Yeah, let’s get John here. That way we can stall for a while longer. We can keep on doing nothing for just a little while longer.”
Albert said, “Take it easy, Howard.”
“Take it easy?” Howard jumped to his feet. “Yeah? Where were you last night, Albert? Huh? Because I didn’t see you out there on the street listening to kids screaming, seeing kids running around hurt and scared and choking, and Edilio and Orc struggling, and Dekka hacking up her lungs and Jack crying and…
“You know who couldn’t even take it?” Howard raged. “You know who couldn’t even take what was happening? Orc. Orc, who’s not scared of anything. Orc, who everyone thinks is some kind of monster. He couldn’t take it. He couldn’t…but he did. And where were you, Albert? Counting your money? How about you, Astrid? Praying to Jesus?”
Astrid’s throat tightened. She couldn’t breathe. For a moment panic threatened to overwhelm her. She wanted to run from the room, run away and never look back.
Edilio got to his feet and put an arm around Howard. Howard allowed it, and then he did something Astrid never thought she would see. Howard buried his face in Edilio’s shoulder and cried, racking sobs.
“We’re falling apart,” Astrid whispered for herself alone.
But there was no easy escape. Everything Howard had said was true. She could see the truth reflected in Albert’s stunned expression. The two of them, the smart ones, the clever ones, the great defenders of truth and fairness and justice, had done nothing while others had worked themselves to exhaustion.

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Astrid felt a towering wave of disgust. She was furious with Sam. Furious with Little Pete. Mad at the whole world around her. Sickened by everyone and everything.
And mostly, she admitted, sick of herself.
So desperately sick of being Astrid the Genius.
“Some genius,” she muttered. The town council, headed by that blond girl, what was her name? Oh right: Astrid. Astrid the Genius. Head of the town council that had let half the town burn to the ground.
Down in the basement of town hall Dahra Baidoo handed out scarce ibuprofen and expired Tylenol to kids with burns, like that would pretty much fix anything, as they waited for Lana to go one by one, healing with her touch.
Astrid could hear the cries of pain. There were several floors between her and the makeshift hospital. Not enough floors.
Edilio staggered in. He was barely recognizable. He was black with soot, dirty, dusty, with ragged scratches and scrapes and clothing hanging in shreds.
“I think we got it,” he said, and lay straight down on the floor.
Astrid knelt by his head. “You have it contained?”
But Edilio was beyond answering. He was unconscious. Done in.
Howard appeared next, in only slightly better shape. Some time during the night and morning he’d lost his smirk. He glanced at Edilio, nodded like it made perfect sense, and sank heavily into a chair.
“I don’t know what you pay that boy, but it’s not enough,” Howard said, jerking his chin at Edilio.
“He doesn’t do it for pay,” Astrid said.
“Yeah, well, he’s the reason the whole town didn’t burn. Him and Dekka and Orc and Jack. And Ellen, it was her idea.
Michael Grant
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Sam always felt like a fool in this room. He sat in a too-big chair at one end of the table. Astrid was at the other. Her hands were on the table, slender fingers flat on the surface.
Dekka sat scowling, irritated, though Sam wasn’t sure at whom she was directing her dark mood. A piece of something blue was stuck in one of her tight cornrows—not that anyone was foolish enough to point it out or laugh.
Dekka was a freak, the only one besides Sam in this room. She had the power to temporarily cancel gravity in small areas. Sam counted her as an ally. Dekka was not about talking without end and getting nothing done.
Albert was the best-dressed person in the room, wearing an amazingly clean and seemingly un-salty polo shirt and relatively unwrinkled slacks. He looked like a very young businessman who had stopped by on his way to a round of golf.
Albert was a normal, though he seemed nevertheless to have an almost supernatural ability to organize, to make things happen, to do business. Looking at the group through hooded eyes, Sam knew Albert was probably the most powerful person in the room. Albert, more than any other person, had kept Perdido Beach from starving.
Edilio slumped, holding his head with both hands and not making eye contact with anyone. He had a submachine gun propped against his chair, a sight that had become all too normal.
Edilio was officially town marshal. Probably the mildest, most modest and least-assuming person in the council, he was in charge of enforcing whatever rules the council created. If they ever got around to actually creating any.
Howard was the wild card in the group. Sam still wasn’t sure how he had managed to talk his way onto the council. No one doubted that Howard was smart. But no one thought he had an honest or ethical bone in his body. Howard was chief toady to Orc, the glowering, drunken-boy-turned-monster who had fought on the right side a couple of times when it had really counted.
The youngest member was a sweet-faced boy named John Terrafino. He was a normal, too—Mary’s little brother. He seldom had much to say and mostly listened. Everyone assumed he voted however Mary told him to. Mary would have been there, but she was simultaneously indispensable and fragile.
Seven council members. Astrid as chairperson. Five normals, two freaks.
Michael Grant
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