Orc had come back from a futile attempt to find Gaia. Jack was standing a few feet away from Brianna. There were tears running down his face, but he hadn’t been able to find a way to go closer. Jack and Brianna had had a complicated relationship. He had flirted with her in his own awkward way; they had made out once or twice, neither of them really enjoying the experience much. Brianna was too fierce for Jack, and he was too geeky for her. But he had cared for her. Just not with the intensity of Dekka.

So he just stood, awkward, bearing silent witness.

“Me?” Caine said. He sounded exhausted. Defeated. He was staring at Brianna. “We fought side by side once, me and Breeze. Against the bugs. She was badass.”

Edilio made an impatient sound. His voice was ragged. “Listen, Caine, I have no time. For all we know that monster will be back in five minutes.”

Edilio saw pride flare in Caine’s eyes, but then it died. “The truth is she . . . it . . . it has its hooks in me,” he said. “It’s stronger now. Or maybe I’m weaker. Either way, the pain she hits me with . . . you don’t want to know what it’s like.”

Edilio could see the truth of it in his haggard expression.

“Without you and Sam both we probably can’t beat her,” Edilio said.

“Yeah, well, Sam’s lying out there busted up. Maybe dead for all I know.”

“Then we have to get him,” Edilio said urgently.

“Walk down that road right now?” Caine asked. “Are you out of your mind?”

“I’m not sitting here while—”

“Go out there and she’ll pick you off easy,” Caine said. “Take anyone with you and you’re just getting them killed, too.”

Caine looked around, lost. “If I try to fight her, she’ll make me crazy. You don’t know . . . Anyway, Sam and I already tried . . .” He shook his head. “We can’t beat her. We can’t beat the gaiaphage; we never could. It was always going to end this way with all of us being hunted down, one by one. We were always the sheep and it was the wolf.”

“Shut up, Caine,” Edilio said in a voice so soft it was almost a whisper.

Anger, a dangerous anger, flared in Caine. “Who are you to talk to me that way?”

“You’ve been the problem, Caine. From the start. You’re the one who kept us from ever really being able to unite, to fight this thing. You and your ego and your stupid need to control everyone. Don’t you come here now all sheepish, all head hanging down and tell me you’re scared.” Edilio stabbed a finger in Caine’s chest. It was such an un-Edilio moment it surprised both of them.

Edilio knew his own fear was pushing him now, because he knew Caine wasn’t wrong about the likely ending. Still, he needed Caine’s power on his side to have any slight hope. And he definitely needed hope.

“I lost someone I loved at the lake,” Edilio said, his voice full of emotion. “Maybe seventy kids died up there. Just now, six, eight more. Now, Brianna dead. More to come. Well, some of that is on you, Caine. So you are going to step up. You hear me? You are going to step up.”

Edilio had nothing else to say, and Caine seemed to have no answer. So Edilio turned back to Dekka and Jack and said, “That’s it for grieving. We do more grieving later if we’re alive. Right now we fall back and get ready for plan B.”

“There’s a plan B?” Jack asked.

“You’re another one,” Edilio snapped. “You’re not going to tell me again that you won’t fight, because I swear to God I’ll shoot you myself.” Then in a more measured voice he said, “Yes, there’s a plan B. We fight that evil creature every step of the way. Caine, Orc, Jack, Dekka, follow me.”

He didn’t look back to see if they were following him.

He didn’t need to.

It was just luck that Sam was gone and Alex was not when Gaia rejoined the highway, fuming, and crying in pain and frustration as she dealt with her wounds and confronted the fact that in killing Brianna she had deprived herself of a power.

Stupid!

No, not stupid: necessary. They were stronger than she’d thought. They were more dangerous.

And then she heard movement in the darkness. She had her hands up, ready to kill, when it occurred to her who it might be.

The adult human, the food, stepped into view. He was carrying something in his one remaining arm. A head.

Drake!

“Come here!” Gaia demanded.

Alex came up in a mix of hesitancy and sudden, rushing steps. The sight of him made her salivate. She was very hungry.

But Drake, ah, he could be useful. Had she had him in these last few fights, she wouldn’t now be skulking this way.

“What happened to you?” Gaia demanded of the head. “You were supposed to feed me.”

“Brianna happened,” Drake whispered.

“Ah. Then you’ll be happy to learn she’s dead.”

Drake’s shark mouth twisted into a ghastly grin. For some reason there was a lizard’s tail protruding between his eyes.

“I wonder . . .,” Gaia whispered to herself. She had Drake, she had Alex, she had the healing power, and she was hungry. It was a puzzle. The solution that occurred to her in a flash of genius was imperfect, but it might work, given time. And if it worked, she’d have a faithful and dangerous ally.

And a meal.

She stepped closer to Alex, who bobbed his head and grinned a sickly, cringing, frightened smile.