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Caine came back to his body with an awful lurching sensation, sights and sounds and smells all impossibly overwhelming. He staggered a step and fell to one knee, the shock of kneeling on a burning patch of grass enough to snap him out of whatever dazed state Caine had fallen into. But for a split second his shot mind tried to make sense of what to focus on first. Diana, no, fire, but Diana - FIRE!
The forest was ablaze, smoke so thick it seemed the whole FAYZ would be smothered in it. Run - he had to run. Diana was smart, and Caine couldn’t help her if he was dead. He didn’t want to think about what would happen if her’s was one of the many, many bodies dotting the town.
Eyes now streaming from the smoke, Caine picked a direction and bolted.
Fire and ash and heat all shoved it’s way down his lungs, searing across his skin and Caine automatically began wondering how quickly he could get to Lana. But no. Before Little Pete had taken over his body, Gaia had been bleeding from a dozen small and rather not-so-small wounds she hadn’t healed. Which meant that Lana was either dead or had found a way to fight it. But probably dead. The thought sent a strange shiver of sadness through him - Caine hadn’t liked Lana, but that didn’t stop him from admiring the sheer willpower it must have taken to refuse the Gaiaphage. Even he hadn’t managed that.
Caine was less running and more staggering now as the sound of yelling reached him among the hissing of fire and crashes of trees falling. Oh fantastic. Now you’re hallucinating. But the hallucinations steadily grew louder until they were accompanied by two figures staggering out of the flames. Through bloodshot eyes, Caine watched as Sam raised his hands about to fire his blinding light at - Drake. That was Drake who was advancing on Sam, whip had raised and face twisted into a gleeful snarl.
And then Caine froze in absolute shock as the expected beam of light never came from Sam’s outstretched palms. What the hell was he playing at? Drake’s whip came down hard across Sam’s back and he screamed, high and loud. Caine was now sprinting forward, hands outstretched to deliver a powerful telekinetic punch he lurched forward and -
Nothing. Nothing. He was powerless. Weak. Useless. But Drake, as it happened, was not. He raised his whip hand high and slammed it down again over Sam’s back. Another scream that sent Caine fumbling for the knife strapped to his side. He hated Sam. But they’d been through too much, Sam had been through too much to lose to Drake of all people. That was the only thought in his mind as Caine hurled the knife and watched it slam as if in slow motion into Drake’s shoulder. And Drake screamed. Screamed and clawed at the knife as blood - actual blood - ran from the blade.
Somehow that was more disturbing than the sight of Drake writhing on the ground.
“Holy shit!” Sam yelled, staggering upright and barely audible above the roar of the forest fire. “He, he’s-”
“Human,” finished Caine. And despite himself, despite the fire and the fact Little Pete should have killed him, and everything , Caine found himself grinning, a manic, hysterical laugh forcing its way out.
“He’s fucking human! ”
And indeed, Drake’s movements had become more sporadic, his precious whip hand shrivelling and crumbling along with the rest of him. Drake, the unkillable Drake, was finally dead, Caine was powerless, which meant that…
“Yeah,” Sam panted, “the dome’s gone. The FAYZ is over.”
The brothers locked eyes across the burning clearing, Caine’s heart going still.
“What?”
Sam just shrugged, “We’re free.”
We’re free. Free. Caine had imagined this day time and time again, but never had the scenario included the utter dread clawing through his veins. And never had it included Sam. Which, Caine thought, had been a mistake. He should have known he’d end up with Sam again - fate had a funny way of shoving the two together. And so Caine gave Sam a single slow nod, probably the closest Caine would ever come to acknowledging him as an equal, before he turned and simply walked away, the smoke swallowing him in seconds.
He didn’t know where he was going. To find Diana maybe. Diana was good, kind even, she didn’t deserve to die like this. But maybe he did. There would be no redemption for him, no loving parents to embrace and honestly Caine wasn’t entirely sure he wanted to be redeemed. Redemption was for heroes, and Caine was not about to be lumped in with that crowd. Maybe it would be best for everyone if he never emerged from the flames.
But still Caine just walked and walked and walked, through the flames and ashes and over the threshold that had once marked the boundary of the FAYZ. He only stopped when a hand brushed his shoulder. A paramedic, her face the picture of pity. If Caine still had his powers, he’d be tempted to throw her through a wall just for that pity. But as things were, he just followed.
“What’s your name?”
“Caine,” he answered flatly. No need for last names, his reputation was enough to send the woman’s gaze snapping to his face. “Just Caine.”
~*~
The lights in the hospital were always on. It was such an unimaginable luxury that as they had wheeled Caine into his hospital room, he’d laughed. Actually laughed. How long ago was it that he’d seen electricity? A lifetime ago that was for sure. And clean sheets, air conditioning, processed food - kids had killed for less. He had killed for less. And these people were parading it around like it was worth nothing. Their hands had never been cemented into a bucket and it showed.
Yet all this was second to his much more urgent need. Diana. He hadn’t heard so much of a whisper of her since being caught by paramedics, despite asking after her every available opportunity, occasionally even resorting to empty threats to no avail. Even so, the doctors still tiptoed around him, like Caine was liable to fall apart at any moment. The idea was laughable at best. Back in the FAYZ he was feared, occasionally respected, and once even a king, but now? Now he was just a traumatised child with an impressive criminal record. And he was treated like one. Caine was almost certain there was an armed police officer outside his door at all times.
He missed his gun.
And his telekinesis.
