Disclaimer: The Gone Series belongs to Michael Grant. Wouldn't they be epic movies?
Time Frame: Post-Lies as if Plague hasn't existed yet.
Author's Note: Goodness gracious. At the rate I'm going, don't expect another chapter until next year. Or until my horoscope tells me to.
"Hey, uh, guys… I don't mean to bug you or anything…but where's Edilio?"
Quinn glanced nervously around the half circle surrounding where Edilio had stood not a few moments ago. The silence roared in all of their ears as loudly as thunder. Finally Brianna broke the strained quiet.
"I don't know what's going on but I want to find out now!" Despite all of the girl's bluster, a touch of hysteria was weaning its way into her voice.
Dekka and Quinn nodded uneasily. They too were a bit freaked out. Each one looked at the person they thought was the next to go. After a minute of hardly any breathing, the remaining crew seemed to take one unified breath.
"What now?" Brianna asked flatly, glancing from Dekka to Astrid. The former was lost for words and just shrugged. Astrid frowned and rubbed at her eyes.
"I don't…I don't know."
"What do you mean you don't know?" Quinn half shouted at her, his voice slightly rising. "You're Astrid the Genius! You're supposed to know where your boyfriend, his brother, and his new best friend went!"
Astrid's eyes grew wider and she felt like screaming herself. Dekka decided to stop the panicking before it became uncontrollable. "Calm down, Quinn," she said in a low voice. Quinn blinked and sighed.
"Sorry Astrid," he apologized sullenly. Astrid tersely accepted his apology before glancing at Little Pete again. The others followed her gaze.
"D'ya think he just moved them away? To try to stop trouble?" Brianna asked softly.
"Then why did Edilio disappear as well?" Quinn countered. "He wasn't doing anything."
"Edilio had a gun? Maybe Petey remembered it from Drake." Astrid offered helpfully.
Quinn looked suspicious. "Yeah, maybe. Or maybe they just disappeared like all the adults did a year ago. They poofed. Gone forever. Which means adios for us as well. Kiss your butt goodbye." He glanced up towards whatever was above them—be it sky or the FAYZ wall. While fishing, he would do that quite a few times when he was stressed. Stare at the sky and try to figure out what it was. It sure beat worrying about all of his problems.
Dekka cleared her throat loudly. The remaining three turned and stared at her. The girl quickly threw up her emotionless mask. "I think none of us know what happened for sure—but we can't rule out any possibilities. Maybe Astrid's brother just freaked and sent them away. Maybe. But we also can't forget that…" Dekka paused and readjusted her expression to a stony indifference. "What Quinn is suggesting may in fact be true; Sam and Edilio might actually be gone. For good. If that's the case, we must continue as if this is just a normal day. And it could be, for all we know."
Her heavy statement pressed down hard of each of the teens—freaks and normals alike. Astrid felt a frustrated tear well up in her eye while Quinn tried to quell a powerfully rising scream in his throat. Dekka looked weary and Brianna's eyes blazed with determination. The girl tightened her helter-skelter pigtails and dropped to one knee and retied her laces.
"What are you doing now?" Quinn asked, watching her with tired eyes. He had successfully managed to cut off his panic and replaced it with a dull fear. All of a sudden he was fairly sure he didn't want to be one the council anymore. If this was the average day, he hated to see what a particularly troublesome one was like.
Brianna's head jerked up so fast her pigtails exploded around her in a red halo. "I don't know what you guys are doing, but I'm going to go look for the rest of our—" Whatever word she was going to say was cut off and the girl disappeared in a sandy cloud.
"He loved me…he loved me not…" Diana paused and a sneer lit up on her face. She crumbled the daisy she held in her hand and threw it as far as she could. She sighed angrily and uprooted a few more innocent flowers. "Who am I to be plucking petals, crying over some bigheaded sociopath? I don't like him at all! In fact, I hate him!" She ranted to herself, throwing her fistful of daisy heads across the once well manicured lawn. Enough ocean spray had hit the flowers for them to survive without constant rain although the petals were fragile and dull. The girl had almost hoped that by some miracle, they were the same lovely and healthy flowers before the FAYZ but it just wasn't to be. Just stupid, wishful thinking. The same kind that got her into this mess. Stupidly wishing that Caine and she could live happily ever after.
