“There’s a sprayer. I’ll wash your hair.” Diana turned on the nozzle, tested the water temperature, and played it over Penny’s lank hair.
She worked in shampoo until it foamed.
“Just like the hair salon,” Penny said.
“Yeah. Probably where I’ll end up working someday,” Diana said.
“Nah, not you, you’re too smart,” Penny said. She had closed her eyes. Diana rinsed shampoo down Penny’s face and neck. “Beautiful and smart and you have Caine all to yourself now, don’t you?”
Diana sighed. “I’m a loser, Penny. Same as you.”
Caine burst in. He looked startled. “I heard screaming.”
“Oh, sorry about that,” Penny snarled. “I hope I didn’t wake you up, you piece of—”
“You okay?” Caine asked Diana.
“She’s perfect,” Penny said. “Perfect hair, perfect teeth, perfect skin. Plus she has legs that work, which is really cool.”
“I’m out of here,” Caine said.
“No,” Diana said, “Help me lift her back out.”
“Yeah, Caine, don’t you want to see me naked? I’m still kind of hot. If you don’t mind my legs. Just don’t look at them. Because they’ll kind of make you sick.”
To Diana’s surprise Caine said, “Whenever you’re ready.”
Diana popped the drain.
“Why don’t you just kill me?” Penny demanded. “You know you will sooner or later, Caine. You know you can’t take care of me forever. You want to do it, don’t you?”
Diana tried to read the answer in Caine’s eyes. Nothing. There were times she was sure she saw human decency there. And other times when his dark eyes were as pitiless as a shark’s.
“Okay, raise her up,” Diana said.
Caine stepped closer and lifted up his hands. Penny rose from the water like some awful parody of a surfacing dolphin. She rose and the water fell and bubbles slid off her.
Diana took the nozzle and sprayed Penny off as she floated a few feet in the air. Even the touch of the water on her legs made Penny wince and grit her teeth.
Diana spread a clean towel over the mat and Caine set Penny down slowly. Gently.
“I could fill your head with living nightmares,” Penny said to Caine. “I could make you scream like I scream.”
“But then I would kill you, Penny,” Caine said coldly. “And I don’t think you’re quite ready to die.”
Albert stared at the ledger book like it could answer his worries. But it was the source of his worries. The columns where he normally entered the amount of produce coming in from the fields, the number of pigeons or gulls caught by Brianna, the number of rats sold to him, the quantity of birds, raccoons, opossums, squirrels, or deer brought in by Hunter, were all empty for this day.
Albert reminded himself to get someone down to the dock to bring up the catch. He should have done it earlier, but it had been a hectic day. Maybe he could send Jamal. Speaking of which, where was Jamal? He was supposed to be back by sunset and it was well after that.
Albert made a mental note to himself: give Dahra something nice as a reward for her quick thinking. If Quinn and his people had been brought down by this flu, the situation would be even more desperate.
Albert had a page for water. Bottled water found in homes or cars: nothing in days. Water trucked in: nothing in a day.
Just like that, in the blink of an eye, Perdido Beach had gone from self-sufficient at a very, very basic level to disaster.
Albert glanced around the room. His natural caution had become something closer to paranoia lately. The house was empty—even the maid was away. But what he was about to do would have been troublesome if observed: he opened his desk and pulled out a bottle of water.
It made a snapping sound as he broke the seal on the bottle of Arrowhead water. He drank deep, then carefully sealed the bottle and hid it away again.
He closed the ledger. Nothing to add to the incoming columns.
Then an unmistakable noise: shattering glass.
Albert froze. The sound was from close by. The kitchen?
He hesitated only a moment, running through his options. Then he reached under the desk, fumbled for and found the pistol taped to the underside.
A door opened. He heard the sound of it and felt the air pressure change and pushed back his chair and tried to rip the tape free so he could hold the gun properly as he’d been shown by Edilio, but he was too slow, too late, they were in the room and on him.
Turk, Lance, Watcher, and Raul. All armed.
It was Watcher—a quiet eleven-year-old who had been caught stealing—who whacked his knee with a crowbar.
“Aaahh!” It hadn’t been that hard a swing but the pain shot up his leg and for a second he could think of nothing else. He’d never felt pain like that. His ankle and foot were tingling like he’d stepped on a downed power line.
“Get him!”
“Yeah!”
“Hit him again!”
“No!” Albert yelled, but the next blow came from Turk, who smashed the butt of his rifle into Albert’s face. His nose gushed blood. This was more numbing than painful. His thoughts were scattered, ripped into fragments.
“Wha . . . ?” he said.
His pistol, gone. Where? He squeezed his hand, stupid for a few seconds, not able to figure out—
Turk grabbed him from the back of his neck and slammed him facedown on the ledger. A distant part of Albert’s mind worried that his blood would seep onto the pages and make them hard to read.