Lies: A Gone Novel Read Free Page B

exactly a friend.
    In the pearly starlight it was easy to see where the railing had been ripped apart. It was like a steel ribbon, cut then left half curled, dangling over the side.
    Caine peered through the darkness. He could see the car. It was upside down. One door was open.
    It took a few minutes for him to locate the body.
    Caine sighed and raised his hands. It was near the limits of his range, so Panda didn’t come flying up off the ground. He sort of scuffed and scooted along at first. Like an invisible predator was hauling him away to its lair.
    But then Caine got a better “grip” and Panda rose off the ground. He was on his back, staring up at the unreal stars, eyes still open.
    Caine levitated the boy up from the crash, up and up until he brought him to as gentle a stop as he could. Panda lay now on the road.
    Without a word, Caine started walking back to Coates.
    â€œAren’t you going to carry him back?” Bug whined.
    â€œGet a wheelbarrow,” Caine said. “Carry your own meat.”

THREE
63 HOURS, 31 MINUTES
    THE WHIP CAME down.
    It was made of flesh, but in his nightmare it was a snake, a writhing python that sliced the flesh from his arms and back and chest.
    The pain was too terrible to endure. But he had endured it.
    He had begged for death. Sam Temple had begged to die. He had begged the psychopath to kill him, to end it, to give him the only relief possible.
    But he had not died. He had endured.
    Pain. Too small a word. Pain and awful humiliation.
    And the whip kept coming down, again and again, and Drake Merwin laughed.
    Sam woke up in a bed of tangled, sweat-soaked sheets.
    The nightmare did not leave him. Even with Drake dead and buried under a mountain of rock, he had Sam under the control of his whip hand.
    â€œAre you okay?”
    Astrid. Almost invisible in the darkness. Only the faintest starlight filtered through the window and framed her as she stood there in the doorway.
    He knew what she looked like. Beautiful. Compassionate, intelligent blue eyes. Blond hair all wispy and wild since she’d just gotten up from her own bed.
    He could picture her all too easily. A picture more detailed than real life. He often pictured her as he lay alone in his bed. Far too often, and for too long. Too many nights.
    â€œI’m fine,” Sam lied.
    â€œYou were having a nightmare.” It wasn’t a question.
    She came in. He could hear the rustle of her nightgown. He felt her warmth as she sat at the edge of his bed. “The same one?” she asked.
    â€œYeah. It’s getting kind of boring now,” he joked. “I know how it ends.”
    â€œIt ends with you alive and well,” Astrid said.
    Sam said nothing. That had been the outcome: He had survived. Yes, he was alive. But well?
    â€œGo back to sleep, Astrid,” he said.
    She reached for him, fumbled just a little, unable to find his face. But then her fingers touched his cheek. He turned away. He didn’t want her finding the wetness there. But she wouldn’t let him push her hand away.
    â€œDon’t,” he whispered. “You just make it harder.”
    â€œIs that a joke?”
    He laughed. The tension broke. “Well, not an intentional one.”
    â€œIt’s not that I don’t want to, Sam.” She bent over and kissed his mouth.
    He pushed her away. “You’re trying to distract me. Make me think about something else.”
    â€œIs it working?”
    â€œYes, I’d say it’s working very well, Astrid.”
    â€œTime for me to go.” She stood up and he heard her moving away.
    He rolled out of bed. His feet hit the cold floor. “I need to do a walk-through.”
    She stopped in the doorway. “Sam, I heard you come in two hours ago. You’ve had almost no sleep. And it will be dawn in a couple of hours. The town will survive that long without you. Edilio’s kids are on duty.”
    Sam pulled on a pair of jeans and