“Yeah,” Caine said. “That was a mistake. Coming down on the freaks, that was a mistake. We need them.”

“Plus, in addition to some possible new moofs, Sam’s people still have machine guns. And they still have Sam,” Diana said. “So how about if we don’t do something stupid like try and fight them again”

“Moofs”

“Short for mutant. Mutant freaks. Moofs.” Diana shrugged. “Moofs, muties, freaks. We’re out of food, but we’ve got plenty of nicknames.”

Caine’s shirt was laid over the back of a chair. He reached for it, wobbled, and seemed about to fall over. Diana steadied him. He glared at her hand on his arm. “I can walk.”

He glanced up and caught sight of his reflection in a mirror over the dresser. He almost didn’t recognize himself. Diana was right: He was pale, his cheeks were concave. His eyes seemed too large for his face.

“I guess you are getting better: you’re becoming a prickly jerk again.”

“Get Bug in here. Get Bug and Drake. I want to see them both.”

Diana made no move. “Are you going to tell me what happened to you out there in the desert with Pack Leader”

Caine snorted. “You don’t want to know.”

“Yes,” Diana insisted, “I do.”

“All that matters is I’m back,” Caine said with all the bravado he could manage.

Diana nodded. The movement caused her hair to fall forward, to caress her perfect cheek. Her eyes glittered moistly. But her lush lips still curled into an expression of distaste.

“What’s it mean, Caine What does ‘gaiaphage’ mean”

He shrugged. “I don’t know. I’ve never heard the word before.”

Why was he lying to her Why did it seem so dangerous that she should know that word

“Go get them,” Caine said, dismissing her. “Get Drake and Bug.”

“Why don’t you take it easy Make sure you’re really . . . I was going to say ‘sane,’ but that might be setting the bar kind of high.”

“I’m back,” Caine reiterated. “And I have a plan.”

She stared at him, head tilted sideways, skeptical. “A plan.”

“I have things I have to do,” Caine said, and looked down, incapable, for reasons he couldn’t quite grasp, of meeting her gaze.

“Caine, don’t do this,” Diana said. “Sam let you walk away alive. He won’t do that a second time.”

“You want me to bargain with him Work something out”

“Yes.”

“Well then, that’s just what I’m going to do, Diana. I’m going to bargain. But first I need something to bargain with. And I know just the thing.”

Astrid Ellison was in the overgrown backyard with Little Pete when Sam brought her the news and the worm. Pete was swinging. Or more accurately he was sitting on the swing as Astrid pushed him. He seemed to like it.

It was dull, monotonous work pushing the swing with almost never a word of conversation or a sound of joy from her little brother. Pete was five years old, just barely, and severely autistic. He could talk, but mostly he didn’t. He had become, if anything, even more withdrawn since the coming of the FAYZ. Maybe it was her fault: she wasn’t keeping up with the therapy, wasn’t keeping up with all the futile, pointless exercises that were supposed to help autistics deal with reality.

Of course Little Pete made his own reality. In some very important ways he had made everyone’s reality.

The yard was not Astrid’s yard, the house not her house. Drake Merwin had burned her house down. But one thing there was no shortage of in Perdido Beach was housing. Most homes were empty. And although many kids stayed in their own homes, some found their old bedrooms, their old family rooms, too full of memories. Astrid had lost track of how many times she’d seen kids break down sobbing, talking about their mom in the kitchen, their dad mowing the lawn, their older brother or sister hogging the remote.

Kids got lonely a lot. Loneliness, fear, and sadness haunted the FAYZ. So, often kids moved in together, into what amounted almost to frat or sorority houses.

This house was shared by Astrid; Mary Terrafino; Mary’s little brother, John; and more and more often, Sam. Officially Sam lived in an unused office at town hall, where he slept on a couch, cooked with a microwave, and used what had been a public restroom. But it was a gloomy place, and Astrid had asked him more than once to consider this his home. They were, after all, a family of sorts. And, symbolically at least, they were the first family of the FAYZ, substitute mother and father to the motherless, fatherless kids.

Astrid heard Sam before she saw him. Perdido Beach had always been a sleepy little town, and now it was as quiet as church most of the time. Sam came through the house, letting himself in, calling her name as he went from room to room.

“Sam,” she yelled. But he didn’t hear her until he opened the back door and stepped out onto the deck.

One glance was all it took to know something terrible had happened. Sam wasn’t good at concealing his feelings, at least not from her.

“What is it” she asked.

He didn’t answer, just strode across the weedy, patchy grass and put his arms around her. She hugged him back, patient, knowing he’d tell her when he could.

He buried his face in her hair. She could feel his breath on her neck, tickling her ear. She enjoyed the feel of his body against hers. Enjoyed the fact that he needed to hold her. But there was nothing romantic about this embrace.