Astrid had been a part of it. Love and all. It was so corny, but love had kept him from despair. Love and the cold comfort of knowing that Drake had died while Sam had survived.

Love and revenge. Nice combination.

And responsibility, he realized suddenly. That had helped in a strange way, knowing that kids needed him. Knowing that he was necessary.

Now Astrid was telling him he was not so necessary. And, by the way, not so loved. And the comfort of thoughts of Drake’s broken body lying under the ground? Gone.

Sam took off his shirt. The wound in his shoulder didn’t look like much. When he probed it with his finger he could feel something hard and round just below the skin.

He squeezed the wound with his fingers, wincing at the pain, squeezed some more and the dull lead ball came out along with a little blood.

He looked at the ball. A shotgun pellet. About the size of a BB. He tossed it away. A Band-Aid would have been nice, but he would have to content himself with washing the wound.

He started climbing down the cliff, needing something to do, and hoping he might find something to eat down in the tidal pools in the rocks.

It was a tough climb. He wasn’t sure he’d be able to get back up once he was down. But physical movement seemed necessary to him.

I could jump in the water and swim, he told himself.

I could swim until I can’t swim anymore.

He wasn’t afraid of the ocean. You couldn’t be a surfer and be afraid of the ocean. He could start swimming, straight out. From here it was ten miles to the distant FAYZ wall. Couldn’t see it from here, couldn’t usually see it at all until you were up close to it. It had a gray, satiny, pseudo-reflective character that fooled the eye. As far as they knew, it was a complete sphere, a dome, though it looked like the sky, and at night it looked like stars.

He wondered if he could reach the wall. Probably not. He wasn’t in as good a shape as he’d been back in the old days.

He’d probably wear out after a mile. If he swam hard, maybe a mile, maybe a mile and a half. And then, if he let it, the ocean would take him down, swallow him up. Not the first person to be taken by the Pacific. There were human bones scattered across the ocean floor, from here to China.

He reached the rocks and bent over awkwardly to rinse the shotgun wound in salt water.

Then he began poking around in the tidal pools. Darting little fish. Some mollusks too tiny to bother opening. But after half an hour he had collected a couple handfuls of mussels, three small crabs, and a seven-inch-long sea cucumber. He placed them all in a small tidal pool. Then he aimed one palm at the pool and blasted it with enough light to set the salt water boiling.

He sat on slick rocks and ate the seafood stew, gingerly picking pieces out of the hot broth. It was delicious. A little salty, which would be bad later unless he found fresh water, but delicious.

It improved his mood, eating. Sitting by the water. Being alone with himself. No one demanding anything of him. No terrible threat to rush off and handle. No nagging details.

Suddenly, to his own amazement, he laughed out loud.

How long had it been since he’d sat by himself, no one in his face?

“I’m on vacation,” he said to no one.

“Yes, I’ll be taking some time off. No, no, I won’t be answering my phone or even checking my BlackBerry. Also, I won’t be burning holes in anyone. Or getting the crap beaten out of me.”

An outcropping hid Perdido Beach from view, which was just fine. He could make out the nearest of the small islands and looking north he could see the spit of land that jutted out from the power plant.

“Nice place,” Sam said, looking around at his rocky perch. “If only I had a cooler of sodas I’d be set.”

His mind drifted to Perdido Beach. How were they doing in the aftermath of the fire? How were they dealing with Zil?

What was Astrid doing right now? Probably bossing everyone around with her usual confidence.

Picturing Astrid was not helpful. There were two pictures in his mind, vying for dominance. Astrid in her nightgown, the one that was modest and sensible until she happened to step in front of a light source and then…

Sam shook that off. Not helpful.

He pictured the other Astrid with the haughty, cold, contemptuous expression she wore in the council meetings.

He loved the first Astrid. The Astrid who occupied his daydreams and sometimes his night dreams.

He couldn’t stand the other Astrid.

Both Astrids frustrated him, although in very different ways.

It wasn’t like there weren’t other pretty girls in the FAYZ, ready to more or less throw themselves at Sam. Girls who maybe wouldn’t be quite so moral, or quite so superior in their attitude.

It seemed to Sam that, if anything, Astrid was getting more and more that way. She was becoming less the Astrid of his daydreams and more the Astrid who had to control everything.

Well, she was head of the council. And Sam had agreed that he couldn’t run things all by himself. And he’d never wanted to run anything to begin with. He had resisted, in fact. It had been Astrid who manipulated him into taking on the responsibility.

And then she had taken it away from him.

He wasn’t being fair. He knew that. He was being self-pitying. He knew that, too.

But the bottom line with Astrid was that the answer from her was always “No.” No to any number of things. But when things went wrong, suddenly it was his responsibility.

Well, no more.

He was done being played. If Astrid and Albert wanted to keep Sam in some little box, where they could take him out and use him whenever they wanted, and then not even let him do his job—they could forget it.