Astrid could too easily imagine it. Even the thought of burning meat made her mouth water. “It’s a normal, physiological reaction, Sam. It’s a part of your brain that’s on automatic.”

“Yeah,” he said, unconvinced.

“Look, you can’t go around moping because something bad happened. If you start acting hopeless, it will spread to everyone else.”

“Kids don’t need my help to feel hopeless,” he said.

“And you’re going to let me cut your hair,” Astrid said, pulling him close and ruffling his hair with one hand. She wanted to get his mind off the morning’s disaster.

“What?” He looked confused by the sudden change of topic.

“You look like a fugitive from some old 1970s hair band. Besides,” she argued, “Edilio let me cut his hair.”

Sam allowed himself a smile. “Yeah. I saw. Maybe that’s why I keep accidentally calling him Bart Simpson.”

When she glared at him, he added, “You know, the spiky look?” He tried to kiss her, but she drew back.

“Oh, you’re just so clever, aren’t you?” she said. “How about I just shave your head? Or hot-wax it? Keep insulting me, people will be calling you Homer Simpson, not Bart. Then see how much Taylor makes goo-goo eyes at you.”

“She does not make goo-goo eyes at me.”

“Yeah. Right.” She pushed him away playfully.

“Anyway, I might look good with just two hairs,” Sam said. He looked at his reflection in the glass front of the microwave.

“Does the word ‘narcissist’ mean anything to you?” Astrid asked.

Sam laughed. He made a grab for her but then noticed Little Pete eyeing him. “So. Anyway. How’s LP doing?”

Astrid looked at her brother, who was perched on a kitchen counter stool and gazing mutely at Sam. Or, anyway, in Sam’s direction—she could never be sure what he was really looking at.

She wanted to tell Sam what had been happening with Little Pete, what he had started doing. But Sam had enough to worry about. And for a moment—a rare moment—he wasn’t worrying.

There would be time later to tell him that the most powerful person in the FAYZ seemed to be . . . what would the right term be for what Little Pete was doing?

Losing his mind? No, that wasn’t quite it.

There was no right term for what was happening to Little Pete. But, anyway, this wasn’t the time.

“He’s fine,” Astrid lied. “You know Petey.”

THREE

106 HOURS, 11 MINUTES

LANA ARWEN LAZAR was on her fourth home since coming to Perdido Beach. She’d first stayed in a house she’d liked well enough. But that house was where Drake Merwin had captured her. It felt like a bad place after that.

Then she’d moved in with Astrid for a while. But she quickly discovered that she preferred being alone with just her Labrador retriever, Patrick, for company. So she’d taken a house near the plaza. But that had made her too accessible.

Lana didn’t like being accessible. When she was accessible, she had no privacy.

Lana had the power to heal. She’d first discovered this ability the day of the FAYZ, when her grandfather had disappeared. They’d been driving in his pickup truck at the time, and the sudden disappearance of the driver had sent the truck rolling down a very long embankment.

Lana’s injuries should have killed her. Almost did kill her. Then she discovered a power that might have lain hidden within her forever, but for her terrible need.

She had healed herself. She’d healed Sam when he was shot; and Cookie, whose shoulder had been split open; and many wounded children after the terrible Thanksgiving Battle.

The kids called her the Healer. She was second only to Sam Temple as a hero in the FAYZ. Everyone looked up to her. Everyone respected her. Some of them, especially the ones whose lives she’d saved, treated her with something like awe. Lana had no doubt that Cookie, for one, would give his life for her. He had been in a living hell until she’d saved him.

But hero worship didn’t stop kids from pestering her at all hours, day and night, over every little pain or problem: loose teeth, sunburn, skinned knees, stubbed toes.

So she had moved away from town and now lived in a room in the Clifftop Resort.

The hotel hugged the FAYZ wall, the blank, impenetrable barrier that defined this new world.

“Calm down, Patrick,” she said as the dog head-butted her in his eagerness for breakfast. Lana pried the lid off the ALPO can and, blocking Patrick, spooned half of it into a dish on the floor.

“There. Jeez, you’d swear I never feed you.”

As she said it she wondered how long she would be able to go on feeding Patrick. There were kids eating dog food now. And there were skin-and-bones dogs in the streets, picking through trash next to kids who were picking through trash to find scraps they’d thrown out weeks earlier.

Lana was alone at Clifftop. Hundreds of rooms, an algae-choked pool, a tennis court truncated by the barrier. She had a balcony that afforded a sweeping view of the beach below and the too-placid ocean.

Sam, Edilio, Astrid, and Dahra Baidoo—who acted as pharmacist and nurse—knew where she was and could find her if they really needed her. But most kids didn’t, so she had a degree of control over her life.

She looked longingly at the dog food. Wondering, not for the first time, what it tasted like. Probably better than the burned potato peels with barbecue sauce she’d eaten.