And then:

What I’m thinking about doing is slicing him up and then zooming the pieces all around, like up in the mountains, out in the water. Let’s see if he can put himself back together then. LOL.

So basically Brianna had confessed to several killings—despite the fact she hadn’t actually killed anyone unless you counted bugs and coyotes—and bragged that she intended to go on killing and was in fact contemplating murder right then.

And grinning.

And striking poses for the cameras.

And adding a jaunty “LOL.”

And demonstrating just how fast she could twirl a bowie knife, a machete, and a garrote. And brandishing the sawed-off shotgun for which she had modified a runner’s backpack.

All of this got back to Sam.

Sam was not happy about it.

“Oh, my God. Are you out of your mind ‘LOL’ Really” he demanded. “I thought I told everyone: no talking to people unless it’s your parents. I told you and Edilio told you. And then, because I knew perfectly well that you would pay no attention to that and do whatever you wanted, I looked you right in the eyes”—he pointed at her eyes for emphasis—“right in those eyes, and I said something along the lines of, ‘Breeze, don’t go telling horror stories.’”

“He believes he said that.”

That last was from Toto, the truth teller. The boy could not restrain himself from announcing the truth or falsity of everything he heard. And he was 100 percent accurate. And 100 percent annoying.

Sam, Astrid, Brianna, and Toto were on the top deck of the houseboat at the lake. Two days had passed since the dome went transparent. Two days since they had seen the outside world for the first time in almost a year.

Two days since Sam had burned Penny to ashes while his mother watched.

And two days since the evil child, Gaia, and her mother, Diana, along with the foul Drake/Brittney creature, had retreated in pain and confusion.

“In the eyes. Me looking straight at you,” Sam said, insisting, even as Brianna adopted a transparently false What, me look.

“Brianna, listen,” Astrid said. “You’re very useful at communicating with the world, but don’t go confessing to major crimes.”

“Crimes!” Brianna’s eyes narrowed and her thin lip curled. “Hey, I only do what I have to do.”

“We know that,” Sam said wearily. “We know that. The world may not.” Then he added, “LOL.”

“Yeah, well they can all drop dead,” Brianna said heatedly. “What are they doing to get us out of here They tried to kill us all! Now they’re going to judge us”

Sam’s face revealed his own private agreement, so he kept his eyes carefully averted from Astrid, as if that meant she wouldn’t notice.

“They didn’t try to kill us; they were trying to blow open the dome,” Astrid said.

“With a nuke” Brianna shrilled.

“She doesn’t believe that,” Toto said. Then he clarified: “Astrid doesn’t believe what she said, Spidey.”

Toto was talking less often to his long-since-destroyed Spider-Man bust, the object he’d spent lonely months with, but there were still occasional references. No one took notice: at this point no one in the FAYZ was entirely sane.

“Okay,” Astrid said icily. “Let me restate that: They didn’t set out to destroy us all. But they were willing to risk it.”

Toto hesitated a moment. Then: “She believes that.”

But now Astrid was angry, and not at Toto or Brianna or even Sam—to his relief. “They wanted their highway back. They wanted this to be over. And they sure didn’t want people discovering that they’d been tracking mutations for months. So they set off a freaking nuke under the dome. Is that true enough, Toto And maybe it would have overloaded the dome and crashed it like they hoped, and we’d be free. But quite possibly it would have incinerated all of us, the reckless, stupid scumbags who would kill us after all we’ve gone through, gone through hell trying to stay alive!”

There were other choice words, many, in fact, a long and erudite stream of them. Astrid had never been one for cursing, but she was very well-read and had obviously picked up a few phrases along the way.

When she was done and both Sam and Brianna were staring at her with a sort of wary amazement, Toto said, “She believes that.”

“Yeah, I kind of think she did,” Sam said dryly. “Do me a favor, Toto: go find Edilio, if he’s free, and Dekka. We’re wasting time.”

Toto raised an eyebrow but did not comment. He climbed down to the dock. He was used to being sent on errands. It was almost as if people found him irritating.

“Breeze: you know what I need from you. I understand that you love to entertain the lookers, but I need you patrolling.”

“I was just going,” Brianna said huffily. She blurred, reappeared on the dock, and then, walking quickly backward, said, “By the way, they still want to interview you, Sam.” Then she zoomed away out of sight.

“Why do I get the feeling we have a crazy twelve-year-old daughter” Astrid muttered.

Sam looked at Astrid with affection so obvious a blind man would have seen it. The days of wondering whether they would be together were over. It wasn’t that either of them had said it quite that way; it was just the way it was, it was there, it was a fact. It was chiseled in granite.

Astrid stood with legs apart, arms crossed, wearing a sleeveless T-shirt and jeans so torn and ripped they looked like they’d been tailored with a chainsaw, her once-long blond hair now hacked short, her cool, judgmental blue eyes still judging, still watching the world more closely than anyone else.