Never Fade

by Alexandra Bracken

  How could I put it in a way she’d understand?

  “That’s not what Jude and Vida told me.”

  I opened my eyes, searching her face for any sign of a lie. “Are they okay?”

  “They’re fine,” she promised. “Worried about you. I can take you up to them, but first, I think we need to take care of our little problem.” She nodded toward Clancy. “All right?”

  “Yeah,” I said, taking a deep, shuddering breath. “All right.”

  Cole and Cate’s team had moved the kids into the atrium and shut the doors, blocking the steady flow of bodies that were being lifted out of the residence hall and brought down to the infirmary. They were the agents that overthrew Alban, all of them. A part of me thought it was ridiculous they were trying to keep us from seeing it. Another part of me felt grateful.

  I took a breath, shaking the tension out of my shoulders, then reached for the door.

  They’d pushed most of the tables to the outer edges of the room, leaving the center of the room open for cots. Some of the kids and agents were being treated by the medical staff for bumps and scrapes. It seemed insane that they were ignoring the fully stocked infirmary in favor of hauling gauze and antiseptic up here—until I remembered that same infirmary was currently functioning as a makeshift morgue.

  “Are all of them dead?” I asked quietly. In addition to the twenty-odd League kids huddled at the center of the room, eating whatever it was they’d dug out of the kitchen store for breakfast, there were something like forty agents ringing the perimeter of the room in clusters of black. But these were the faces that I had expected to see: agents who were in charge of Psi teams, instructors, the ones who looked at us with sad, longing eyes when they thought we weren’t looking.

  “The ones who wouldn’t stand down,” Cate said carefully.

  So—all of them?

  “I know it must have felt like they were all against you, but there were a number of agents who were blindsided by Alban’s assassination and only stayed because it was too late to get out without retribution from Jarvin. They didn’t put up a fight when we swept the sleeping quarters and were free to leave if they didn’t want a part of this.”

  My eyes didn’t stop scanning the room until they’d found them all. Chubs and Liam stood in front of one of the televisions, their backs to me as they watched news coverage of some kind of white domed building. Jude and Vida were near them, crouched on the floor in front of Nico, who looked like he was making a real effort to curl up into a ball and disappear forever.

  Cate followed my gaze. “We’ll talk about that later.”

  “Talk about what?” came the drawl behind us. I felt a heavy arm drop over my shoulder. “Could it be about little old moi?”

  I tried to tug myself free, but he held me there, ruffling my already disastrous hair. I couldn’t keep myself from flinching when I smelled the smoke on him. Red.

  Psi.

  Impossible.

  It just… I rubbed the back of my hand against my forehead. He was so together, when Mason had been crumbling from the inside out. And it wasn’t that Cole wasn’t intimidating—he was, in a way that disarmed you and left you flustered. It was that every other Red I had come across at Thurmond acted like an animal that had been caged by his own skin. They refused to meet anyone’s eyes, walking around with these vacant looks, listening to a voice in their mind, I think, that the rest of us couldn’t hear. Every once in a while, they’d come back to themselves, a hunger darkening their faces. You’d catch them staring at another kid, these little, twisted smiles tucked into the corner of their mouths, and you knew—knew—what would come next.

  But Cole not only had kept himself in check, he’d flourished.

  Red.

  The two of them shared a look over my head. “He mentioned that you’ve been…trusted. With a very important secret.”

  I didn’t say anything, not because I couldn’t think of a response but because I couldn’t pick one out of the thousands of questions billowing through my mind. Finally, I turned to him and settled on, “How long have you known?”

  “Since I was twelve,” he said. “Late bloomer compared to the rest of you. Scared me shitless. Mom and Harry always thought I was sneaking in matches or lighters—burning things to act out. It’s not the kind of thing you talk about if you don’t want to get bused to some god-awful camp, you know?”

  “Why not tell Lee?” I asked. “Why keep it from him?”

