Sam pushed past them, but one girl grabbed his arm. “You have to help us!”

“I’m trying,” he said grimly, and tore himself free. “Come on, Edilio!”

Zil’s mob was backlit by a sheet of orange that consumed the front of a colonial-style house. They danced and cavorted and ran with burning Molotov cocktails.

“Don’t waste them!” Hank shouted. “One Molotov, one house!”

Antoine screamed as he waved a lit bottle. “Aaaaarrrggh! Aaaaarrrgh!” Almost as if he were the one burning. He threw the bottle high and hard, and it soared straight through an upper floor window of an older wood house.

Immediately there were cries of terror from inside. And Antoine screamed back, an echo of their horror, twisted into savage glee.

Kids came pouring out of the door of the house as flames licked the curtains.

Sam did not hesitate. He raised his hand, palm out. A beam of brilliant green light drew a line to Antoine’s body.

Antoine’s berserk cries ended instantly. He clutched once at the three-inch-wide hole just above his belt. Then he sat down in the street.

“It’s Sam!” one of Zil’s thugs cried.

As one they turned and ran, dropping gas-filled bottles behind. The gasoline spread from the shattered bottles and caught fire instantly.

Sam tore after them in pursuit, racing to leap the patches of burning gasoline.

“Sam, no!” Edilio shouted. Edilio tripped over the body of Antoine, who lay now on his back, gasping like a fish, eyes staring up in horror.

Sam had not noticed Edilio fall. But he heard Edilio’s single shouted warning. “Ambush!”

Sam heard the word, knew it was true, and without thinking dropped and rolled. He stopped just inches away from rolling into burning gasoline.

At least three guns were firing. But Zil’s thugs had had no practice with weapons. They were firing wild, bullets flying in every direction.

Sam hugged the pavement, shaking from the close call.

Where were Dekka and Brianna?

Another weapon was firing now. Edilio’s rapid bam-bam-bam, short bursts from his machine gun. There was a big difference between Edilio with a gun and some punk like Turk with a gun. Edilio practiced. Edilio trained.

There was a loud shriek of pain, and the ambush was over.

Sam pried himself up a few inches, enough to see one of Zil’s gunmen. The kid was running away, a wraith in the smoke.

Too late, Sam thought. He aimed, straight for the boy’s back. The beam of burning light caught the gunman in the back of his calf. He screamed. The gun flew from his hand and clattered on the sidewalk.

Hank ran back to grab it. Sam fired and missed. Hank snarled at him, a face like a wild animal. Hank raced away as Edilio’s bullets chased him, plowing a furrow in the hot blacktop.

Sam jumped to his feet. Edilio ran up, panting.

“They’re running for it,” Edilio said.

“I’m not letting them get away,” Sam said. “I’m tired of having to fight the same people again and again. It’s time to finish it.”

“What are you saying, man?”

“I’m killing Zil. Clear enough? I’m putting him down.”

“Whoa, man,” Edilio said. “That’s not what we do. We’re the good guys, right?”

“There has to be an end to it, Edilio.” He wiped soot from his face with the back of his hand, but smoke had filled his eyes with tears. “I can’t keep doing it and never reaching the end.”

“It’s not your call anymore,” Edilio said.

Sam turned a steely glare on him. “You too? Now you’re siding with Astrid?”

“Man, there have to be limits,” Edilio said.

Sam stood staring down the street. The fire was out of control. All of Sherman was burning, from one end to the other. If they were lucky it wouldn’t jump to another street. But one way or the other, Sherman was lost.

“We should be looking to save any kids that are trapped,” Edilio said.

Sam didn’t answer.

“Sam,” Edilio pleaded.

“I begged Him to let me die, Edilio. I prayed to the God who Astrid likes so much and I said, God, if You’re there, kill me. Don’t let me feel this pain anymore.”

Edilio said nothing.

“You don’t understand, Edilio,” Sam said so softly, he doubted Edilio could hear him over the roar and crackle of the fire raging all around them. “You can’t do anything else with people like this. You have to kill them all. Zil. Caine. Drake. You just have to kill them. So right now, I’m starting with Zil and his crew,” Sam said. “You can come with me or not.”

He started walking in the direction of the fleeing Hank.

Edilio did not move.

TWENTY-FOUR

14 HOURS, 5 MINUTES

DEKKA COULDN’T JUST lie there. She couldn’t. Not when there was a fight. Not when Sam might be walking into danger.

Half the girls in the FAYZ had a crush on Sam, but it wasn’t like that for Dekka. What she felt for Sam was different. They were soldiers, the two of them. Sam, Edilio, and Dekka—more than anyone else in Perdido Beach, they were the tip of the spear. When there was trouble, it was the three of them in the middle of it.

Well, the three of them plus Brianna.

Best not to think about Brianna too much. That way lay sadness and misery and loneliness. Brianna was what she was. Wanted what she wanted. Which was not what Dekka wanted.

Almost surely not what Dekka wanted. Although, Dekka had never asked, never said anything.