In the Afterlight (The Darkest Minds series)

by Alexandra Bracken

  “Well,” he said finally, “I have some intel for you, if you’d like it.”

  Alice rolled her eyes. “I’m sure you do.”

  “You say you want to give the world a sense of who these kids are, but you’re really just setting them up to be pitied.” Cole tucked his hands in the back pockets of his jeans, his voice growing louder as the din around him faded. “What motivates people, even more than anger, is fear. Go ahead and release all that intel on Ambrosia, see where that lands this country when people start rioting over the last few fresh, untainted water sources. Or, you can show them Gray’s trump card—that he’s been building an army of Reds.”

  “What are you talking about?” Alice demanded.

  “You all saw what happened at Kansas HQ today,” Cole said. “But what the news didn’t tell you is that there are reports that it was Reds, not a military unit, that attacked them.”

  “Oh, convenient—reports with nothing to back them up.” Alice waved him off.

  But, if nothing else, Cole now had the reins of the conversation back in his hand. He was guiding the conversation now, not letting it happen around him. “My trusted source says that there’s a camp of Reds not too far from here, in a place called Sawtooth. I’d like to go and document evidence of them—their training, the camp’s existence—and I’d like to give it to you for Amplify, on the condition it’s used in conjunction with the actual camp hit.”

  “Where did this information come from?” Liam asked, his eyes narrowed in suspicion.

  “A trusted source,” he repeated.

  His brother rolled his eyes. Alice, though—Cole had read her right. It was like a cat that had spotted a mouse creeping along the floorboards. She wanted this story, and she wasn’t going to run the risk of someone else getting it first.

  “Okay, what about this,” she began. “We send out five teams to the water treatment facilities, and you can take a small group out to assess the situation there. Snap some photos.”

  “I only need one other person,” he said, glancing at me.

  “I’ll go,” Liam said, before I could. He set his jaw, daring his brother to refuse. Cole crossed his arms over his chest, eyes darting over to me, looking for a lifeline.

  He doesn’t want Liam to go. And it had nothing to do with how Liam may or may not have been able to handle himself, or if he trusted him. I saw that now.

  “I’d still like to go,” I said. “I think—”

  “He just said two would be enough,” Liam pressed, turning back to his brother. “Unless you think I’m going to screw everything up on your precious little mission?”

  Cole snorted, his lips twisting up in a rueful smile. “All right, it’s settled. Now...someone talk to me about our car situation. What’s the gasoline level at now?”

  Dr. Gray returned to her seat, finally, eyes fixed on her hands in her lap as Senator Cruz asked her something. The meeting came to a natural end as five teams formed to go out to the water treatment facilities, Alice taking the lead, dividing them up by state and choosing which one she wanted to go with.

  I didn’t stay around to watch the stiff conversation between Cole and Liam. I turned on my heel, vaguely aware of Chubs saying something to me as I made my way back into the tunnel, through the Ranch, back to the empty computer room. I sat back down at Nico’s computer station and switched on the news livestream.

  “—obviously this is terrible if it’s true and the president will have a considerable amount of explaining to do—” This was the last one still running; the others had been switched off, one by one. A pattern had formed: a news station would show the kids’ interviews, the conversation between the talking heads would swing dangerously toward the this is true camp, and the feed would go dark. This station seemed to be avoiding the censors by casting the guest commentator as a devil’s advocate instead of a so-called expert. “—but what if these children haven’t been coached, and this isn’t some ploy for attention or notoriety from parents? If they have been removed from their rehabilitation program, then aren’t their lives in danger? Our focus should be on returning them to their camps before it’s too late.”

  The host of the program arched a gray, bushy eyebrow and said, his voice deep and penetrating, “Did you actually watch the interviews? They claim that there is no program. Based on the fact that it’s been nearly a decade and we’ve had little to no news or progress in finding a cure, I’m inclined to agree. I don’t think these children would risk exposing themselves without—”

  The video window jumped to static.