  Cole’s eyes narrowed. “I have my reasons, none of which is your business. You gave me your word you wouldn’t—”

  “I won’t,” I said, hating him for it. Another thing to keep from him. Another lie. “I just… How is this even possible? You’re too old. Are there…more like you?”

  No wonder Alban had valued him—a Psi who could move among the adults, never detected, just because he missed the supposed age cutoff.

  Cate glanced around, making sure there were no prying ears nearby. “Far, far, far fewer. A few hundred age outliers. But it’s not the time to talk about it. We have bigger concerns right now.”

  “Speaking of which.” Cole lowered his voice as he leaned down. “You couldn’t have mentioned Damsel-in-Distress Number Two was the president’s kid?”

  “Let’s see how many words you can get out after having your brain scrambled.”

  “Fair.” He glanced at Cate. “Is he going to be a problem?”

  “He’s in closet B-two,” she said, raising her brows in what looked to me like a challenge.

  “Okay, okay,” he said. “This first, that…later. There weren’t any guns left in there, right?”

  I don’t know who looked more irritated at the suggestion, Cate or me.

  Cole was still smirking when he asked, “You bring back the big prize along with my jerk-ass little brother?”

  I patted my pockets, feeling for the small plastic rectangle. I held it out to them, suddenly eager for someone other than me to carry its weight for a few minutes. Cole glanced at Cate. “All yours. You’re still heading out soon, right?”

  “In a minute. I need to tell my kids where I’m going.”

  “Because they won’t know what to do with themselves without Mommy fussing over them every two seconds?”

  At that, I really did wrench myself away from him, feeling my temper spike dangerously. Cole held up his hands and backed away a step. “Take a joke, Gem. Smile. Today’s a good day, remember? Solid win.”

  “Where are you going?” I asked Cate.

  “Out with a few agents to try to find some kind of transportation for all of us.”

  “But…”

  “I’ll be back in a few hours, I promise. I think you know that…it probably wouldn’t be right to stay here after this.”

  “Where are we going?” I asked. “Kansas? Or Georgia?”

  “Roo!”

  It was impressive we’d been able to stand there for that long before Jude’s radar started to ping. He was up and on his feet, pushing through the agents standing between us, nearly tripping over a group of kids who were clearly just trying to sit and eat and not burst into tears. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Chubs and Liam turn around, but just as quickly they were gone, and the only thing in my world was Jude as he threw his long arms around me.

  “You scared the crap out of me!” he said. I hugged him back. My one-kid welcoming committee.

  “I was worried about you, too,” I said. “Did anything happen?”

  He shook his head, curls flying. “Did you find him?”

  “I told you she was fine.” Vida put a hand on his shoulder and tried to peel him off by force. “Judith. Unclench.”

  Cate laughed, patting his back. “Come on, I have to tell you two and Nico something.”

  That was enough for Jude to ease up just a bit. “He still won’t talk. I can’t get him to say a word. He, like, shut down.”

  I gave a faint wave as she led him and Vida back over to Nico.

  “Ah.” Cole muttered.
I felt him stiffen, adjusting his posture from a casual slump to one that was solid. Collected. Even his face seemed to harden. He kicked off where he had been leaning against the wall and pushed past me without another word. He threw a single warning glance over his shoulder.

  That was less than what he gave Liam—and even less than what Liam gave him—as they brushed past each other and continued in opposite directions. I met Chubs’s look dead-on, and the expression there was enough to tell me there’d be a story later.

  Alive, alive, alive, alive, my heart sang. I let the poisonous memory of what Clancy had shown me bleed out until there was nothing but the buzzing brightness in my chest. It took my breath away. Alive. The dirt on their faces was nothing. The cut that had reopened on Liam’s chin was nothing. The crack in one of Chubs’s lenses was nothing.

  They were everything.

  The two of them stood in front of me, arms crossed over their chests, wearing identical disapproving looks.

  “Are you guys okay?” I asked, since they clearly weren’t about to say anything.

  “Are you?” Liam shot back. “What were you thinking, going after him like that?”

