Author's Note: Thank to those who are reading this, but don't forget to hit the little review button, it doesn't take too much effort. Big thanks to macrauchenia for being a great beta!

PLease be sure to review, I hate seeing 35 hits and visitors and not a single review, if you like it great, let me know, if not tell me why you hated it :D

I don't own the FAYZ

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Chapter 3

Crissy moved through the crowd of boys as she glared down at one in particular. "So how were you planning on paying up?" She neatly cleaned under her nails with a pocket knife.

"I-I-I don't know," the scrawny boy mumbled as his head twitched.

"You look like you're high," growled a teenage boy standing next to Crissy. His curly red hair dripped into his green eyes as he sniffed. "What are y' doing getting high when you owe the nice lady money?"

"Oh please, Marshall. Don't frighten the poor thing." Crissy sighed like this was causing her pain. "I could cut off a finger or two and sell them maybe. Would you hand me my knife, Marshall?"

The moment the burly boy reached for a blade in his belt, the scrawny kid fell at Crissy's feet, beginning to beg. "No, please! I have money and bullets in my house. Take me there and I'll give them to you, please."

Crissy put a thoughtful expression on her innocent looking face. "But I've had to go without my money for some time now…"

"Interest…I'll pay interest too!" he told her.

"Fine, if it means that much to you. Marshall, be a dear and send two of your strapping men to help him home and bring back the money please." Crissy turned to walk away.

Marshall caught up to her with four other guys at his back carrying weapons of some sort, and more strapped to their backs. "They'll be back to you in no time."

"Wonderful." Crissy was headed straight for the casino she ran. "Now I just have to see which slut Jace is screwing before I get to work on other matters."

Crissy felt Marshall stare at her for a moment. "I've heard the guys saying Mercedes has been hoping…" he admitted

"I know that, Marshall." Crissy wrapped her arm through his. "The problem is catching him in the act so I can punish him properly."

When they made it to the casino compound, Jace was nowhere inside the house he shared with Crissy. As she went to her make shift office, she crossed a name off a list of people owing money to the casino on the wall.

"A few more and we will be booming again." She took her pen and tossed it on the desk. "From now on I want you sleeping on the couch here. Jace has Dwight; I'll have you on hand."

She nodded once and heard yells coming from the back yard. Her eyes widened when Marshall grabbed a machete on the back of his belt and went to shut the door.

"No," she commanded. "If something's wrong, I have to deal with it. Let's go." Crissy pulled out a pistol and followed Marshall out to the back of the house where the guard house and the girls' house were.

Jace and three other guys were whooping as a ring of girls formed around them, and a pool. "Now that's what I'm talking about!" Jace grabbed a dark skinned girl and kissed her full on the mouth. "How's that, babe?"

"Maravillosa de mi galan," Mercedes told him.

Marshall cleared his throat and Jace turned around.

"Where the hell have you been?" Ace demanded. "I needed the guys for some work and they were gone. You don't need half a dozen for your shopping trips."

"I don't think we need to be discussing this in front of everyone, Ace," Crissy said sharply.

"The hell we don't. First you're missing, then Dwight." Jace flipped his hand in the air. "At least he left the pool like I asked. You just take my guys and go. Where have you been? You guys go start getting ready to go to the beach and fill up on water. We have old gas cans and a couple of fifty gallon barrels already."

"All of you stay," Crissy commanded.

"I give the orders and I say go." Jace scowled at Crissy's turn in behavior.

Crissy stepped forward, Marshall was right beside her. "I've been gone all morning collecting on loans that you made so that you could pay these people and not be blaming them for every loss. Thanks to me, we all eat tonight."

Murmurs started to pick up around Jace. The boy jerked his head. "I run this place; you wouldn't win half as much without me."

"You wouldn't have anything to bet without me. I'll keep you around, but I run this place now." Crissy looked at the boys already helping Jace."You keep helping him. Girls, you have some work to do to. You don't just sit around to look pretty. Let's go, Marshall."

Crissy turned to walk away and ignore the boiling fury building up in Jace's face.

"You're not living in my house anymore!" Ace screamed at her.