She glared balefully at them before chucking another handful into the surf. The girl stared out across her new view. Right after taking a hand drawn bath, Diana had stuffed a few energy bars in a bag and went exploring. She had found a relatively calm harbor where the ocean lapped gently against the sand bar, which then soon faded into a brittle, grassy mound she was currently lounging on. The girl stretched her legs, kicked off her shoes, and wound her toes around the soft sand. Her hand roamed blindly for something else to throw. Her scared palm hit a smooth shell. Long fingers closed around it tight enough for the edges to bite into the girl. She brought it up to her face and studied it for a moment then dropped it into the sand beside her.
Diana let her head fall backwards and stared up at the overcast sky. She sighed loudly and took in the calming sounds of the ocean. As much as she tried, she couldn't erase the screams of that boy's adopted family or the shaking voice of Caine as he walked away. With a willpower that wasn't entirely hers, Diana surged to her feet. Taking three brisk steps, she stood ankle deep into the cold ocean. Slight tremors rocked her body and caused her teeth to rattle. Suddenly the girl dropped to her knees and crawled deeper into the water. The waves lapping against her thighs and elbows were more from water disturbance than actual waves.
"I hate him," she was murmuring, scrubbing at her arms with the salt water. It sung her various injuries but the girl didn't care. She was trying to wash away the heat from Caine's touch on her arms. "I hate him!" she said louder, almost unsure of herself. Diana climbed back to her feet, stumbled back to shore, grabbed the shell and glanced at it again. She slipped it into a pocket and scooped up another, larger rock. With a deep grunt of frustration, she heaved it as far as she could. Built in anger carried the rock many more feet away. She gasped at the amount of tension that left her. Quickly she grabbed another rock and threw it. "I hate him!" she screamed. It spiraled through the air and landed with a satisfying splash into the cold surf. Diana laughed weakly and shook her head. She grabbed three more rocks. "I hate him and his stupid, controlling powers!" One rock tumbled through the air at breakneck speed. Diana rolled another in her palm and chucked it. "I hate him and his stupid ego!" The girl looked down at her last compliant pebble and froze. What else did she hate about Caine? That he kept saving her life? That he hated almost everyone? That he loved her? Unable to decide, Diana chose to just cancel out that stone until she had a good reason. She tossed it behind her.
"Ow!" a boyish voice shouted.
Diana spun around, her heart in her throat. Had Caine listened to everything she had just poured out? Her spirits fell when she saw nobody there. At least no one visible. "Come out Bug."
Bug slowly faded into the visible spectrum then faded out, rubbing his head. "That was a good throw," he said sullenly.
"Why were you listening to what I was saying? It's not nice to spy, you know." Diana told him curtly. "But you wouldn't know anything about manners, would you?"
"I saw you out here…I kinda was wondering if you ha—" Bug started sheepishly.
"I have food. Here, you pig!" Diana threw the bag to where the boy's voice was coming from with evident disgust in her voice.
The backpack flap opened up and Diana saw various contents spilled out across the sand and grass. A chocolate energy bar floated in midair, unwrapped itself, and promptly began to shrink. Despite her repulsion for her intruder and his sneaking habits, the girl was somewhat fascinated to see the bar seemingly consume itself.
"So why aren't you following every beck and call of our Fearless Leader?" Diana asked after a while. There was silence and she was half sure Bug had left. "You can have more if you tell me why you were following me and if Caine sent you."
Finally Bug spoke again. "I want the one flavored like strawberry."
Diana rolled her eyes and kicked the nearby snack bar towards the voice. It too was soon gone. Bug's face slowly faded into her vision. He stared at her for a moment, a look of wariness and disbelief on his face. "So it was Caine who you hate? You seemed to be pretty angry at someone."
"How do you know it wasn't you I was talking about?" Diana told him icily. "You seem pretty sure of yourself, Bug, for someone who could easily be smashed against a wall. Caine could do that to you if you tell him what you saw."
