Lies

The third installment in the Gone series continues the story of children trapped inside the FAYZ (Fallout Alley Youth Zone), an impenetrable dome 20 miles in diameter centered on a nuclear power plant in Perdido Beach, California. Every person over the age of 14 vanished when the dome appeared, and some children have since developed supernatural abilities. These children, known as "freaks," face growing hostility from the powerless "normals."

Sam Temple, the town's reluctant protector who can fire beams of killing light from his hands, patrols the decaying streets at night. Perdido Beach has no electricity, dwindling food, and rising fear. Zil Sperry's Human Crew, a gang of normals, terrorizes kids with mutant powers. Sam's girlfriend, Astrid Ellison, heads the town council and insists they build a system of laws rather than let Sam act unilaterally, creating a deepening rift between them.

A girl named Orsay, whose power lets her inhabit other people's dreams, holds gatherings at the FAYZ wall. She claims to sense the dreams of parents on the outside and tells children their families are waiting. A mysterious girl named Nerezza manages Orsay and calls her "the Prophetess." Orsay delivers a message she says comes from Sam's mother: "Let them go, Sam. Let them go when their time comes" (11). Outside the dome, Sam's mother, Connie Temple, confirms she experienced an extraordinarily vivid dream in which Orsay spoke to her, lending troubling credibility to the prophecy. Francis, a day care helper approaching his 15th birthday, believes Orsay's promise that the "poof," the vanishing that occurs at age 15, is a doorway to reunion with family. Despite desperate warnings, Francis steps out and disappears.

Astrid convenes the council. She proposes that they lie to everyone, declaring Orsay a fraud, to prevent more children from choosing to step out. The measure passes, though Edilio Escobar, the town marshal, and John Terrafino vote against it. Sam withholds an even more disturbing secret: he and Edilio have found that Brittney, a girl who died months ago, has dug her way up out of her grave.

At Coates Academy, Sam's half-brother Caine Soren, a powerful telekinetic, is starving along with his remaining followers. His companion Diana Ladris, who can gauge mutant power levels, urges surrender, but Caine has a plan. He proposes an alliance with Zil: Zil will set fires in Perdido Beach to create chaos while Caine steals boats from the marina to reach a private island once owned by movie stars. In return, Zil will seize control of the town. When Sam asks Lana, the Healer, whether the gaiaphage, a malevolent entity buried in a mine shaft also known as the Darkness, is truly gone, Lana screams at him to leave. Privately, she admits the Darkness still inhabits her mind and has been siphoning her healing power for an unknown purpose.

On San Francisco de Sales Island, 14-year-old Sanjit Brattle-Chance and his adopted brother Virtue care for three younger siblings, including five-year-old Bowie, who is dangerously ill. With supplies dwindling, Sanjit considers flying a helicopter from his parents' wrecked yacht to the mainland despite having no training.

Brittney surfaces alive at the house of Howard, a town council member, and Orc, covered in grave dirt, with no heartbeat and no breath. She claims she is an angel sent to destroy an evil one who "comes with a whip" (153), meaning Drake Merwin, the psychopath who once had a tentacle-like whip for an arm. Sam hides her, but when a boy is found murdered bearing the marks of Drake's whip, the horrifying truth emerges: If Brittney came back from the dead, Drake has too. Sam, already traumatized by nightmares of Drake's torture, encounters Drake on the beach and flees Perdido Beach entirely. He wanders to the power plant where Drake once nearly killed him, forces himself to confront the site, and resolves to return.

Zil's attack comes at night. His crew seizes the gas station, fills Molotov cocktails, and hurls firebombs down Sherman Avenue. Caine leads his followers through the chaos toward the marina. Sam wounds one of Zil's thugs but is nearly ambushed by gunfire. Edilio, Orc, Dekka (who can cancel gravity), Computer Jack (a tech genius with superhuman strength), and fire chief Ellen fight the blaze through the night, tearing down houses to create a firebreak. At the marina, Caine kills Zil's lieutenant Hank by hurling him 100 feet into the air, then escapes with Diana, Penny (who can project hallucinations), and Bug (who can turn invisible). Astrid, left to lead without Sam, faces a hostile crowd. Howard accuses her of hypocrisy for lying about Orsay. When Astrid publicly reveals the depression, anorexia, and medication problems of Mary Terrafino, who runs the day care, to discredit Mary's faith in the prophecies, the crowd turns against Astrid.

Caine's boat runs out of fuel near the island. He forces his way ashore, but Sanjit secretly drugs the newcomers' food with sleeping pills and plans to escape by helicopter with his siblings. Meanwhile, Nerezza manipulates Mary, whose mental health has deteriorated as her 15th birthday approaches, framing the fire as a prophesied "tribulation" and urging Mary to lead the children to the cliff at sunset on her birthday.

As Mary's birthday arrives, multiple crises converge at Clifftop. Drake appears in the day care, and Mary leads the terrified preschoolers to the cliff edge, telling them to hold hands and prepare to fly to their mothers. Zil's crew attacks fleeing children on the road. Drake rampages on the beach, whipping children and strangling Edilio unconscious. Nerezza attacks Little Pete, Astrid's brother who has severe autism and is secretly the most powerful being in the FAYZ, with a crowbar. Astrid fights her physically. In a brief vision, Little Pete reveals that the gaiaphage has orchestrated everything: It used Little Pete's own power to create Nerezza as its avatar, subverted Orsay's dreams to promote despair, and channeled Lana's healing ability to resurrect Drake and Brittney in a single shared body.

Brianna, a girl with super speed, retrieves Sam from the power plant. Mary steps off the cliff in her poof-trance, pulling a chain of children over the edge. Brianna catches one child; Dekka uses her gravity power to arrest the fall of the others. Mary vanishes, having taken the poof. Nerezza orders Jill, the nine-year-old whose singing supernaturally mesmerizes anyone who hears it, to sing, freezing everyone in earshot while Drake regenerates. Sanjit's helicopter, having barely escaped Caine on the island, crash-lands nearby, and the engine noise breaks the spell. Sam fires on Nerezza, whose body dissolves and vanishes. He then burns Drake's body away with sustained beams of light. When Brittney's voice emerges from the shared form begging him to finish, Sam cannot bring himself to destroy her and has the creature chained instead.

Little Pete howls in anguish, and for an instant the FAYZ wall vanishes entirely, revealing the outside world before snapping back. Little Pete collapses into a near-comatose state. In the aftermath, Orsay, who tried to reject Nerezza's influence, is found dead, strangled. Astrid drafts a simple set of laws for the town and then resigns from the council, admitting she lied and lost the community's trust. Sam and Astrid reconcile honestly about their failures. Drake and Brittney's shared body is imprisoned in a reinforced basement, the two personalities alternating between Brittney's pleas for destruction and Drake's screamed threats. The novel closes with Sam reflecting that being alive is all anyone can ask from the FAYZ, while Drake's muffled howls remind everyone the gaiaphage's threat endures.