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“Yes,” she said, satisfied.
He kissed her, and yes, her mouth still worked.
Then, serious, he said, “So we don’t go to the island?”
“Why were you going?”
He sighed. “I had two answers in mind. One, I was running away like a rat. That was the main answer. I can’t . . . I’d rather die. I can’t let her do that to me again. So I was running away.”
“Two answers?” Diana asked.
“Look, number one . . . no, numbers one through nine were running away. But the other answer, the one that was much less at, sort of, the forefront of my mind, but that was a possibility . . .” He ran out of steam after all that evasion. “Look, part of me was thinking about those stupid missiles of Albert’s.”
“You think they would kill her?”
He shrugged. “It’s all I could think of that would surprise her. Catch her off guard.” He sighed. The truth welled up inside him. The fact that he loved her. And the fact that it wouldn’t save him.
“We don’t make it out of here, do we?” he said.
Diana shook her head. “No, my love.”
They stood for a long time in each other’s arms. Then, at last, Caine fired up the motor and the boat headed toward the island.
And Diana, with Perdido Beach falling away behind her, with tears rolling down her cheeks, with the light of the onrushing fire reflected in her dark eyes, whispered another boy’s name.
“Little Pete . . .”
His name was Peter Ellison, but everyone had always called him Little Pete.
Sometimes Petey.
And now he heard his name. Like prayers floating up to him from the ghosts.
A voice he knew.
A voice he did not know.
A third voice that reached to him in a way like the Darkness sometimes did, silently, through that emptiness that connected all who had been touched by the Darkness.
In different words, in different ways, they each said, Take me.
Take me, Petey.
Take me, Little Pete.
Take me, you little freak.
TWENTY-FIVE
4 HOURS, 44 MINUTES
PUG, THE CRAZY thing, had actually fired one of the missiles at them as Caine and Diana neared the island.
The missile was not much good against a person with the power to move things with his mind—something Caine knew he would have to remember later. Maybe the element of surprise . . . maybe Gaia wouldn’t know what they were . . .
Yeah. Maybe. And maybe not. In which case, plan B.
Caine did not much like plan B.