  That’s the end of that, I thought, rubbing my face. The room was warm, the machines humming a low song perfectly in tune with one another. The longer I listened to it, eyes shut, the easier it was to process the tidal wave of information that had come crashing down over our heads earlier in the evening; the easier it was to let the quiet anger roll through me.

  What was the point of trying to keep it inside now—my fury over decisions that had been made almost twenty years ago?

  And this “cure”—what a joke. Surrendering yourself to an invasive procedure that might or might not work was patching the problem over, not fixing it. I felt strangely betrayed by my own hope; I thought I’d trained myself not to bank on things that were completely out of my control. But...still. Still, it hurt.

  What’s the point in getting anyone out now if they don’t have a future? My throat ached with the thought. At least in the camps they’re protected from what they’d have to deal with out here. How many people would really be welcoming to “freaks” out walking the streets? I fought the instinct to walk over to the satellite image of Thurmond, to tear it down off the wall and rip it between my hands, just shred it into a thousand fluttering pieces to match the way I was shattering inside. Why not just let those kids be taken out of the camp, let the PSFs and military raze the buildings without leaving so much as a scar on the earth?

  Because if the kids are in the camps, they could be forced to get the procedure, whether they want it or not.

  Because they deserve to have a choice about how they want to live their lives.

  Because they haven’t seen their families in years.

  Because it’s what’s right.

  I stood up and stretched my stiff limbs as I moved toward the satellite image of the camp, smoothing out a corner that was becoming unstuck from the wall. The notations I made were all still there, and I saw new ones—arrows that Cole had made, outlining the flow of the assault. He wanted us to enter through the front gate using military vehicles. We would pose, I had a feeling, as either units helping with the move or additional forces. The first drive was split between the Infirmary and the Control Tower, with smaller pairings of fighters in twos and threes moving through the rings of cabins.

  I backed up to get the full scope of it all, taking a seat on one of the empty desks.

  It’s the right thing to do. It would just be a matter of convincing everyone else.

  The door to the computer room swung open, and I turned, saying, “How did it—?”

  But it wasn’t Cole. It was Liam. Jaw set, blue eyes stormy. Even if I hadn’t been able to feel the anger pouring off him, he was shaking with the clear effort it took to walk in and shut the door with some semblance of calm.

  My whole world tilted toward him. There were so many empty spaces inside of me now, and I don’t know if I’d even have recognized that until he was there to fill them. The longing turned to a dull ache; it played games with my mind. It made me think I saw it in his eyes, too, as he watched me. His anger met my desperation and the sparks from the collision crystallized, trapping us in this moment of charged silence forever.

  “I’m sorry,” I said finally. “I know it’s too late now, but I’m sorry.”

  Liam cleared his throat. His voice was low. “How long have you known?”

  There was no point in lying
, trying to gloss over the truth. I just couldn’t do it anymore. I couldn’t have this guilt under my skin, cutting me to the bone each time I withheld, with each little lie. Cole had asked me to keep his secret and I had, because I felt it was his right to come to grips with his abilities on his own terms and in his own time. But I should never have let this charade go on for so long, not when it did more to tear things apart than it did to bring everyone together.

  And at this point, I wasn’t sure it was possible for Liam to hate me any more than he already did.

  “At HQ,” I said, “when he and the other agents came in to retake it, he saved my life. I saw it then.”

  Liam drew in a sharp breath and, in a blur of furious movement, slammed his fist into the wall next to the door, hard enough to crack the plaster.

  “Ow—shit!” He jumped back, cradling his hand. “Christ—why did she say that would make me feel better?”

  I was on my feet, reaching for him, before I remembered myself.

  “Who—Alice?” I guessed, hating that I could hear the bitterness in my own voice.

  “Yeah, ’cause some reporter is the first person I’m gonna tell after finding out my brother is a Red,” he shot back. “Vida. When I asked her where you were.”

