He laughed. “Yeah, well, actually, they can. A king, a warrior, whatever I was, I want to go out in a blaze of glory. I’ve risen as high as I’m ever going to. And if I survive, I’m just going to end up as prisoner number three-one-two-whatever. You coming to see me on visiting days.”
“But I will come see you. And I will wait for you.”
“No,” he said firmly. “I get my big finish. And you get your life. Move on, Diana.”
“You’re not fooling me,” she said. “I know why you’re doing this—”
“Because I want to win,” he said.
“Yes.”
“And because I want to write the end of my own story.”
“Yes. And because you want redemption,” she said raggedly.
He shrugged. “If that’s what you want to believe.”
“And because you love me.”
Suddenly Caine was unable to say more. He waited, trying to master his emotions. They kissed, with Diana’s tears running down his cheeks. Then, using the power he had, he pried her loose and gently deposited her in the boat, now drifting out of reach of the dock.
“Hey,” he said. “Don’t tell anyone about those last two, okay? You tell anyone who ever asks: right to the end, Caine was in charge.”
He turned away quickly, lifted the deadly cargo, and trudged toward a burning Perdido Beach.
“Not yet, Little Pete,” he whispered, touching his cheeks and feeling her tears on his fingertips. “Not just yet.”
TWENTY-NINE
42 MINUTES
GAIA BURNED AND killed the length of the access road before turning right on Sheridan Avenue. Heading for the town plaza. At the corner of Golding she paused to attack the school.
She burned it in detail, firing the deadly light through long-shattered windows. She burned until the smoke began to billow and terrified kids who had sheltered there came running out.
Some made it.
Others did not.
She turned on Alameda, still carrying Sam by his chains, dropping him when she wanted both hands free to spread destruction.
“You definitely got the most useful power, Sam,” she said. “I’m very glad you’re still alive.”
Many of the houses in the area were already burned, others had been knocked down, but a few still stood, and these Gaia burned out. People fled like rats, leaping over fences, piling over mounds of rubble, and for Gaia it was almost a game, a shooting gallery.
People screamed and died. Or just died.
The counterattack came at the corner of San Pablo and Alameda.
Guns fired from the roof of the town hall.
BLAM! BLAM! BLAM!
Carefully aimed, but it was a hard shot in the smoke, with cinders in the air. Gaia fired back but was no more successful.
Gaia grabbed Sam in one hand and raised him over her head like a human shield. The firing from the rooftop stopped.
“Keep shooting! Keep shooting!” Sam cried.
“Shoot! Shoot! Shoot!” Edilio’s voice. Sam couldn’t see him. Was he behind the fountain?
Now again the firing started, but from a different angle, from the center of the plaza. Bullets whizzed past. Bullets pinged off concrete.
Gaia fired back with her free hand, but she wasn’t hitting anyone, either.
It was a melee, a madness of guns blazing and light beams searing and all of it swathed in swirling smoke.
Edilio had cleared the streets—there were no cars for Gaia to toss around, nothing to grab and use . . . except for the rubble of the church. She dropped Sam, ran to her left, and as she ran . . . disappeared.
Sam knew immediately what had happened. Bug. Somehow Gaia had learned about Bug. Had she been saving up for this moment? No, that would be insane. She’d have used the power earlier if she’d known. Someone had to have told her.
Drake?
But Drake was dead. Wasn’t he?
With invisibility Gaia would regain the edge she’d lost with Brianna’s death. Invisibility would leave Edilio’s people baffled and—
“Paint!” Edilio roared before losing his voice to a fit of coughing. Then, recovering: “Hit her!”
Two kids hidden in the church’s rubble threw balloons of paint. They splattered ineffectually on the ground. More were thrown from rooftops, and then from nothingness came the green light, killing one kid, burning the belly of the other. The wounded boy broke and ran.
But the deadly beams had revealed Gaia’s location.
“Jack!” Edilio managed to gasp, and Jack rose from behind the fountain and bounded in a single jump from the fountain to the steps of the church. He spun, two spray-paint cans flowing, and yes, there! Just a swatch of red and a patch of white that gave away an arm and an impression of a torso.
The guns didn’t need an order. They blazed. From the day care, from the McDonald’s, from the roof of the town hall.
But now Gaia had broken timber and slabs of plaster and steel support beams to work with. Using her telekinetic power she threw a whirlwind of debris at the fountain. There were cries in the dark, and the firing from there stopped.
Then a bullet fired from the roof of the town hall caught her ankle, and she bellowed in rage and pain. The blood that sprayed was all too visible.
She snatched up a crossbeam that weighed hundreds of pounds and played her laser fire down its length, let it go, grabbed it with her telekinetic grip, and threw it through the front door of the town hall.
The firing continued.
Sam saw it and heard it from his position in the middle of the street.