Alright… Here is chapter two! Please, Please, Please, Review! If you review one of my stories I promise to review one of yours! So there is your incentive.

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-GoneLoverMM

Chapter Two

Caine Soren sat in the too large chair that had once belonged to the mayor of Perdido Beach. He chewed anxiously at his thumb. He knew that it was a rotten habit, but it wasn't as bad as some of the other habits kids had picked up since the coming of the FAYZ. At least he wasn't addicted to alcohol or smoking bags and bags of pot.

Caine had to remain focused on his job. When he had taken over the job as King of Perdido Beach he knew it wouldn't be easy. He wasn't naïve like his brother, Sam, had been. Caine knew what he was getting himself into. After all, kids were just kids. They were irresponsible, oblivious, and above all disobedient.

Sam had thought that the kids of Perdido Beach would band together and help each other out by picking fruits and vegetables that were rotting in the fields. No one, especially kids, worked for free, and Sam wasn't going to go all laser hands on them. However, Caine was willing to push the boundaries a little more.

He still paid his workers, or Albert did, but fear is what really motivated these kids to work. Caine had made an example of those Human Crew losers, and now kids had a sort of fear-induced respect for him. Nobody had respected Sam.

Caine laughed to himself. His twin brother was sort of a joke among the townies. After all, Sam wasn't a leader. Caine had to admit that he was a fighter, a good one at that, but he could have never run a town as smoothly as he was doing.

Lots had changed since Caine had taken charge. Everybody was eating well was a huge difference. Caine had employed about a dozen older kids as field supervisors. Their sole job was to monitor the younger ones as they worked. Once a week they would have to report their pickings to Albert. If they didn't make their expected weekly pickings, Caine was notified. This definitely increased the kid's motivation.

Another thing Caine changed was the day care system. Sam had been crazy to think that a handful of kids, even responsible ones like Brother John and Mother Mary, could take care of thirty something kids. So Caine created a new system. Every kid over the age of ten was paired with a Little. They were expected to take care of this little kids until they were old enough to live on their own. The system worked, and no one challenged Caine's authority.

A lot of other smaller changes had been made too, and these contributed to Perdido Beach running smoothly. Sometimes Caine liked to bask in what he had created. His brother had run this town into the ground, and somehow Caine had been able to pull it from the ashes, brush it off a bit, and fix it back up again. There was still one thing missing from Caine's life. Diana. His Diana.

It didn't take him long to discover that she had gone with Sam's group to the lake. Figuring out why she did it was a different story. Anger boiled inside of him and he clenched his hands into fist. Suddenly his closed office door bust open and fell of the hinges. Caine almost growled as he flung the door through the wall. It didn't go all the way through, so it sat halfway into the narrow hallway.

Diana's betrayal had cut Caine deep. He wasn't that confident with girl to begin with. What little confidence he had had been severed. He took confidence in the fact that any girl in the FAYZ was dying to be with him, but none of them were the girl for him. Caine made a promise to himself that he would get her back, and nobody disobeyed the King's orders. Not even the King himself.

If Caine was the kind of Perdido Beach, then Albert Hillsborough was literally the Donald Trump of the FAYZ. Albert thought this as he sat in the passenger's seat of a beat up pick up truck. Leah, an eleven-year-old girl he had hired, was driving. Albert had never learned how to drive. What was the point? He had more important things he had to worry about anyways. Leave the driving to the kid who had more free time on their hands.

Albert and Leah were currently heading towards the Lake. The back of the pick up truck was filled with boxes of fresh, handpicked vegetables. Every other week Albert made the trip out to the lake in order to transport the produce. He would live at the lake for a week and then commute back to his other home in Perdido Beach.

Albert didn't mind the trip. He had come to enjoy it. The change of people and scenery was a welcome change. Almost everybody seemed to get on his nerves lately. Albert was glad that Leah was a quite, stoic girl because it gave him time to think without any inane chatter.

Albert enjoyed this new job, even though it carried a lot of stress with it. Albert was like Caine's second in command. This title was rewarding, however disappointing Caine scared the crap out of Albert. Caine wasn't the most reasonable person on a good day, and anything that went wrong would be immediately put on albert.

If running the FAYZ was like running a corporation, Caine would be the CEO and he would be the CFO. Albert handled everything to do with money or planning. After all, it was his 'Bertos that had motivated the kids to work in the first place. However, that's where the analogy stops. Most CEO's don't throw their CFO's through a solid wall if they screw up. Caine very well could do this with ease. Albert tried to comfort himself with the fact that Caine needed him. However, he was sure that if he screwed up enough even that knowledge would be void.