Crissy calmly turned around. "You're right. It's mine now. Marshall will help you get your stuff out after you fill that pool. Dwight can stay if he wants though, but he'll be sleeping on the couch. Marshall needs a room."

Crissy turned her back on him and left him there, fuming. Everyone stared and didn't say a word. "Get to work, all of you!" Jace shoved pass the gaping Mercedes towards to barrels and buckets. He saw the tall dark hair figure of Dwight coming through the gate. He ignored the dark look in the taller boy's face and the straight line across his mouth. "And where the hell have you been?"

~x~X~x~

Will could barely move while he stared down at his baby brother. They had come, just like asked them to.

Aerik and Athene stayed away from each other, some darkness between the twins that they didn't want to share with the world. Nikki stayed away from Athene, almost like she was afraid of the girl. They came though. Nikki carried precious medicine, Aerik had bundles of food, and Athene carried the burden of jugs of water. It was dangerous to go through town like that, but they did.

They weren't carrying a miracle though.

Athene checked Demi over. She had been sick too and recovered, but others hadn't. She gripped his shoulders when she sat him down on the couch and told him the news. The truth of it hit him in the pit of his stomach and forced itself, along with anything he had eaten that day, up and onto the floor. They couldn't do anything; medicine didn't work on it, she explained. From what Nikki and Aerik had heard about other kids, the truth was right there in their faces.

They offered to take the boys with them up to their house. Offered to feed them and care for them both. Will yelled at them and told them they didn't know what they what talking about. He ran them out of the house, telling them he would make his brother better. Aerik and Nikki ran away from him. Athene stood her ground, begging to let them help. She refused to budge, she was like a rock, solid and steady and unflinching.

He pushed her away though and wished he hadn't.

He could do nothing else as watched the shallow little breaths making his brother's chest, rise and fall. Rise and fall. Rise and fall.

Demi was going to die and he knew it, but couldn't believe it.

~x~X~x~

Kris trembled as Jean held his hand and towed him back to the house where they lived, a bag of artichokes were strapped to her back.

Kris pulled away when a few kids saw him and he took off into their house. Jean scowled but followed.

"Kristos, where are you?" she called. She found him in the room that he claimed as his own. His legs were crossed on his bed as he stared down at a box of paints and markers. "Kris?" She leaned in, her dark black hair falling around her face as she stared him.

"Take them," he mumbled and pushed the box towards her. "Take them all. Hide them, please, Jean."

She nodded slowly and took the box and went out to the room she slept in. There was loose board in the floor next to the bed that she could just slide the little kids shoe box under. She looked into the mirror that was leaning on a dresser. She saw her own dark blue eyes and the gray under them from listening to Kris tossing in his bed at night. Trying to sleep. She bit her lower lip as she turned to go back to the other room. She didn't have to do this.

She could do a million other things rather than fix a druggie. She worked with them though; she was fourteen and before the FAYZ, she was a good girl. She helped people by acting as a peer councilor. Then, when they started running out of food, she did…it. She couldn't even bare to think about what she did. She needed food, and it was her salvation. When she found other ways to get food, she stopped, but the thought still ate at the back of her mind and made her have to do something to make up for it. If it meant fixing this little screw up, so be it. Kristos could be her salvation, or his own damnation. She just had to try.

"Kris?" she walked back into the room and found him on the bed in a fetal position, crying.

His eyes were wild again when he looked up at her. "Leave me alone," he wailed. "Just go away."

She grabbed his wrists and pulled his hands away from clawing at his own hair. "I'm not leaving, Kris. Kris, focus on me."

"I can't stop thinking about it." He looked up at her, licking his lips. "I can't stop. I can't. I need it. I need something."

She pulled him closer to her and rocked him like a child. "No, you don't, Kris. Focus on me."

"I can't focus!" He grabbed her shoulders like he needed an anchor to this Earth. "I need something to deal with it." He grabbed her and intertwined their fingers. "I lost it a long time ago. I needed something to handle it. Huffing was how I handled it. Nothing makes me feel good. People hate me, you hate me. Everyone hates me. That's why my parents poofed. They hated me!"

"Don't talk like that, Kris." She didn't let go of his hands as she tried to figure out how to handle him. "No one hates you."