  I bristled at his tone. “I was thinking that he let himself be dragged here for a reason, and I was right.” I reached into my pocket, fishing out one of the photos from the folded stash of documents. Chubs eyed the stained paper I held out with a measure of distaste.

  “That blood wasn’t in your body at one point, was it?”

  I pressed it against his chest, forcing him to take it. “I tracked him to Alban’s office. That’s what he was after.”

  Liam leaned over to look. They didn’t have the same mental block I did, apparently. Recognition lit up their eyes. Chubs’s jaw actually dropped.

  “He’s looking for her,” I said. “The photos were in a file with what I think is research she was conducting. I don’t know if he thought she was here or he knew Alban might have some kind of clue, but—”

  Cole climbed up onto the table at the center of the room, clapping his hands twice. He cupped his hands around his mouth. “Can I get your attention?”

  There was a formality to his tone that sounded unnatural. The Cole of sly smiles and infuriating teasing had apparently retired for the morning. Agent Stewart had no time for him.

  “All right. I’ll make this quick.” The agents and kids in the room were shifting, flowing around the cots and tables so they were standing in front of him. “What happened here…it’s done. You did your part beautifully. And while I wish I could say they wouldn’t have gone through with their plan in the end, I think we all know that’d be a damn lie.”

  Liam shifted, leaning back against the wall in the exact pose his brother had assumed a few minutes before. He kept his eyes focused on me, clearly waiting for something.

  “Look, I’m not one for pretty speeches. I’m not going to lie, because you’ve been lied to all of your goddamn lives, and it’s got to stop. Here’s what you need to know.” He cleared his throat. “When Alban started this whole thing, he only ever wanted to expose the truth about IAAN and for Gray to own up about the camps. More than anything, he wanted this country to go back to what it was before—the place he was proud of and was happy to serve. The Children’s League was his dream, even if it turned to shit in the end. He wanted that life again. But I say we can’t go back.”

  I turned more fully toward him, stepping around Chubs to get a better look. The other kids watched, riveted. Why wouldn’t they be? It was the same as all of those times I’d heard Liam speak about freeing the camps; the passion behind their words undercut all the doubt they claimed to have about their ability to express themselves. They let themselves burn when so many of us were afraid to be warmed by the fire.

  He’s one of us, I thought. The others had no idea, and they still felt that this was right. That he was supposed to be taking charge.

  Liam scoffed, rolling his eyes. Chubs and I glanced at each other, and I wondered if he could feel the wave after wave of disappointment Liam was sending our way, too.

  “It’s forward or nowhere for us now. We—all the folks who came back—are leaving this place, and this name, behind. I don’t know what we’ll be yet or if we’ll take another name, but I know what we’re going to do. We’re going to figure out what the hell happened to cause IAAN, expose anyone responsible, and get those poor damn kids out of those cesspools of misery. We are leaving; we’re going up to the ranch—there are agents reopening it right now. We want you to come. We want you to want to fight. We want you.”

  Cate stood from where she’d been sitting with the others and gave me a wave as she exited through the door on the other side of the room. Vida, Jude, and Nico didn’t look up as she left. They were nodding, letting Cole’s promises sweep them up in the heady rush of possibility. I felt it fluttering inside me, too. There were no advisers feeding him lines, no locked filing cabinets, no dark hallways. This was honest. Real.

  “What’s the ranch?” Chubs whispered.

  “It’s the League’s old temporary headquarters near Sacramento,” I said. “They shuttered it when they finished this one.”

  “We want you,” Cole repeated, his eyes sliding our way. “But it’s your choice.”

  I met his gaze dead-on, trying not to roll my eyes as he winked. He knew he had me.

  And so did Liam.

  He shoved away from the wall, but he let me catch him by the jacket as he passed. His shoulders shook with each deep, ragged breath he drew in. After days of regaining his strength and coloring, Liam was back to looking a step away from collapsing. His skin was ashy and his eyes burning as he stared at me.

  “Tell me you’re leaving with us today,” Liam whispered. “Chubs and me. I know you’re too smart to buy all that bullshit. I know you.”