Bug's expression froze into a suspicious smirk. "Wait, you don't know?"
"Know what? How many brain cells you have? 'Cause that answer is zero." Still, Diana's blood turned slightly cold. It's just from the ocean, she reasoned to herself.
Bug's scowl faded out of sight. "No," he said quickly. The invisible boy paused. "It's Caine."
"What about him?" snapped Diana. "Actually, I don't care about him anymore. He could have jumped off a cliff for all I care."
Bug became visible again and looked at her oddly. "That's what he did. Caine jumped off a cliff. He's dead."
"You're Astrid the Genius. You should know what to do," muttered the girl as she strode up the rather steep sand dune. Why there were suddenly steep sand dunes near Perdido Beach was beyond her. She was too wrapped up in her current conflict to really care. "How did that fisherman ever make it onto the council in the first place?" Astrid complained louder. Having an I.Q. much higher than the average person, the girl already knew why: Quinn had found a way to help stabilize not only the food source from the ocean but a way to indirectly stop the zekes. Besides, sitting in a boat didn't need much courage and smarts—in fact, sometimes the weaker kids were drafted into that job. All the citizens knew about Fedora-boy was that something fishy had happened a while back between the town's infamous twins and he brought food to the table. Astrid pondered over this for a while. The main opinion that almost everyone shared of the boy was probably along the lines of 'yeah, he's a bit weird, but he feeds us.' Astrid sighed and shook her head. It's hard to fight logic with an empty stomach. She continued along the sandy ground and soon reached the edge of Perdido Beach. The girl paused again and considered her route. If she went through town, she'd be expected to answer questions truthfully. The blond wasn't sure on what she would say but she was fairly certain it wasn't going to be the full truth. The entire town would fall into panic if she said their two leaders just suddenly poofed out along with one of their last remaining enemies. In order to delay the inevitable, she chose to go the longer, less traveled trail past the old access road. She was grateful that Dekka had volunteered to take Petey because she didn't want her younger brother to be near this place ever.
As she strolled down the access road, Astrid shivered. Before the FAYZ, the barren area held a cold, forbidding feel to it. Not much had changed since the wall went up. In what used to be called Bully Row, people used to dare others to see how long they could last on the street and stay in one piece. She glanced at a particularly decrepit house with a sloping roof and broken windows. Of the last four tenants to have lived there, only one remained. One had died in a knife fight in the first few weeks of the FAYZ, another at the Perdido Beach battle and the last from suicide. Though the school had fallen—after all, who needs to know about common denominators when the world is falling to pieces—its bullies refused to fade away. They all flocked to the grungy square to escape Sam's 'you work, you play nice, you survive' rule. He of course fixed that problem right after the fire and now the once terrifying lane soon became a ghost street.
Astrid kept walking and paused by another house. Instead of being the typical scummy gray most of the houses were, this one had a yellowish tint to it. It looked happier than the rest of the shacks surrounding it with a crooked window box hanging below one window and a white lawn chair overturned on the front lawn. Whoever had lived in it before clearly wanted more in life than what they had been given. If they ever escaped the FAYZ, Astrid would have liked to have met the past residents. She sighed and pushed forward. Does it really matter who lived there though? They were gone and like what Sam, Edilio, and Caine proved earlier that day, the remaining Perdido Beach citizens didn't have much time left either. Way to think positive, Astrid.
Her mind drifted away from yellow houses and window boxes to what had happened to the three back at the sand dunes. It seemed like Caine was just about to lose it when everyone started collapsing. Sam disappeared followed by his brother and Edilio. Astrid noted with a slight hint of dread that Little Pete also held a prominent part in the whole drama. When his screaming stopped, the people he looked at disappeared. Was Quinn partly right in saying her brother was able to 'poof' people out of the FAYZ? She didn't want to think about that either. The girl found herself at the opening of Bully Row. She blinked and stared back down the street. Hardly any good had come from that place. The only thing she thought counted was Orc and it wasn't until a radioactive devil turned him into a half ton rock monster and a tiny worm threatened to chew out his cheek did the boy turned to the good side. All in all, Astrid considered that it was perhaps one of the biggest transformations in the entire town. Orc's little ally, Howard, also changed for the better. Though the council rat was still crooked, at least he wasn't hanging with Caine or his old cronies anymore.
