wasn’t wrong about the likely ending. Still, he needed Caine’s power on his side to have any slight hope. And he definitely needed hope.
