Fear (A Gone Novel)

Thirty-Five

4 HOURS, 6 MINUTES

THE BABY TRIED to walk. But it failed. It toppled over, legs still too weak, coordination lacking. But it wasn't supposed to try. It shouldn't even be born, let alone attempting to stand up.

"I'll carry it," Drake announced.

"No," Penny said. "You may need your whip hand free. I will carry it. My powers don't need me to use my hands."

Diana could see that Drake was not happy. Not happy at all with Penny. He'd have been happier to see her die. Drake was now trapped with females he couldn't just beat on or intimidate.

"What do we do with her?" Penny pointed at Diana with utter contempt, curling her lips at Diana's disheveled appearance. The torn clothing barely put back together. The stains. The wounds. The weakness.

Drake's dark discontent grew darker still. "The gaiaphage says she has to live."

Penny snorted. "Why? Is the gaiaphage getting sentimental now that it has a girl's body?" "Shut up," Drake snapped. "It's just a body. It's a weapon the master uses. He's still he. He's still what he always was."

"Uh-huh." Penny smirked.

Drake squatted down in front of Diana. "You're a mess. You look like roadkill. You even stink. You're sickening."

"So kill me," Diana said, meaning it. Willing him to do it. "Do it, Drake. Big man. Do it."

Drake sighed theatrically. "Babies need milk. And you're the cow, Diana. Moo."

That made him laugh, and Penny, after a hesitation during which Diana saw contempt for Drake in her eyes, joined in. More terrible by far, the baby girl, Diana's baby, grinned as well, a weird smile revealing pink gums and no teeth.

"Let's go, cow," Drake said.

"Are you a moron?" Diana said. "I just had a baby. I can't—"

They hit her then, both of them, competing to see who could force her to her feet. Drake's whip hand, Penny's sick visions. Diana was on her feet, woozy, feeling she should vomit except that her stomach was empty.

The greenish glow of the gaiaphage—because not all of the lurid green had flowed onto or into the baby—had faded so that there was almost no light. Within a few feet they found themselves in total blackness.

Diana recalled that there were places where she might throw herself down a crevasse and end her hellish life. If Drake didn't stop her.

No, not Drake now; now it was Brittney. The sound of her breathing was different from his. Were the emergences coming faster? She dared to hope that Drake was weakening. She dared to hope that he and Penny would go after each other.

Diana relaxed a little. Brittney was as much a tool of the gaiaphage as was Drake, but she lacked Drake's own personal hate-fueled insanity.

She also, unfortunately, had less knowledge of the path. And she did not intimidate Penny.

"You know what would be creepy, Diana?" Penny asked. "If you were pregnant again. Only this time with, let's say, a belly full of rats! Hungry rats!"

Diana felt her belly swelling, felt the hundreds of— "No," Brittney said calmly. "No. She's our lord's mother."

The illusion, barely begun, ended abruptly.

"Shut up, Brittney," Penny said. "Maybe I listen to Drake, but I don't listen to you. You're nobody."

Brittney didn't argue. She just said, "She gave birth to our lord."

Penny must have tripped over a rock, because she went sprawling with the baby in her arms. She plowed into Diana, almost but not quite knocking Diana over.