Plague

“Stop worrying,” he said harshly. “I’m not planning on leaving the island. How could I, even if I wanted to?”

“You would find a way,” Diana said bleakly.

“Yeah. But here I am anyway,” Caine said. He aimed the telescope back at the town. He could see the blackened hulks of burned-out homes just to the west of downtown.

“Don’t do it,” Diana said.

Caine didn’t ask what she meant. He knew.

“Just let it go,” Diana said. She put her hand on his shoulder. She caressed the side of his neck, his cheek.

He lowered the telescope and tossed it onto the overgrown sea grass. He turned, took her in his arms, and kissed her.

It had been a long time since he’d done that.

She felt different in his arms. Thinner. Smaller. More frail. But his body responded to her as it always had.

She did not pull away.

His own response surprised him. It had been a long time for that, too. A long time since he’d felt desire. Starving boys lusted after food, not after girls.

And now that it was happening, it was overwhelming. Like a roar in his ears. A pounding in his chest. He ached all the way through.

At the last second, the second when he would have lost the last of his self-control, Diana gently but firmly pushed him away.

“Not here,” she said.

“Where?” he gasped. He hated the neediness in his voice. He hated needing anyone or anything that badly. Need was weakness.

She detached his hands from her body. She took one step back. She was wearing an actual dress. A dress, with her legs showing and her shoulders bare and it was like she was a visitor from another planet.

He blinked, thinking maybe it was all a dream. She was clean and wearing a yellow summer dress. Her teeth had been brushed. Her hair was brushed, too, still a mess from cutting it all off and having it grow back while too hungry, but a shadow at least of its former dark, tumbling sensuality.

She bent down demurely and picked up the telescope. She handed it to him.

“Your choice, Caine. You can have me. Or you can try to take over the world. Not both. Because I’m not going to be part of that anymore. I can’t. So it’s up to you.”

His jaw dropped. Literally.

“You witch,” he said.

Diana laughed.

“You know I have the power . . . ,” he threatened.

“Of course. I would be helpless. But that’s not what you want.”

Caine spotted a boulder, not far away. Impressively big. He raised one hand, palm out, and with a scraping sound the boulder lifted into the air.

“Sometimes I hate you!” he yelled and with a flick of his wrist sent the boulder flying off the cliff and falling toward the water below.

“Just sometimes?” Diana raised one skeptical brow. “I hate you almost all the time.”

They glared at each other with a look that was hate but also something else, something so much more helpless than hatred.

“We’re damaged people,” Diana said, suddenly sad and serious. “Horrible, messed-up, evil people. But I want to change. I want us both to change.”

“Change? To what?” Caine asked, mystified.

“To people who no longer have dreams of being Napoleon.”

She was her usual smirking self again as she looked him slowly up and down. Slowly enough that he actually felt embarrassed and had to overcome a modest urge to cover himself. “Don’t decide right now,” she said. “You’re in no condition to think clearly.”

And she turned and walked back toward the house. Caine threw many more large boulders into the sea. It didn’t help.

Sam stood on the street corner watching Lana and Astrid enter the house he had shared with Astrid. Lana was carrying a water jug. Patrick stopped and stared in Sam’s direction, but the girls didn’t notice him and Patrick quickly lost interest.

He had come to tell Astrid he was going out of town. Astrid would keep the secret. And he wanted at least one person other than Albert to know where he was and what he was doing.

Anyway, that was what he told himself. Because admitting that he still, even now, even after everything that had happened, and everything that hadn’t happened, couldn’t just walk away from Astrid . . . that would be too big an admission of weakness.

He couldn’t not tell her he was leaving. She had to know that he was still . . . whatever he was. He kicked at a crumpled soda can and sent it skittering down the trash-strewn street.

Why was Lana going over to see Astrid? Little Pete must not be feeling well. But how could anyone tell what Little Pete was feeling?

Sam frowned. He didn’t want to have some scene with Astrid in front of Lana.

The sky was getting dark. He would be leaving soon. Dekka, Taylor, and Jack would be meeting him across the highway. Each was supposed to keep the whole thing secret.

In reality, of course, Jack would tell Brianna. Taylor would keep it quiet only because she didn’t know what was going on, and by the time she did they’d be out of town. Dekka would tell no one. And Sam? He would tell Astrid.

Sam knocked at Astrid’s door.

No answer.

Feeling strange and wrong he opened the door to what had until very recently been his own home and went inside.

Astrid and Lana were upstairs; he could hear the murmur of voices.

He took the stairs two at a time and called out, “Astrid, it’s me.”

They were in Little Pete’s room. Astrid and Lana stood a few feet apart with their backs to Sam.