“Sam, can you, you know, like burn that concrete off her hands?”“No. I can’t aim that precisely.”“I don’t even know what can be done,” Edilio said as he fed the girl another microscopic bite of food. “You try and break that stuff off with a sledge hammer or something, or even a hammer and a chisel, it’s going to really hurt. Probably break every bone in her hands, man.”“Who would have done this to her?” Lana wondered.“That’s a Coates Academy uniform,” Astrid answered. “We’re probably not far from there.”

“But hey this was the FAYZ, where all you could really hope was to delay the pain.”

“We take the names of madmen, because madness is our fate. Terribly melodramatic, that.”

“The balance of this world is not upset by accident. It is not upset by those who blunder accidentally into wrong. Evil comes when those who know better, who have seen the pain they cause, nevertheless cause more pain.”

“The coolly logical part of her brain noted almost sardonically that Edilio had a superpower after all: being Edilio.”

“If there was ever an example for redemption, it's you.”

“The end is the best part of any story”

“You May Now Leave The FAYZ.”

“That's your solution? Have a cookie?”

“He’s becoming useless. Worse than useless,” Sam said. Then, relenting, he said, “We’ll get past it.”“You mean you and Quinn?”“Yeah.”Astrid considered just keeping her mouth shut, not pushing it. But this was a talk she needed to have with Sam sooner or later. “I don’t think he’s going to get over it.”“You don’t know him that well.”“He’s jealous of you.”“Well, of course I am so terribly handsome,” Sam said, straining to make a joke of it.“He’s one kind of person, you’re another. When life is going along normally, you’re sort of the same. But when life turns strange and scary, when there’s a crisis, suddenly you’re completely different people. It’s not Quinn’s fault, really, but he’s not brave. He’s not strong. You are.”

“More than two dozen kids lined a low railing around the gazebo. They were all tied to it by a rope leash that gave them no more than a few feet of movement. Neck to rail, like tethered horses. Each of the kids was weighed down by a concrete block that encased their hands. Their eyes were hollow, their cheeks caved in.Astrid used a word that Sam had never imagined coming from her.“Nice language,” Drake said with a smirk. “And in front of the Pe-tard, too.”A cafeteria tray had been placed in front of each of the prisoners. It must have been a very recent delivery because some were still licking their trays, hunched over, faces down, tongues out, licking like dogs.“It’s the circle of freaks,” Drake said proudly, waving a hand like a showman.In a crusty old wheelbarrow to one side, three kids were using a short-handled shovel to mix cement. It made a heavy sloshing sound. They dumped a shovelful of gravel into the mix and stirred it like lumpy gravy.“Oh, no,” Lana said, backing away, but one of the Coates kids smashed her behind the knee with his baseball bat, and she crumpled.“Gotta do something with unhelpful freaks,” Drake said. “Can’t have you people running around loose.” He must have seen Sam start to react because he stuck his gun against Astrid’s head. “Your call, Sam. You so much as flinch and we’ll get to see what a genius brain really looks like.”“Hey, I got no powers, man,” Quinn said.“This is sick, Drake. Like you’re sick,” Astrid said. “I can’t even reason with you because you’re just too damaged, too hopelessly messed up.”“Shut up.”