  He saw the answer in my face. His hands captured my wrists and pushed them away.

  Just before Liam reached the door, he turned back and said, his voice hoarse, “Then I have nothing left to say to you.”

  Cole disappeared after his speech, muttering something about “going to check on it,” without giving another word of explanation to what or who “it” was. I had half the mind to follow him and make sure it wasn’t Clancy Gray, but I’m not sure I could have stood up from the table if I had tried. The five of us—Jude, Vida, Chubs, Nico, and I—had claimed one of the circular tables near a TV, mostly, I think, to stay out of the way of the agents who were trying to “retire” the building and strip anything and everything they might need from it.

  An hour had passed. More than enough time for Jude to ask, “Is Cate back yet?” and me to start worrying about Liam. It felt like the longer I sat there, though, the heavier my limbs became, until I was mimicking Nico across the table and resting my head on my arms, easing that weight off my shoulders.

  “She said it’d take a while,” Vida said, checking the time on her old Chatter again. “There’re seventy of us. That’s a lot of wheels to round up.”

  “We’re coming to you live from the Texas State Capitol building, where President Gray and representatives from the Federal Coalition will start the Unity Summit in less than fifteen minutes now—”

  Jude reached over to turn the volume up. He’d been the picture of calm all morning; there hadn’t been so much as a whimper of how hungry or tired he was. Of our sad group, he was the only one who was actually paying attention to the screen. Nico had retreated so far in on himself, he was basically comatose. Chubs kept glancing between the watch on his wrist and the door.

  The news coverage of the Christmas Day peace summit had started fifteen minutes before at nine o’clock Texas time. There were mostly crowd shots, and of that only a very small section. When the cameraman had accidentally panned over a group of protesters and their signs, all of which were being kept as far from the building as possible, the feed had been cut.

  Cole slid into the space between Jude and me, nearly knocking the kid off the bench. “Hey, Gem, need to borrow you
for a sec.”

  I turned and buried my face deeper into my arms. “Can it wait?”

  “It is awake and very angry, and I would appreciate some guidance on how to approach, seeing as you are the only one who might be able to tell me if he’s trying to melt my brain.”

  “People know what he really is?” Chubs asked, surprised. “You told them?”

  “Alban already knew,” Cole said. “He saw Clancy influencing one of his Secret Service agents during one of his press tour stops after he got out of camp.”

  I sat up at that.

  If Alban already knew what Clancy was and what he could do, Lillian Gray’s first note could be taken a whole different way. I need to get out of his reach if I’m going to save him. Lillian might have realized, even before President Gray had, that her son was using his abilities to influence the people around him.

  The timeline was coming together for me, finally. Alban would have seen Clancy do this just before he left to join the League—he removed himself from, as Lillian called it, Clancy’s “reach.” If she had tried asking her husband or any one of his advisers for help disappearing, Clancy would have had access to that information. It really had been a plan of desperation.

  “Then why the hell didn’t he do anything with that?” came Liam’s voice behind us. The lines in his face deepened with his frown. “That could have blown the whole camp charade apart.”

  Cole rolled his eyes. “And he was going to prove it how? The kid was a ghost. We tried to put feelers out to see if he’d come willingly, but he never bit.”

  “Because he doesn’t need you,” Nico said, his voice hoarse. “He doesn’t need any of us. He takes care of himself.”

  I opened my mouth to explain my theory, but Liam cut me off.

  “Shouldn’t you be helping the others clean the place out?” he asked pointedly. He stared at the place where Cole’s hand was on my shoulder.

  It was insane to see them standing side by side like this, wearing almost identical expressions of anger on almost identical faces.

  “Feel free to leave any time, Lee,” Cole said, dismissing him with a wave. “No one’s keeping you here. I told you how to find Mom and Harry, so go on. Run back and hide. I wish I could be there when you explain to them how you almost managed to fuck over an entire group of kids because you’re too idiotic to pay attention to what you’re doing and where you’re going. After you tell them about what happened when you tried to break out of your camp, of course.”