However, Albert didn't mind the pressure of the job. In the past, Albert had liked Sam; he was a great guy, however he had to admit that he preferred working with Caine. Caine had vision and ambition. He knew what he wanted to get done and how he wanted to do it. It was then Albert's job to figure out how to make it all work.

When Albert had worked with Sam, it had been frustrating. Sam had always been all over the map. One second he would be thinking about something and the next second it would be something different. He was scatter brained. Albert knew this, so whenever he commuted to the small lake community he basically took over. Sam was a symbolic head, kind of like the Queen in a Constitutional Monarchy. He had control, but Albert ran the people.

The laws Astrid had created were still in practice. No significant ones had been added or changed. These laws were simple. Kids were simple. That's why they worked.

It was getting dark by the time they had made in to the Lake. A few kids were waiting there when they arrived. The kids helped them unload the produce, and by the time they were done a long line of hungry kids was waiting for their fair share. Albert handed out fairly small handfuls of different fruits and vegetables to each grateful kid.

Albert knew that the kids in Perdido Beach were eating better. It was harder to transfer the food all the way up to the lake. There were no longer any chemicals in their food, and because of this everything went bad at a much faster pace. By the time most of the food got to the Lake it would have already spoiled.

However, unlike the kids in Perdido Beach, the kids living near the lake had a nearly endless supply of water. Albert monitored this too. He had permitted each household 3-4 gallons of water a day. They could do whatever they wanted with it, and it was up to them to purify it.

Albert knew that the notion was kind of silly. The lake was so deep it was nearly bottomless, and it extended for miles, but you can never be too careful. They had all been stupid at the very beginning of the FAYZ. Precious resources and perishable food items had spoiled while they gorged on candy and chips. The very thought of these things delicacies made his stomach snarl almost audibly. Sometimes Albert wanted to kick himself for their stupidity.

After handing out the produce, Albert walked to his own houseboat. Nobody had wanted to share with him. None of the kids really liked Albert. They respected him, but nobody had taken the time to get to know him. He was seen as greedy and self-centered. Albert had to admit that he was. He wanted to be successful and well off. He had accepted that fact early on in his life as businessman of the FAYZ. He had once heard successful people say that it was lonely at the top. Albert finally understood what they meant.

Astrid Ellison diligently packed precious items into her small runners backpack. This backpack literally held her material life within its folds. However, Astrid realized that everything inside of it wasn't really important. She had let everything truly important go.

She had killed her little brother. She had fed her own flesh and blood to those horrible man-eating bugs. She had turned her back on Sam after he had confessed his love to her. What kind of person had she become? There was no possible answer. She was no longer a person. Astrid had become a monster.

She could barely live with herself. More than once she had considered going back to Coates and drinking bottle after bottle of Howard's vial excuse for alcohol. She would eventually drink herself to death or asphyxiate on her own vomit. However, that would be too easy, selfish even.

She didn't deserve to take away her own life. She didn't get to leave her worries behind, and step into whatever awaited her on the other side. She was probably going to hell anyways. No God in his right mind would open his arms to her and accept her into heaven after everything she had done.

Astrid was pretty sure that lying and killing were mortal sins. What kind of Christian was she? People would probably doubt she even read the bible after her behavior. However, Astrid did remember than if she could make up for her sins she could try and beg God for forgiveness. It was to his discretion whether or not he accepted her pleas.

There was only one way to fix this. Astrid had to find a way to make peace with what she had done to her brother. It was this that fact that forced her feet towards that mineshaft. She had heard snippets of what it would be like from Lana, but Astrid knew that it would be ten times worse.

She stood before the door leading down to the shaft. Her breath was ragged, and she was borderline hysteric. She pointed her flashlights beam down at the door, then she heard something move close by.

"Whose there?" She called out into the darkness. She had wanted to sound strong, but her voice had cracked.

"Pack Leader." The coyote said in its tortured, garbled way of speaking. It stepped into the beam of light. This coyote was definitely not the original pack leader, Astrid thought. Pack Leader was dead, so this coyote had taken over the position.

"What do you want?" Astrid said to it.

"Nothing," The coyote began, "Human not go down there."

Astrid was shocked. Was this coyote actually trying to help her out? This was the same species that had killed nearly eighteen kids so many months before.

"Why?" Astrid asked defiantly.

"Human goes down there, Human dies." The coyote said before scurrying off into the darkness.

Astrid wanted so badly to follow that coyote back to town, back to Sam, but she couldn't. She owed it to Little Pete. Astrid took one last shaky breath, steadied the flashlight and stepped down into the mine. She walked until she saw the faint, green glow. She felt it prodding inside her mind. Digging through her most personal thoughts and emotions. Astrid felt violated, but she had no power to stop it. Then she heard its voice in her head.

You'll do…