“Stick your hands in, Sam,” Drake ordered. “Do it or pop-goes-the-genius.”
Sam plunged his hands into the cement. The kid with the shovel dumped a load of wet, heavy cement into the hole and used a trowel to poke it down. Then half a shovelful and the boy used the trowel to smooth it over and return the excess to the wheelbarrow.
Sam knelt there, hands encased, his brain crazed with desperate plans and wild calculations. If he moved, Astrid would die. If he did nothing, they would be slaves.
“Okay, Astrid, your turn,” Drake said.
Another hole and the same process. Astrid was crying, saying, “It’ll be okay, Petey, it’ll be okay,” through her tears.
One of the mixers got busy digging a third hole. He did it with quick, practiced moves, slicing the turf with a trowel.
“Takes about ten minutes is all, Sam,” Drake said. “If you’re going to do something brave, you’ve got about eight minutes. Tick-tock.”
“This is how you have to deal with freaks,” Quinn said. “No choice, Drake.”
Sam could feel the concrete hardening. Already if he tried to move his fingers, he found they were imprisoned. Astrid was more upset than Sam had ever seen her. She was crying openly. Her fear fed his. He couldn’t bear it. For himself it was bad enough, but seeing her this way…
And yet, Astrid wasn’t returning his gaze, she was focused entirely on Little Pete. Almost as if she was crying for his benefit, communicating her terror to him.
Of course she was. But it wasn’t working. Little Pete was in his game, in another world.
“I think time’s about up for you, Sam,” Drake said with a laugh. “Try pulling your hands out. Can’t do it, can you?”
Drake stepped up behind him and swatted him on the back of his head.
“Come on, Sam. Even Caine’s scared of you, so you must be tough. Come on, show me what you’ve got.” He hit Sam again, this time with the barrel of the gun. Sam collapsed facedown in the dirt.
Sam raised himself up. He tugged as hard as he could, but his hands were imprisoned. His flesh itched. He fought against a tide of panic. He wanted to scream curses, but that would only entertain Drake.
“Yeah, take it like a man,” Drake crowed. “After all, you’re fourteen, right? So how long till you vacate? It’s all just a passing phase here in the FAYZ, right?”
The mixers dug the concrete block out of the dirt, and now, as he tried to stand, Sam felt the terrible weight of the thing. He could stand, but not without struggling.
Drake got up close to him. “So who’s the man here? Who brought you and the rest of these freaks down? Me. And me without any powers at all.”
Sam heard a door slam. He craned his head and saw Caine and Diana coming across the lawn.
Caine walked at a languid pace across the lawn, smiling more broadly the closer he got.
“Well, if it isn’t the defiant Sam Temple,” he said. “Let me shake your hand. Oh, sorry, my bad.” He laughed, a sound that seemed more a release of tension than anything else.
“I got him,” Drake announced. “I got them all.”
“Yes, you did,” Caine said. “Good work, Drake. Very good work. And I see Sam’s little friends are likewise caught.”
“Why don’t you give Drake a little scratch behind the ears, Caine, he’s been such a good dog,” Diana said.
The mixers had dug Astrid’s hands out of the dirt. She was crying hysterically, unable to stand all the way up. Little Pete went to her, walking like he was in a dream, head down over his Game Boy.
Astrid bumped her concrete block into Little Pete.
And suddenly Sam knew what she was doing. He had to provide distraction. He had to keep the focus away from Astrid and Little Pete.
“You don’t want to mess with this girl, her name is Lana,” Sam said, jerking his chin toward her. “She’s a healer.”
Caine’s eyebrows shot up. “A what? A healer?”
“She can heal anything, any kind of injury,” Sam said. Astrid, barely able to move, was slowly, rhythmically swinging her block back and forth in a narrow arc, bumping it against Little Pete’s Game Boy.
“She healed me,” Sam said. “Coyote bit me. Want to see?”
Caine said, “I have a better idea. Drake: give the girl something to heal.”
Drake laughed out loud, a gleeful sound. He pressed the muzzle of his pistol against Sam’s knee.
“No,” Diana yelled.
The explosion was shocking. The pain, at first, didn’t register, but Sam collapsed. He fell on his side like a felled tree. The leg, blown half off, buckled and twisted beneath him.
And then came the pain.
Drake smiled hugely and yelled an exultant, “Yeah!”
Astrid, startled, slammed the concrete block so hard against Little Pete that she knocked the Game Boy from his hands and knocked him back a step.
Diana frowned, alarmed. For the first time she really registered Little Pete’s presence.
Through a red mist of pain Sam saw her eyes fly open, her finger stab toward Little Pete.
“Drake, you idiot, the kid. The kid.”
Astrid dropped to her knees, slammed the concrete block down on the Game Boy.
There was no flash of light. No sound.
But suddenly the concrete encasing Astrid’s hands was gone. Simply gone.
So was the concrete block on Sam’s hands.
And every one of the other children.
Astrid was on her hands and knees, knuckles pressed into the soft dirt.