  “Oh. I’m sorry,” I said. I hadn’t realized until that moment, hearing those two words leave my mouth, how carefully I’d managed to balance on the tip of a needle. But it was like every ounce of strength I’d had left just...slipped away. I felt myself take another step, and my knees went out from under me as I dropped to the ground. I couldn’t find the words I needed, couldn’t put them together. I pressed my hands against my face, crying, beyond caring. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry...”

  I heard him come toward me, saw between my fingers as he lowered himself to the ground a short distance away and leaned back against the table. He rested his arms over his knees, letting his swollen right hand hang out in the air. He didn’t say anything at all, waiting for me to finish, or waiting for something in himself; I didn’t know.

  “He said he made you swear on your life not to tell me,” he said, his voice hoarse. “That I should blame him, not you.”

  “Yeah, but I could have told you anyway,” I said quietly.

  “But you didn’t.”

  “I didn’t.”

  He let out a sound of frustration, running his hands back through his hair. “Ruby...can you at least help me understand why? I’m...I want to understand. This is killing me. I don’t get why no one...why neither of you even tried.”

  “It’s because...I know what it feels like to...” I struggled for the right words, but every time it felt like I had a grip on them, they slipped away. “It’s different for us—for him and me. The dangerous ones. I know you don’t want to hear that, I’m sorry, but it’s true. I saw it in the way the PSFs treated the Orange and Red kids at Thurmond, I saw it in how hard Zu struggled to learn to control her abilities, and I see it in the face of every kid I talk to. So I knew exactly why Cole didn’t tell you or your parents. I lived with the fear of being found out, and so did he. First with your family, and then with the League.”

  “No one in the League had any idea?” Liam asked in disbelief.

  “Three people knew,” I said. “Alban, Cate, me. That’s it.”

  He released a harsh breath, shaking his head.

  “I wish I was better at this—at explaining. I just kept thinking about how I had to keep my own secret for so long. Six years. And then just like that, in a matter of seconds, I had to show you all what I was to get us away from that woman. It was somehow the hardest and easiest decision I’ve ever made, because it meant you would all be safe, but I was so sure it would be over and I’d lose the three of you because you knew.”

  “You...in the woods, after the skip tracer tried to take us in,” he said, fitting the right memory together, “when you thought we were going to leave you behind.”

  “Yes.” There was a sharp ache in my chest as I said, “But you talked to me, you told me that you all wanted me. You can’t know what that feels like after...after being alone inside of your head for so long. It changed my life. And I know it sounds stupid, but I think part of me felt like I could be that for him. I could help him get to the point where he wasn’t so damn ashamed of what he was, make him feel comfortable about being one of us so he wouldn’t be so alone. It didn’t seem right, you know? He’s still trapped in this in-between space. Not one of us, but not one of the adults.”

  “That was by choice,” Liam said. “He could have told us.”

  “Did you see how half of the kids reacted when he brought up the Red camp? Olivia? Brett? He didn’t think, Oh, but I’ve proven the stories wrong; he thought, They’ll hate me, they’ll be afraid of me, they’ll never be able to look me in the eye again.”

  Liam looked down at his hands again. “Do you still think those things?”

  “It comes and goes,” I said quietly. “Sometimes. When I’m with you, I feel like I’m...like a beam of sunlight, you know? You chase the bad things away. With Cole, he understood the dark I could never shake. I used to think he was the kind of person that wasn’t afraid of anything, but he’s scared of his own shadow, Liam. I don’t think I understood until tonight just how scared he was of you really seeing him.”

  “But that’s so unfair,” Liam said, his voice strained with a second wave of anger. “I know it’s not right, but I hate him for thinking that me and Mom and Harry—that any of these kids who basically worship the ground he walks on—would love him less. I wish he’d trusted us. He could have had support in this. Nothing’s changed for me.”

  “Nothing?”

  “Nothing,” he repeated vehemently. “Except now I know he wasn’t lighting my toys on fire with matches to be a jerk. I guess that’s something.”

