And then she sat down as suddenly as she’d stood up.

Jack’s eyes fluttered open. “Huh,” he muttered. He blinked a couple of times and fished around for his fallen glasses. “What?”

“Trouble,” Taylor said.

“I’m coming,” Brianna said. She stood up again and sat back down again.

“She’s sick,” Jack said. “Like the flu or whatever. What I had.”

“What do you mean she’s sick?” Taylor demanded. “Dekka told me you were sick.”

“I was,” Jack grumbled. “I still am, a little, but I’m getting better. Now Brianna’s got it.”

“Interesting,” Taylor said with a leer.

“What’s…,” Brianna began, and then started coughing again.

“What’s happening?” Jack asked, completing Brianna’s thought.

“You don’t even want to know,” Taylor said. “Take care of Breeze. Sam can probably handle whatever this is by himself.”

“Handle what?” Brianna managed.

Taylor shook her head slowly, side to side. “If I said Drake Merwin, what would you say?”

“I’d say he’s dead,” Jack said.

“Yeah,” Taylor said, and bounced out of the room.

Sam reached the station. Edilio was already there. Alone.

Edilio didn’t waste any time. “I got here a minute ago,” he said. “Me and Elizabeth. No one here but Marty and he’d been wounded. Shot in the hand. I sent him to Clifftop with Elizabeth to have Lana fix him.”

“What’s going on, can you tell?” Sam asked.

“Marty says a whole crowd was here. Shooting, yelling, ‘Death to freaks.’”

Sam frowned. “Zil? That’s what this is? I thought…”

“Yeah, I know what you’re thinking, man. This isn’t a Drake kind of thing,” Edilio said. “Drake shows up, you know it’s him, right? He makes sure you know it’s him.”

“Where are your other soldiers?”

“Run off.” Edilio sounded disgusted.

“They’re just kids,” Sam said. “People shooting at them. In the dark. All of a sudden. Almost anyone would run off.”

“Yeah,” Edilio said curtly. But Sam knew he was embarrassed. The army was Edilio’s responsibility. He picked the kids and trained them and motivated them as well as he could. But twelve-, thirteen-, fourteen-year-old kids were not supposed to be dealing with this kind of craziness. Not even now.

Never.

“You smell that?” Edilio asked.

“Gas. So Zil stole some gas? You think that’s it? He wanted to be able to use a car?”

In the pitch black Sam couldn’t see Edilio’s face but he could feel his friend’s doubt. “I don’t know, Sam. What’s he going to do with a car? Why’s he need it so bad, he’s going to do this? Zil’s a creep but he’s not totally stupid. He’s got to know this is over the line and we’ll go after him.”

Sam nodded. “Yeah.”

“You okay, man?”

Sam didn’t answer. He peered into the darkness. Searched the shadows. Clenched. Ready.

Finally, he forced his fists to relax. Forced himself to take a breath. “I’ve never set out to hurt anyone,” Sam said.

Edilio waited.

“I never set out thinking I’m going to kill someone. I go into a fight and I think, maybe I’ll have to hurt someone. Yeah. I think that. And I have. You know: you’ve been there.”

“Yeah, I’ve been there,” Edilio said.

“If it’s him, though, I mean if Drake is somehow back…it’s not going to be about just doing what I have to do. You know?”

Edilio did not answer.

“I’ve done what I had to do. To save people. Or to save myself. This won’t be like that. If it’s him, I mean.”

“Dude, it’s Zil. Zil and Human Crew did this.”

Sam shook his head. “Yeah. Zil. But I know he’s out there, Edilio. I know Drake is out there. I feel it.”

“Sam…”

“If I see him, I’ll kill him,” Sam said. “Not self-defense. I’m not waiting until he attacks. I see him, I burn him.”

Edilio grabbed him by both shoulders and got in his face. “Hey! Listen to me, Sam. You’re getting freaked out here. The problem is Zil. Okay? We have real problems, we don’t need nightmares. And, anyway, we don’t do cold-blooded murder. Not even if it is Drake.”

Sam firmly pried Edilio’s hands off his shoulders. “If it’s Drake, I’m burning him down. If you and Astrid and the rest of the council want to arrest me for doing it, fine. But I’m not sharing my life with Drake Merwin.”

“Well, you do what you got to do, Sam, and I will, too. Right now what we got to do is figure out what Zil is up to. So, I’m going to go and do that. You want to come? Or do you want to stand here in the dark talking about murder?”

Edilio stomped away, swinging his machine pistol down into firing position.

For the first time, Sam followed Edilio.

TWENTY-TWO

14 HOURS, 17 MINUTES

DOWN THE ACCESS road they marched, the station lost behind them in the night.

Their numbers had diminished a little. Kids, the weak and scared ones, had peeled off unnoticed, slinking home once they’d had a taste of violence.