Thinking of Orc and Howard made her reflect on the creature in their basement. She wished Sam or someone would just finally destroy the thing and put a final end to Drake for once and for all. But when it became Brittney, like Orc, Astrid had a difficult time wanting to end the thing's life. Even though the creature begged to be put out of its misery, it felt too much like murder. Now that Perdido's most powerful were missing in action, she had no idea on who could stop Drake if he ever took total control of the body. Orc was the only one who could stand a chance. The blonde felt like the two should know about what had happened first. Besides, anything that delayed her from entering Perdido Beach was best for the citizens and herself. She steered her course towards the makeshift house Howard, Orc, and the monster shared.
The first thing that tipped Astrid off that something was wrong was the fact that the door was open. The second thing was the door was completely ripped off its hinges. Her breath caught in her throat and the girl felt her blood turn to ice. She was stuck between three options: running to the house, stay frozen in place like she was, or turning tail and sprint back, screaming all the way to Perdido Beach Plaza. Clearly that Drake monster is out, she reasoned with herself. If I do the first or the last option and he's still there, I'm dead. If I just stay here and he comes out or comes back, I'm dead. Her options were not cheerful. She absently patted the empty air beside her.
"Shh, shh, Petey, it's alright," she said without thinking. The girl stopped what she was doing and chastised herself for allowing her fear to control her common sense. Petey was back at Perdido Beach with Dekka. She almost wished her brother was with her. Then he could poof us out if things go bad, she thought to herself almost defensively. She chastised herself again for the thoughts. Of course the girl was being selfish. Better she die alone then bring her little brother into it. In a quick, adrenaline forced decision, Astrid walked quietly towards the marred house. She paused and listened for what felt like forever. No sounds could be detected. But could it be a trick from Drake? Astrid paused to think. I doubt the sadist would be able to come up with a plan…let alone spell the word "plan." She slipped inside the house. It took a while for her eyes to adjust to the darkness. From the pale light from the door way, she could see a partial "Sammy Sun." It didn't look like it was slashed—it almost seemed like it had been deflated or self combusted. The sides were black and hard and no light glowed from its center. Astrid's wide eyes turned slowly towards a form in the corner. It looked too small to be a large piece of furniture but too big to be a thrown blanket. She took in the ripped jacket and bruised face and screamed. Her hands flew to her mouth and she pressed herself into a corner. From a distance she heard loud footsteps shuffle towards the house. She held her breath and tried not to sneeze in the dust.
"Whut da hell happ'nd to muh door?" a slurred voice sounded angrily from outside.
Astrid was so relieved she almost burst into tears. "Or—I mean, Charles!" she screamed, "Charles! Help!"
Orc's huge frame filled the doorframe and blocked out all of the light. "Ahtrid?" his drunken voice sounded surprised. Astrid heard the slosh of wet gravel and suddenly the smell of beer and earth filled the room. "Did you do dis to muh door?" he asked thickly. Orc cleared the door and the pale light came back in. He noticed Astrid's slightly splotchy face and wide eyes. "Is sump'n wrong?"
Astrid turned and pointed a shaking hand at the heap in the floor.
"It's Howard."
All who think the characters are slightly OOC, say aye. (Aye xD) I'm gettin' rusty at writing with these fellas. Thanks to everyone who's been reading this. I know it's kind of daunting but this story just hit over 1,700 hits. Wow guys, you are awesome! Thanks especially to my magnificent reviews and subscribers.
HungryInTheDarkForNachosLOL - Depressed, slightly crazy, and fleeing from Drake? That can be arranged :D Thanks for the review!
KillCaine01 - I have to admit, your awesome review was the thing that made me pull this story back out from underneath its rock. This chapter is dedicated to you! Anyway, thank you very much for the wonderful encouragement!