And Diana.
He wondered if she even knew he was alive. He wondered if she cared. She had left for the Lake after all, before it all went to hell and darkness had swallowed the FAYZ. Before she’d given birth to Gaia. Caine still wasn’t sure how to feel about that. Every time he thought about his daughter a complicated mess of emotions seemed to rise in his throat, but mainly the memory of that all-consuming pain that Gaia could simply will into his brain. And even now, even after the gaiaphage was gone, burnt to nothing, sometimes Caine still felt it in his head. He knew full well it was just his imagination, but that didn’t stop Caine from flinching. Or crying. He was ashamed of that last one, though he figured that as long as no one knew it was fine.
Some king he made.
~*~
“So, Caine, can you tell us about the day you broke into the power plant.” The man - Agent Smith or Simons or something - phrased the words like it was a question, but Caine knew it wasn’t. The Agent was good at that, Caine noticed, but now, three hours into this ‘interview’, it was really starting to grate on his nerves. It was an effort to keep his voice neutral.
“It was easy really to break in - Sam’s guards were a joke really, not a single moof there. And besides, the food riots were distracting everyone else at the town.”
“Food riots?”
Caine waved his hand carelessly, “Yeah, Zack and his lot caught Hunter with a deer. A deer is like - was like - this unimaginable luxury, fresh meat, you know? Anyway, they tried to hang Hunter for it.”
The Agent blinked and Caine clenched his jaw. This man had no right to be disturbed when he didn’t even live through that period of starvation. He took a breath.
“Anyway, we got to the power plant and took care of the guards, just a couple kids, easy enough to deal with. Drake strung up some wire to stop Brianna and for a while it was fine. But - it was in my head. And it was hungry. Hungry in the dark.”
Caine let out a little laugh at the words, though there was no humour in it. Hungry in the dark. He remembered that all too well - dragging the uranium out through the desert to the mineshaft, watching Diana slowly succumb to the radiation but some awful, inexplicable urge drawing him onwards.
“It?” The Agent asked, another one of his not-questions.
“No,” Caine said abruptly. He was more than happy to share every horrible detail of the FAYZ, of his numerous crimes and the monster he was, purely to make the man squirm. But he drew the line at memories of the gaiaphage. Those were his. His to suffer through, his to keep until he died. After all, there were only a handful of people who would truly understand what it was like to be in the gaiaphage’s clutches, and most of them were probably dead.
“I’m done here.”
The Agent shot him a narrow glance that Caine just met with a flat one of his own.
“I’m done.”
The man shook his head and left, leaving Caine alone. About time.
~*~
Caine had been in his hospital room for barely two days and was just about ready to rip his hair out from boredom when there was a knock on his door. Doctors didn’t knock and neither did the FBI agents so Caine immediately stilled. His foster parents hadn’t visited him - not that Caine particularly wanted them to - but if it was them…
It wasn’t. Sam stood in the doorway, expression unreadable. Caine just stared at him.
“What the hell are you doing here?”
Sam sort of shrugged, “I heard you were in the same hospital, so. You know.”
“No, I don’t know, surfer boy. Aren’t you supposed to be out there sweet talking the public?”
Another shrug. “Probably.”
There was a silence before Caine sighed, raising his eyes skyward, again wishing his telekinesis hadn’t been left behind in the FAYZ.
“So, who survived?”
“Diana’s alive Caine.” Sam’s voice was quiet and Caine felt the tension under his skin drain immediately. Trust Sam to know what he was digging at.
“I - good. That’s good.” There was another silence, less hostile this time, before Caine let out a breath.
“Anyone else?”
“Lara, Dekka, Astrid, Quinn, Edilio - and Albert of course. Some others. But… not enough. Not nearly enough.”
Caine nodded, absorbing this new information. “Jack?”
“No.”
“Oh.”
Weird, this new feeling. Not quite grief, but not far from it either. He’d fought and killed and survived beside these kids and to have them dead was just… weird.
“So, has the FBI been all up in your face yet?”
If Sam noticed the abrupt change of subject, he didn’t mention it.
“Yeah. They tried, but I think I’m forgiven. They just don’t…” Sam trailed off.
“Get it? Yeah, bunch of insensitive pricks. It’d be easier if they just locked me up and threw away the key. Even prison would be less painful than this.”
Sam looked a little alarmed at that and Caine chuckled.
“What? You really thought they’d just let me walk free after everything I’ve done? I mean as long as my cell has electricity it’ll automatically be better than anything in the FAYZ.”
“You don’t have to martyr yourself Caine.”
“Yeah I do. Who else is it gonna be? Little old Quinn? Please. Who’s going to stand there and denounce Quinn?” Caine sighed, turning to the window. “Besides, there’s nothing out there for me.”
Sam didn’t respond to that and nor did Caine expect him to. He had no parents, no life, and hell, prison would at least be interesting. So Caine just smiled thinly and turned back to his brother.
“Enjoy your life Sam, cause I sure as hell will be enjoying mine.”
It was a terrible, unconvincing lie, but Caine didn’t care, not as Sam shook his head and finally left. And if anything, it was a relief to be left alone with his own thoughts. Diana was alive, Caine wasn’t hungry and for once there wasn’t the constant threat of Drake or the gaiaphage hanging over him, or even the cries of the injured and starving haunting him. It wasn’t a happy ending by a long shot, but it sure was about as close to peace as he’d gotten in a while. And Caine was going to savour it for as long as possible.