"You do!" he snapped. "You hate me!"

"No, I don't," she explained.

Kris started to pull his hands out of hers, shaking his head. "I know you do, you hate me. I'm a slime ball."

"I do not hate you, Kristos."

"Then why are you yelling at me?" he growled at her. "You hate me, and I can prove it!"

"I don't hate you!" she yelled back.

Kris jerked his head out and kissed her. Jean shoved him back as she fell backwards. Shock registered throughout her mind. This wasn't how she was wanted to fix him.

Kris fell onto his pillow. He knew she hated him. His mind was half gone from the drugs and the FAYZ and everything else trying to tear him apart. He looked out for himself for so long, trying to stop his one true vice was ripping his head apart. Jean was nice, and helpful and a little wrong all at once and he wanted her to like him. He was stuck in his head grasping at threads of what was going on around him. When he grabbed at one, he threw himself at her and she threw him back.

"I told you that you hated me," he mumbled as he started to withdraw back into himself taking his trembling hands and tremors in stride. "You hate me."

Jean's black eyebrows came together as she climbed up onto her knees. She looked angry as came closer and looked like she was about to hit him. Kris flinch as her hand swung towards him and grabbed his shirt. Then she crushed her lips to his and made his world spin.

~x~X~x~

Aerik flopped onto his couch next to Nikki. "I can't believe it."

"I know. He's just a little kid." His girlfriend tucked her legs underneath herself as she leaned on his shoulder. "Will won't let us do anything that we can and we can't fix him. Do you really think Demi's going to…you know?"

Aerik swallowed hard and shrugged. "At least Caine has things under control. No more plagues, food is coming in faster, and the Human Crew hasn't caused us any trouble. What's left of them, anyway."

"We wouldn't have to worry about the Human Crew anyway. We're normal." Nikki ignored thee hard line his lips made. "Athene hides it," she amended.

Almost as if the sound of her name brought life to the person, Athene came stomping down the stairs with two big duffle bags over her shoulders and a box in her arms.

"What are you doing?" Aerik demanded. "You know you're not really leaving?"

Athene glared at him over the box in her arms. "I'm sure not staying here. I will not live under a king or be told what to do. I'm leaving for the lake. We went over this already."

"Athene, you don't want to do that." Nikki scowled as the other girl headed out the back. "Aerik, can you talk to her?"

Aerik sighed and got his feet to follow her outside. "This is ridiculous, Athene."

"What?" She dropped her box on the brittle grass and turned on him. "That I'm deciding to do what I want or you're letting Nikki tell you what to do."

"She is not!"

Athene shoved him back a step so she could grab her box again. "Sure, and I'm the queen of England."

Aerik glared as he watched her load her bags onto the front of the tent trailer their family owned. They had a bigger fifth wheel trailer, but she wasn't going to take the truck to haul it and leave him here with nothing. Bundles of gun cases and big compound bow case were already strapped down, along with tools and other supplies. The ball on her ATV was already hooked onto the trailer.

"And when do you think you're leaving, Athene Jack?"

She didn't even cast a second look at him. "As soon as I'm ready. I'm going down to the highway tonight to see if I can get some solar panels off the signs."

"And if freak haters are around?"

She shrugged.

"You'll get killed."

"And you'll be all toasty cuddled up to Nikki."

Aerik's fists clenched. "What about that guy that was with you today?"

Athene dropped the tie downs she was working on. "Dwight has nothing to do with this. He was helping me carry things up here. So just back off and go back to your make out sessions!"

"Yeah, maybe I will!" Aerik's teeth ground together. "I can do that because I don't bitch so much that people can't stand to be around me!"

He ignored any retort or sour look she had for him as he stormed into the house.

"Aerik?" Nikki was in the hall waiting. "What's going on?"

"Never mind her," he growled and kissed her. "I don't care what she does or where she goes."

"Don't do this to her, Aerik." Nikki grabbed his hand and looked up into his angry brown eyes. "You need to calm down and make amends. This is no good for anyone."

"No, she doesn't care about anyone but herself."

"We need to get her out of your head for a while then." She started to place her lips on his neck. "Come with me," mumbled Nikki as she started to pull him towards his room