This story picks up after my other Gone short story, Normality Within the Anamolous, and you'll probably have to read that to get ready for this. Anyway, this is a bit of a tidbit of what is happening to normal kids, not involved with the big battles and what not between Plague and Fear. No fear spoilers, but major Plague ones.

I do not own anything you recognize from Grant.

Chapter 1

"Long live the King!" Jace whooped from his place at the head of the table.

"Caine! Caine! Caine!" The cheering crowd broke into a chant as teenagers all cried out. "Caine! Caine! Caine!"

Drinks were coming from the kitchen by girls holding up trays laden with gallon jugs of alcohol. A game of cards had been broken up earlier when Jace decided to have this speech.

"Those bugs came and who defeated them?" Jace yelled out to all of the people in his Casino.

"Caine!" the crowd cried out.

"Who will fix the FAYZ?" Jace's blue eyes scanned the crowd watching the reactions of the others.

"Caine!"

"Who has come to save Perdido Beach?"

The crowd reacted as expected. "Caine!"

Jace held his glass up in the air like a toast. "Long live the King!"

"Caine! Caine! Caine!"

Jace smiled as girls poured drinks into glasses and set plates of jerky and melon cubes out on a table. Everything was falling into place perfectly for him.

"Hate to be the person to break up all this fun but…" Crissy murmured as she leaned over Jace's shoulder and kissed his neck. She held out a few papers in front of him. "We shouldn't putting out all this food for these losers, we can't afford it."

"Did you figure in the cover charges for tonight?" Jace whispered back.

"Of course." His girlfriend scowled. "Either you call in a few of these guys on their loans or we don't eat for two days."

"I'll talk to Dwight about a few of them; he can take care of it. Until then, write up a few bills for these guys, tell the girls we have to pull some of their tips because we know they're trying to steal some of the jerky." Jace saw Crissy's confused look and vaguely waved his hand at one girl. "Under the back of her shirt."

"How did you—"

"Don't worry about it, babe." Jace winked. "Just see to those bills would you? I'm going to need a full wallet to take care of my business with the Jacks, especially if I have to go all the way out to that lake."

"They didn't leave town with Sam," Crissy explained. "My friend down in the water boilers told me Aerik and Nikki just dropped off a load of wood this morning."

Crissy huffed and walked back to the master bedroom of the house where she had set up like an office and store room for the Casino. Jace ignored her.

"Ace, nice turn out tonight," Mercedes said using his nickname. Her dark black hair fell over her shoulders in loose waves and her brown eyes peeked out from behind her bangs. Her legs crossed as she sat in his lap. "Where's Crissy?"

Jace smiled. "She's busy with work. But yeah, nice turn out. Where's Dwight?"

Mercedes flapped a hand and rolled her eyes. "How am I supposed to know?"

"He follows you like a lost puppy," Jace pointed out. "Find 'im for me would y'? I need him."

Mercedes didn't let more than a momentary scowl touch her pretty face. "Of course, Ace. Can I get you something while I'm out."

"I'm good thanks." Jace nodded to her and went back to watching the teenagers drinking and handing over money and food to keep drinking.

It didn't take long for the mexican girl to bring Dwight back to Jace. Dwight's tall body and long limbs were nimble if somewhat gangly. He seemed like a boy who would have looked strong if the days of hunger hadn't hit the FAYZ. He angrily shoved his long brown hair away from his face and saw Jace's cool blue eyes watching him.

"It gets in my way," Dwight, Jace's friend and right hand man, explained. "What did you need?"

"I need you to pull some people out to the garage." Jace didn't even bother looking at Dwight when he saw the taller boy's shoulders droop. "Collect on some loans. Take the ones you know can pay, threaten the ones that can't. Get the ones that can first so the ones that can't don't get sketchy when we send people out of here with broken fingers."

Dwight nodded. "Any in particular?"

"Use your judgment on who you think can pay. Crissy has a list on who owes what." Jace nodded and slapped Dwight on the shoulder. "You're my man, Dwight."

~x~X~x~

Will paced around his house. He had developed a routine of it since Demi had gotten sick. Make sure the dead bolts and chains are on the front and back doors. Look in on Demi. Check all the windows he had boarded up. Take Demi's temperature. See if Max was alright in his makeshift cage in Demi's room. Go check what he had left in food stores. Wipe down Demi's forehead with cool water. Go check the water stills he had made in the back yard. Try to get Demi to drink some of the cabbage and fish soup he made.

The biggest change he had in all of his routines for the day was visiting the slit trench on the side of the house or attempting to sleep. Even then all he did was sleep for an hour and check on Demi's raging fever and rasping cough.

If Demi had been feeling better Will would have taken his brother to the lake with Sam's people but their house was in Perdido Beach and Demi couldn't travel yet.

Will's hard green eyes stared at the medicine cabinet in his parent's old bathroom. There were three bottles of prescription strength medicine left. The next to go would be the old sleeping pills the doctors had given his father two weeks before the FAYZ. H could get quite a high price for those, the trick was finding someone to buy them. He couldn't sell to Jace anymore and the guy Howard had left town with Sam. That left Kristos; the one boy that had betrayed Will and who Will had also betrayed.

If Will could find Kris again, he would sell the pills to people for food or water for Will, with a fee of course, but it was all worth it.

