“Partner? He was my henchman,” Caine said. “Partner would be an equal. Drake was never my equal.”

“Three,” Edilio repeated, “the gaiaphage and Drake are out there, and I don’t think they’re just camping.”

This made Toto hesitate. Then: “He does not believe they are camping.”

“And now, I have a question for you, Caine: Do you believe you can take on Gaia alone? Yes or no?”

Caine’s gaze slid toward Toto. Caine hated the very idea of a truth teller. Control was impossible without some dishonesty. But then his thoughts turned inward. He imagined fighting the gaiaphage alone. He could picture it all too clearly. Fear gnawed at the edges of his mind, and memories of terrible pain, weakness . . . despair.

“Yes or no?” Edilio pressed.

“You know the answer,” Caine muttered.

Edilio pulled the gun barrel away. He extended a hand to help Caine up, but Caine just gave him a hard stare and climbed to his feet. He looked at his now three-legged chair. “That was a nice, comfortable chair.”

He dusted himself off. The admission—even unspoken—that he couldn’t take Gaia on alone left him feeling depressed. From the very start he’d been paranoid that a power greater than himself might emerge. In the beginning there had been only the two “four bar” mutants: him and Sam. Gradually they’d come to realize that Little Pete was somewhere off the scale, but that hadn’t worried Caine too much, because Little Pete was just Little Pete, however godlike his powers.

Now here was Gaia, the physical embodiment of the gaiaphage, and Caine knew too much about that creature to believe it could be beaten by one guy with the power of telekinesis.

“So I’m supposed to stand aside and let Sam just walk in and take over,” Caine said. “That’s not—”

“Not me,” Sam interrupted. “Him.”

Caine looked in disbelief at Edilio. “What? The machine-gun wetback here?”

Sam stiffened at that, but Edilio with a small gesture waved it off. So Sam said, “There are exactly five people who are trusted by just about everyone. I’m one, but I kind of suck at running things—”

“True,” Toto said, and this time caught a hard look from Sam.

“Lana is trusted,” Sam went on, “but . . . well, she’s Lana, and she has a job. And Dekka is trusted, but also . . . well, she’d be the first to say she doesn’t want to run anything. The fourth person is Quinn.”

“I tried to get Quinn to do something more than fish,” Caine protested.

“I know,” Sam said. “The other person everyone trusts is Edilio.”

Caine barked out an incredulous laugh. “Are you seriously here to tell me you want Edilio to take over running Perdido Beach?”

“He’s already running the lake.”

“That’s . . .,” Toto began, hesitated, and said, “mostly true.”

“Yeah, well, I’m still king here,” Caine said. It sounded ridiculous, even to him. He pointed a finger at Toto. “No: don’t say it.”

Edilio said, “I can work well with Quinn. I get along well with Lana. I get along with Astrid and Dekka, who’ll stay at the lake. Sam trusts me. And the fact is, even you trust me, Caine.”

“I do?”

“Yes,” Edilio said.

“He believes it,” Toto muttered.

“You’re still Sam’s boy, Edilio.”

“Sam won’t be here, or at the lake. He’s going after your daughter.”

Caine chose not to argue that label, though it filled him with extreme and conflicting emotions. “Sam is going after Gaia and Drake alone? Hah. If I can’t do it alone, neither can he.”

“He believes this.”

“Not alone,” Edilio said.

It took Caine a few beats to get it. “No. Go kill yourself. Eat your own gun. No. No no no.”

“You’re happy here counting fish and nagging kids to work?” Edilio asked.

“He’s not,” Virtue said, beating Toto to the punch and earning an annoyed glance from Caine. “He’s only done it for two days since the battle, and he’s already bored.”

“Here’s the proposal,” Edilio said. He had shouldered his assault rifle. “I come to Perdido Beach, work with Quinn and Sanjit and of course Virtue. And maybe bring Computer Jack down, too. Lana, well, she’ll do whatever she wants to do, as usual.”

“Wait, I thought Jack was dead.”

“No. Lana got to him in time,” Sam said. “But he’s shook up, that’s for sure. He could use a change and something to keep his mind occupied.”

Caine shook his head no, but it wasn’t as firm as it might have been.

Sam leaned forward, elbows on knees, and said, “Caine, you’re not a king any more than I’m a mayor.”

“No, then what am I?” Caine demanded, hating the pleading tone in his voice.

“You’re a bully and a sociopath. You’re a thug and a killer. You’re also smart and powerful and you don’t scare easy.”

“True,” Toto affirmed.

“And you love Diana,” Virtue said.

“What? Shut up, Choo.”

All eyes turned to Toto, who nodded and said, “He does.”

“Probably the only person you ever did care for,” Edilio said. “And surely the only person who loves you. And you’re going to leave her out there? With Drake and that monster child of yours?”