She wondered how much The Powers That Be in the FAYZ—Sam, Caine, Edilio, and Astrid—had thought about the outside world’s view of what was going on. The reality in the FAYZ was way weirder than the lookers could imagine. This wasn’t just a bunch of kids trapped in a bubble; it was an unprecedented event in the history of the planet. The barrier wasn’t the only thing separating inside from outside—things could happen here that just flat could not exist out there.

For example: a girl able to heal with a touch.

“Yeah, let’s not even start thinking about that,” she told herself. She looked at Taylor, a pretty girl with dead eyes and golden skin and black hair like a sheet of rubber. “Are you more like a plant?”

No answer.

“Are you made out of Play-Doh?”

There came a soft knock at the door. “Can I come in?”

“Why not?” she answered sourly.

Sanjit stepped in. “Any change?”

Lana shook her head. “What if she isn’t an animal? If she was a plant, what would we do if we wanted to try and reattach a broken stem or whatever? Bring me a knife. The big sharp one.”

“A plant?”

He fetched the knife.

“Now, hold her stump,” Lana said.

Sanjit shuddered. “You know, Lana, that’s one of those phrases I could have gone my whole life without hearing. ‘Hold her stump.’” He had seen a lot in his life and dealt with some serious weirdness, but Taylor gave him the willies. Nevertheless, he came around the bed, stepping over Lana’s legs, and took hold of the stump.

Lana took the knife and began to shave off a thin slice of the stump. Taylor turned her head to watch, but there was no evidence it was causing her any pain or concern. Sanjit, on the other hand, was turning green.

Lana removed an oval slice and picked it up like a piece of bologna. She held it to the light, inspecting it critically. Then she laid it aside and took a similar slice from the hand. Then she pressed the two newly cut pieces together.

“Get me some duct tape,” Lana said.

“Some what?”

“Some tape,” she said impatiently. “Tape. Staples. Whatever.”

It took Sanjit twenty minutes, and he came back with a roll of white Velcro.

“How am I going to Velcro this?”

“It’s adhesive-backed. It’s like tape. I couldn’t find tape. I found a stapler, but this will be better. Also less disturbing.”

“Wimp. Get me a cigarette.”

He pulled another half cigarette from his pocket, stuck it in her lips—she was busy holding the hand and the arm together—and lit it.

Then he rolled out a foot of Velcro, cut it, and carefully taped the body parts together.

An hour later they carefully unwound the tape.

“Huh. It’s adhering,” Lana said. “A little, anyway. Huh. Wow. You think you could manage a trip into town?”

“Why? So you can try to find your smokes with me out of the way?”

“Yeah, that, too. But mostly I was thinking you could bring Sinder back here. I saw her in town, down from the lake. Or she might be out at the barrier playing wave-at-the-’rents. Either way, get her: she has a green thumb.”

“I don’t feel it,” Sam said.

Caine shook his head. “Me neither.”

They were at the entrance to the mine shaft. They hadn’t even discussed their first stop; they’d both just known that it had to be here. This mine shaft was where the gaiaphage had lain for years, growing and festering. This had been the nexus of the evil, its home.

“Should we go in and check?”

“No,” Caine said. “I’ve been in. It wasn’t enjoyable.”

“I can imagine.”

“No, you can’t,” Caine said flatly.

Caine felt Sam watching him, impatient, ready to move on. But Caine was mesmerized by that dark, blank opening. Once, it had been neatly framed with timber, but now it was more of a gash in the ground, a twisted mouth with stone teeth.

The memory of it . . . Dread had left a permanent mark on him. Pain. Fear.

Loneliness.

“Lana knows,” Caine said at last. “And I guess Diana does now, too.” That thought, that realization, something he should have long since acknowledged, rocked him.

When he had come crawling away from this terrible place and found his way home, shattered and insane, Diana had helped him. Who had helped Diana?

“Once it touches your mind, see . . .,” Caine said, “once it really reaches inside you, it doesn’t let go. It doesn’t just stop. It’s like a, you know, like a wound, like you got cut real badly, and you stitched it up, but it won’t really heal.”

“Lana fought it,” Sam said.

“So did I!” Caine snapped. Then, more quietly, “So did I. I still do. It’s still in my head. It still reaches out to me sometimes.” He nodded, now almost seeming to have forgotten Sam. “Hungry in the dark.”

He had fought it. But he hadn’t fought it alone.

What the hell? He felt tears in his eyes. He tried to shake it off. Diana had spoon-fed him, and protected him, and cleaned him. And what had he done? He’d been sitting in Perdido Beach feeling sorry for himself while she was out there. With it.

“Is that what you’re going to tell people if we get out of this?” Sam asked. “That the gaiaphage made you do it? Because I don’t buy it.”

If Sam expected a furious answer, Caine disappointed him. He wasn’t going to let Sam bait him. At the moment he didn’t care about Sam.