Plague

“But . . . Why would you . . . ?”

He laughed. A smug, cruel laugh. “There are only two four bars in the FAYZ, Diana. Sooner or later someone would get sick enough of Sam lording it over them that they’d come to find me.”

Diana felt something twisting inside her.

“Hey, Quinn. Up here!” Caine yelled. Then, in an aside, “Bug, disappear. Stay ready. It might be some kind of trick.”

Bug faded from view.

Quinn killed the engine. He stood up, moving easily with the rocking of the boat. “Caine. Where do I land the boat?”

“No need,” Caine said. He was grinning hugely now. “Sit down and hold on.”

Caine stepped to the very edge of the cliff. He raised his hands. The boat began to rise from the water. Dripping, and trailing a fringe of algae, it floated up and up and came to rest on the overgrown grass. Caine released it and it tipped onto its side. Quinn jumped to avoid being spilled out of the boat.

“Well, Quinn, what brings you to Fantasy Island?” Caine asked.

“Hey, Diana,” Quinn said.

Diana didn’t respond. She knew. Just like Caine knew. Somehow, despite everything, Quinn was here to bring Caine back.

“Edilio sent me,” Quinn said.

Caine smiled skeptically. “Edilio? Last guy on earth I expected to be sending me messages.”

“Edilio’s mayor now.”

Diana felt a pang. “Is Sam dead?”

Quinn started to answer, but Caine interrupted. “No, no: let me guess. I’m going to say . . . Sam got tired of doing every-one’s dirty work, taking all the risks, and then catching all the blame when things didn’t go perfectly.”

Caine relished the mute confirmation on Quinn’s face. He laughed and said, “Come on, Quinn. Come inside and have something to eat.”

“I’m just here to—”

Caine waved this off and said, “No, no, no, you have to come in. I don’t want to stand out here in a bathrobe. After all, this is a big moment in the history of the FAYZ.”

“A big moment?” Diana said.

“My triumphant return, Diana. That’s why Quinn’s here: to beg me to come back.”

“Well, he’s wasting his time,” Diana said, but even she didn’t believe it. She followed Caine and Quinn back to the house.

“Would you like some crackers and cheese?” Caine suggested brightly. He could barely contain himself. He was grinning hugely. Cocky. Swaggering. Even as Diana felt the small hope she’d nurtured die inside her.

They brought Quinn some crackers and cheese and a cookie. He didn’t resist but ate them quickly with pleasure he could not conceal.

“You know, we have a very nice life here,” Caine said expansively. “Plenty of food. Water. Even hot water for showers if you can believe it. In fact, we were just lying in bed talking about it.”

“Yeah. It’s nice,” Quinn said with an embarrassed glance at Diana.

Caine watched him eat, considering. “Diana, I think you’d better do a reading on Quinn. Just in case something has developed.”

Diana hadn’t done a reading in a long time. It was her power: an ability to read whether a person was a freak or a normal. And then to know how much power the person had. Diana was the one to invent the half-mocking bar system. One bar, two bars, like a cell phone.

Diana stood next to Quinn and laid a hand on his shoulder. She concentrated, forming the picture in her head.

“Nothing,” Diana said.

“Could have told you that,” Quinn said, voice muffled by cookie.

Diana dropped her hand to her hip. “You’re normal, Quinn. Now . . .” She stopped in midsentence. She’d been about to tell Quinn to go home, leave, get off the island right now, this instant.

But something . . . she felt something. Something registered, some power.

A freak.

Bug was close by, still invisible, but not touching her, not making physical contact. Nor was Caine touching her. The power to read freaks only worked on direct touch.

Was she sensing her own power? No. No, this was something different. It was faint but persistent.

She turned away and placed her hand on her stomach.

“So, Quinn, tell me: what’s the big crisis?” Caine asked.

Diana nearly fainted. There it was, clearer than before. A reading. Two bars. Definitely. Clear, unmistakable.

“There’s a sickness,” Quinn was saying. “Like a flu or something, but kids are coughing their lungs out, dying.”

No, Diana thought. Please, no.

“And there are these creatures, like, well, people are calling them roaches . . . And Drake . . .”

“Old Drake’s alive?” Caine stood suddenly.

“In a way,” Quinn said darkly.

“I have to . . . ,” Diana said faintly. “I have to go to the bathroom.”

She fled the room and held it together until she reached her room. There she threw herself on the bed and lay both hands on her belly. She read her own power—as always, two bars. But there it was still, definitely there. A second power.

Not possible. It didn’t happen this quickly. She tried to recall half-remembered lectures from sex ed a million years ago. Words like “blastocyst” and “embryo” swam in her brain.

It had been just twenty-four hours since the first opportunity for fertilization. She knew from past experience that a home pregnancy test wouldn’t even work until ten days after.