Sam smiled despite himself. “You’re kidding.”

“No man, she’s really bashful and all, so you say something like, ‘you have nice hair,’ and suddenly she’s invisible. But she’s still there. You touch her, but you can’t see her.”

“That’s not exactly going to stop Caine.”

“Taylor is working on her teleporting. She can go a couple of blocks now.” Edilio shrugged. “But in terms of useful, we got that kid, he’s nine, he can do like you do with the light, but not as much.”

“Nine. We can’t make a nine-year-old hurt someone,” Sam protested.

“How about an eleven-year-old who can move so fast, you can barely see her?”

“That girl Brianna?”

“She calls herself the Breeze now. Like, as fast as the breeze.”

“The Breeze? Like a superhero name?” He shook his head ruefully. “Great. That’s all we need,” Sam said. It was one of his mother’s favorite phrases, “that’s all we need.” He felt a sharp pang in his chest, but it passed quickly. “What do we have the Breeze do when she’s zipping around?”

Edilio looked uncomfortable. “I guess we give her a gun. She shoots and zooms away and shoots again.”

“Oh, God.” Sam hung his head. “Eleven years old and we’re giving her a gun? To shoot at people? At human beings? It’s sick.”

Edilio didn’t have anything to say to that.

“Sorry, man, I’m not laying this off on you, Edilio. It’s just…I mean, this is nuts. It’s wrong. Bad enough kids our age, but fourth graders and fifth graders?”

There came the clattering of feet on the stairs, and both Sam and Edilio leaped to their feet, expecting the worst.

Dekka, one of the Coates refugees, came barreling into the room and skidded on the waxed floor. Her forehead had been injured, a two-inch gash, and she had refused to let Lana heal it.

“I got that from Drake’s shoe when he kicked me,” she had said. “Heal up my hands from the plastering, but leave my head. I want something to remember it by.”

Sam reflected that that was only the second-most interesting thing about Dekka. Number one would probably be the fact that she seemed to have the power to suspend the force of gravity within a small area.

“What is it, Dekka?” Sam asked.

“That guy Orc. He just walked into town, all raggedy-looking.”

“Orc? Just Orc? No Howard?”

Dekka shrugged. “I didn’t see anyone else. He just walked on in, and that guy Quinn told me I better go tell you. He said he was going to follow Orc home.”

That would be the house Orc had shared with Howard. It wasn’t a long walk.

“Maybe I should bring a gun,” Edilio said darkly.

“I think I can handle Orc now,” Sam said. His own confidence surprised him. He’d never before in his life thought he could handle Orc.

Quinn was waiting outside the house. Sam thanked Quinn almost formally. “I appreciate you sending Dekka to me and keeping an eye on things.”

“I do what I can,” Quinn said, more bitterly than he had probably intended.

Sam and Edilio stood by as Quinn knocked on the door. The bully’s all-too-familiar voice yelled, “Come in, morons.”

Orc was popping the top of a can of beer.

“Let me drink this,” Orc muttered. “Then you can kill me or whatever.”

Orc had lived a bad couple of days. He was scratched, bruised, battered. One eye was swollen and black. His pants were torn and filthy. His shirt was barely recognizable as a shirt. It had been ripped to tatters, then knotted crudely back together.

He was still big, but he looked less threatening than they’d ever seen him before.

“Where’s Howard?” Sam demanded.

“With them,” Orc said.

“With who?”

“Drake. That girl, what’s her name, Lana. And a talking dog.” Orc smirked. “Yeah. I’m crazy. Talking dog. Was the dogs that took me down. Ripped a hole out of my guts. Ate my thigh.”

“What are you talking about, Orc?”

He drank deep. He sighed. “Man, that’s good.”

“Talk sense, Orc,” Sam snapped.

Orc belched loudly. He stood up slowly. He set down his beer. With stiff arms he pulled his ragged shirt up and over his head.

Edilio gasped. Quinn turned away. Sam just stared.

Great patches of Orc’s chest and belly were covered by gravel. The individual rocks were the color of muddy water, green-gray. As Orc breathed, the gravel rose and fell.

“It’s spreading,” Orc said. He seemed bemused by it. He touched it with his finger. “It’s warm.”

“Orc…how did this happen?” Sam asked.

“I told you. The dogs ate out my leg and my guts and some other parts I ain’t telling you about. Then this stuff kind of filled it in.”

He shrugged, and Sam heard a faint sound like footsteps on a wet gravel driveway.

“It doesn’t hurt,” Orc said. “It did. But it doesn’t hurt now. Itches, though.”

“Mother of God,” Edilio said softly.

“Anyway,” Orc said. “I know you all hate me. So either kill me or get out. I’m thirsty and hungry.”

They left him.

Outside, Quinn walked quickly down the street, stopped suddenly, and threw up into a bush.

Sam and Edilio caught up with him. Sam put his hand on Quinn’s shoulder.