The hunger was terrible. It had been bad when all Bug hoped to get was a can of beets. But the mere existence of fresh fish . . . he was imagining the smell. He was imagining the flavor. He was slavering, drooling, his stomach . . .
“If you give me some fish, I’ll tell you a secret,” Bug said suddenly.
Quinn jumped about a foot.
Bug turned off his camouflage.
Quinn reached for one of the knives and yelled, “Guards! Guards, in here!”
Bug held out his hands, showing he had no weapon. “I’m just hungry. I’m just so hungry.”
“How did you get in here?”
“I want some fish. Give me some fish,” Bug pleaded. “I’ll tell you everything. I’ll tell what Caine’s doing. I am so hungry.”
Quinn looked profoundly uncomfortable. Even nervous. Two armed kids rushed into the room. They looked to Quinn for direction, and pointed their guns without any real conviction.
Quinn said, “Oh, man. Oh, man.”
“I just want to eat,” Bug said. He broke down crying. Sobbing like a baby. “I want some fish.”
“I have to take you to Sam,” Quinn said. He didn’t seem to be happy about the idea.
Bug fell to his knees. “Fish,” he begged.
“Give him one bite,” Quinn said, making his decision. “One single bite. One of you go and bring Sam and Astrid. They can decide whether to give this little creep any more.”
One of the guards took off.
Quinn looked down at the weeping Bug. “Man, you have picked a bad time to switch sides.”
His surfboard was still leaning against the washing machine in the tiny room off the kitchen. A Channel Island MBM.
Sam wanted to touch it, but couldn’t bring himself to. It was everything he had lost in the FAYZ.
His wetsuit hung from a peg. The can of wax was on the rickety shelf next to the laundry detergent and the fabric softener.
The ball of light was still there in his bedroom. Still floating in the air, just outside of Sam’s bedroom closet.
He hadn’t been back to his old home in a long time. He’d forgotten the light would be there.
Strange.
He passed his hand through it. Not much of a sensation.
He remembered when it first happened. He’d been scared of the dark. Back then. Back when he was Sam Temple, some kid, some random kid who just wanted to surf.
No. That wasn’t true, either. He’d already stopped being just some random kid. He’d already been School Bus Sam, the quick-thinking seventh grader who had taken the wheel when the bus driver had had a heart attack.
He’d been that.
And he’d been the kid who had freaked out, not understanding that the argument between his mother and stepfather was no big thing. He’d thought his stepfather was going to hit his mother.
So, by the time Sam, in a panic, had created the light that would not die, he had already been School Bus Sam, and the person who’d burned a grown man’s hand off.
Not some random teenager.
He hated this house and hated this room. Why had he come here?
Because everyone knew he hated it, so they wouldn’t come looking for him here. They’d search for him everywhere and not find him.
The stuff he had in his room—the clothes, the books, the old school notebooks, the pictures he had taken once with a waterproof camera while he was surfing—none of it meant anything to him. Some other kid’s stuff, not his. Not anymore.
He sat on the end of his bed, feeling like an intruder. A strange feeling since this was the only place he’d stayed in the last three months that he had any real claim to.
He gazed at the ball of light. “Turn off,” he said.
The ball did not respond.
Sam raised his palms, aimed them toward the light, and thought the single word, Dark.
The light disappeared.
The room was plunged into darkness. So dark, he couldn’t see his hand in front of his face. All over town, kids were sitting in the dark, just like this. He supposed he could go around and create little light balls in every house in town. Sam, the electrician.
He was no longer afraid of the dark. That realization surprised him. The dark almost felt cozy, now. Safe. No one could see him in the dark.
There was a list in his head, a list that kept scrolling and scrolling. Words and phrases. One after another. Each representing a thing he should be doing.
Zekes. Caine and the power plant. Little Pete and his monsters. Food. Zil and Hunter. Lana and . . . whatever. Water. Jack. Albert.
Those were the headlines. Buzzing around those great big things were thousands of smaller things, like a nest of hornets. Kids fighting. Dogs and cats. Broken windows. Grass. Gasoline that needed to be rationed. Trash piling up. Toilets plugged. Teeth needing to be brushed. Kids drinking. Bedtimes. Mary throwing up. Cigarettes and pot.
Things to do. Decisions to make.
No one listening.
And what about Astrid?
And what about Quinn?
And what about kids talking more openly about stepping off when the Big One-Five rolled around?
And around and around and around it whirled through his head.
He sat in the dark on the end of his bed. He wanted to cry. That’s what he wanted to do. But there wouldn’t be anyone to come and pat him on the shoulder and tell him everything would be okay.
There was no one. And things wouldn’t be okay.
It was all coming apart.
He imagined himself facing a tribunal. Stone faces glaring at him. Accusations. You let them starve, Sam. You let normals turn against freaks.