  “He couldn’t control it,” I said. “He still struggles with it.”

  Liam didn’t look convinced. “By the little demonstration he gave me, you’d never know that.”

  “He does,” I insisted. “It depends on the situation.” Like when he’s terrified you’ve been hurt, or you’re dead.

  “But if you can learn control, so can he, right?”

  “Learning control doesn’t mean people trust you to make good choices, does it?” I felt my voice break halfway through the question, and I immediately regretted having brought it up.

  “What are you...oh—you—” Liam’s brows drew together sharply; I watched the anger deflate, and dull shock swept in to take its place. “You found...my note? Ruby, why didn’t you say anything?”

  “What could I say? You were right not to trust me. Look at where trusting me before got you.”

  “No! Dammit, I should never have written the stupid thing, but I was so sure he would make me leave. That he would convince you I had to leave.” I pulled back, not wanting to hear the explanation, not when the pain still felt as fresh as it had that night. He didn’t let me go. Liam turned to face me fully, and for the first time in what felt like years, touched me, taking my shoulder—or trying to. The moment he flexed his hand he winced. “Ow, dammit—”

  “Let me see it.” I took his hand carefully between mine, examining it. The touch was enough to drive my pulse back up, to spark a charge under my skin again. His eyes moved over me; I felt it like a second, sweet touch, and I wondered if he had missed this too, if he’d looked at me and felt the warmth pooling at his center. The need.

  He’d broken the skin over his knuckles when he’d struck the wall, but the bleeding had already stopped, and the swelling and bruising had begun. I probed the delicate bones carefully, letting my loose braid fall over my shoulder. His other hand reached for it, took it between his fingers, and ran down its length. I caught my breath as he brushed against my collarbone. Closed my eyes. I felt the warmth around us shift as he leaned toward me, ran his finger along that ridge
of exposed skin. I didn’t deserve the tenderness, but it had been so long, and I wanted him too badly to care.

  I raised the hand between mine and pressed my lips against the torn knuckles. He closed his eyes and shuddered.

  “Not broken,” I whispered against his skin. “Just bruised.”

  “What about us?”

  The question filled me with equal parts hope and fear. “I can’t forget, can you?”

  “Does that matter, though?” he asked. “I don’t want to forget. There’s so much behind us, it’s true, but does it matter if we’re going the same way forward? The past few days have been hell. I see your face and it’s like—I wish—I wish I had never written that stupid note. I wish I had told you about Alice. I just wanted to feel something other than useless. I wanted you to see something good in me.”

  “Liam—” My breath hitched. “I’ve never seen anything else. I want so much to have a real life. To be someone who can go home and be with her family again. I thought that I could fix myself and be the kind of person who deserves someone like you. Someone who deserves Zu, Chubs, Vida, Jude, Nico, Cate. I thought I could fix myself with the cure. That’s all I’ve ever wanted, to be done with this. But now, I just want to be kinder to myself. I don’t want anyone to implant anything in my head, or mess with who I am. When all of this is over, however long it takes, I won’t ever have to use my abilities again. But for now I have to, and I have to trust myself to do right by everyone. Tell me what I have to do, to earn the right to have you in my life, and I’ll do it—I’ll do anything—”

  Liam’s hand slid up my hair to brush my cheek. Relief, pure and beautiful, bloomed in me as his mouth covered mine. When he pulled back, he watched my reaction carefully. When I offered a small smile, he kissed me again, and my last reservations fell away, shattering. I deepened the kiss, trying to leave him as breathless as I felt.

  He pulled back, his face flushed, eyes bright. I knew the look on his face mirrored mine. My whole body was trembling, desperate to continue, to chase the fierce love I felt for him. Carefully avoiding his bad hand, Liam shifted onto his knees and started to rise from the floor, reaching down to help me do the same. He startled suddenly as he caught something at the edge of his vision.