"Will?" Demi's hoarse voice was a rare thing anymore between fits of coughing the Will jumped at the slightest murmur from the eight year old boy.

"Hey big guy, how you doing?" Will knelt my his younger brother's bed. There was more stress in the hard green eyes of the thirteen year old boy than there should be.

"Max?"

Will sighed, this was all Demi did anymore. He was asking for their mom or their dad or Max. He could never say 'Will I'm better, let's go play baseball' or 'Will I'm not coughing anymore' it was just the sounds of a sick boy. "He's right here, big guy." Will placed Max on the bed nex to Demi's side. "You want some soup?"

Demi just shook his head as his little fingers rubbed his rabbit's soft white fur.

Demi would get better, Will knew it. He just had to.

~x~X~x~

Kristos was sprawled out on the bed he had claimed as his own. The little sharpie marker he had left a blue streak across his cheek and would have been comical if it wasn't from the high he got from inhaling the fumes of markers and paint.

"Kris?" called a voice from outside his little world of foggy senses. "Kristos? Kris!" snapped a sharp voice.

"I thought you told me you would lay off this stuff, Kris. I'm trying to be a friend for you but this isn't any good for you." A girl took the marker out of his hand, he tried to claw at it but she stuffed it in her pocket and slapped his hand away. "Knock it off Kris."

Jean's dark hair bobbed as she bent over the edge of the bed. Her blue eyes were more scrutinizing than nice when she looked at him. She grabbed the front of his shirt and pulled him to his feet. "We're going to pick some of those artichokes, right now, not tomorrow, Kris. Let's go."

Kris mumbled some incoherent nonsense.

"That's it." Jean opened up a plastic bag and held it under Kris' nose.

The smell of the old, rotting blue bats cut through his grogginess faster than any smelling salt could have. "Good God! What was that for?" he snapped.

"We're going to pick artichokes unless you want to go hungry." Jean stood up and sealed the bag. "Hurry up because after sunrise someone will see us and might say we're stealing them. Now move."

Her narrow body slipped out of the room and left Kris blinking hard trying to regain complete focus before he followed her.

~x~X~x~

Athene came down the stairs when she heard the front door open. Her once heavy form was silent as she walked down the steps, her dark red hair was braided back and her brown eyes were bright. She sighed as she watched her twin brother, Aerik, pull Nikki down on to the couch as he leaned forward to kiss her. Nikki's brown ponytail swung down over her shoulder.

"Do you two mind?" Athene scowled as she sat down on the chair across from them and kicked her feet up on the arm. "What's the news since no one let me out the house all this time?"

Nikki rolled her gray eyes but pulled away from Aerik. "Turns out you weren't hallucinating when you saw the giant roaches and you're lucky you're on the mend."

Aerik watched his sister carefully. "The flu that has been going around has been killing people. No new people have gotten it, but most people that caught the tail end of it are getting better."

"My friend down at the grill told me those roaches that attacked were some monsters led by Drake, he escaped, and the monster thing that Sam tried killing. Then get this, this is the best part." Nikki snorted. "Caine's back. Since he killed the roaches, Caine has declared himself the king."

"What about Sam and the council?" Athene jumped to her feet. "Aren't they going to do anything?"

"They already did," Aerik told his sister.

"Sam and a bunch of kids except the fishermen and Albert left for a big lake up by the Stefano to start like a colony with Nutella and Ramen." Nikki shrugged. "Caine says he's going to take care of everyone in town still."

"What? Why don't we start packing now before things get too bad." Athene got to her feet, her mind starting to figure out everything they would need to move.

"I don't think we should leave." Aerik looked at Nikki. "We thought it might be alright here. I mean Albert is still in business, we can still sell wood. We'll be fine, who really cares?"

"I do. I'm not living under some king." Athene was on her feet, angry. "You shouldn't either Aerik. We would do even better up at the lake. We can hunt and fish. More kids will be needing firewood now. We have plenty of camping supplies and the kayaks. We have enough gas to haul our camp trailer out there with the truck. We've been to the Marina at Tramonto before."

"Athene, it won't be that bad." Nikki went to place a hand on the other girl's shoulder but stopped herself as she remembered the thick spikes that could sprout from her hands. "Really if we just lay low and don't bother anyone it will be life like we have it now."

"You just barely got into this life," Athene snapped.

Aerik jumped to his feet. "Athene, this is nothing fight over. We're staying you do what you want!"

"Fine!" Athene stepped up so she was only a few inches away.

"Come on, Aerik. Athene." Nikki tried to push herself in between them but Athene shoved her to the couch.

"Stay out of this, Nikki." Athene's dark brown eyes never left her brother's. Even at fifteen the Jack twins were the same height, and while a lot of kids had gotten scrawny, Aerik and Athene had thick waists and were heavy set, both were intimidating forces.

"I'll be leaving soon," Athene told them. " I'm taking my stuff too. That includes the tent trailer and my kayak and my atv and my guns and half the fuel."

"Go ahead. See if I care." Aerik shoved past his sister. "You sure you don't want to take the saws too?"

"I'm covered thanks." Spikes covered Athene's hands. "But I will be taking an axe. I'll be getting ready and leaving in the next few days."

Athene turned her back on her brother and his girlfriend and stormed back up to her room.