In the Afterlight (The Darkest Minds series)

by Alexandra Bracken

  I didn’t relax until he was a good ten girls away from us.

  “Ruby,” Sam whispered, earning admonishing glances from the girls working the row across from us. “Something happened...after you left, I realized something was wrong. With me. My head.”

  My sight narrowed to the hole in front of me. “Nothing’s wrong with you.”

  “I missed you,” she said. “So much. But I barely know you...and then I get these senses, these images. They come like dreams.”

  I shook my head, fighting to keep my pulse steady. Don’t you dare. You can’t. If anyone catches on...if she slips up...

  “You’re different,” Sam finished. “Aren’t you? You’ve always been—”

  Sam was ripped away, hauled back and away from my side. I whirled around. The PSF from before was back, his hand knotted in Sam’s long ponytail.

  “You know the rules,” he snarled. “We work silently or we don’t work at all.”

  For the first time, I saw what this past year had done to my friend. The old Sam, the one who had stood up for me countless times, would have spat back an insult, or tried to twist out of his grasp. Struggled, in some small way.

  Now her dirt-stained hands went up to protect herself, without a beat of hesitation. A practiced movement. Her whole body sagged as he shoved her forward, sending her sprawling into the mud. Fury whipped through me. And then it wasn’t enough for me that I would kill this man, eventually. I wanted to humiliate him.

  I pushed a single image into his mind, an urge that was easy enough to suggest.

  The front of his black camo pants darkened, the stain spreading down his leg. I jumped back in overblown disgust, catching the attention of another PSF just across the row of vegetation. He came back to himself with a shudder—and with slow, dawning horror, looked down.

  “Shit—shit—”

  “Tildon,” the PSF who’d been watching called out, “Status?”

  “Shit—” The man’s face burned pink as he covered himself, seemingly torn between staying as he was or excusing himself to take care of the situation. Kids were sneaking glances at him, at each other. He seemed to realize it too, and rose on unsteady feet. I had just enough of a grip left on his mind to slide my right leg out to the side, and listen as his own leg mirrored the response and sent him crashing to his knees just before he reached the gate. The PSF—Tildon—he’d think he had tripped over someone. The image was the last one I planted before gently peeling back from his mind, refusing to watch as he walked briskly in the direction of the Control Tower.

  Too much, I chastised myself—next time I’d have to go for something subtler. But this one, this one I wouldn’t regret, no matter what. I rose unsteadily onto my feet to help Sam back onto hers, guiding her back over to our places. She was shaking, staring at me as if she knew what had really happened.

  “Fix it,” she whispered, “whatever you did to me. Please. I need to know.”

  I couldn’t bring myself to look at her, knowing what sort of expression I’d see there. It had been like this with Liam, hadn’t it? All of the feelings, none of the memories—that’s what I’d left her with. No wonder she had seemed so confused and hostile after I’d wiped her memory. It must have been overwhelming. If she’d felt half as close to me as I did to her, the strange sense that something was wrong must have torn at her each day.

  I met her pleading eyes with a plea of my own. And just like always, she understood. A spark of the old Sam surfaced. Her eyebrows drew together and she pursed her lips. This was the silent language we’d developed over the years.

  The PSF who’d been gazing in our direction, hand shading his eyes to make out Tildon’s distant form growing smaller and smaller, stepped over the mounds into our row. I tensed, waiting to feel his shadow cast over me. Try it, I thought, try it with any of these kids, and see where it gets you.

  Instead he walked away, continuing the watch that Tildon had been forced to abandon. I held my breath and slid my hand over, under the loose dirt, to grip Sam’s.

  We worked through the morning into the afternoon, with only a small break to eat the apples and sandwiches they distributed for lunch. I devoured mine with dirt-stained hands, watching the changing colors of the sky.

  And that night, as I lay in the bunk beneath her, I slipped into Sam’s mind as soft as a breeze.

  I thought of that morning I’d stepped up beside her in the Infirmary, the way her coat’s tag had flipped up against her neck. The exact moment I’d taken her memories of me by mistake, the heaviness in my chest still unbearable as the moment played through.

  The images were in her mind now, too, perfectly matched with mine. I was swept along with them, falling through the white, fluttering images around me. Her memories were almost too bright to watch, the wisps too thin to grasp. But I knew what I was looking for when I saw it. The black knot buried deep beneath the others. I reached out, touching it, increasing the pressure until it unraveled.

  If each memory that drifted up were a star, I was standing at the center of a galaxy. Beneath vast constellations of lost smiles and quiet laughter. Whole, endless days of gray and brown and black that we’d spent with only each other to hold on to.

  I’d assumed she’d been asleep the whole time; her mind had been so calm and still under my touch. But a pale arm came down over the side of the bunk, stretching down toward me. The familiar gesture stole the air from my chest, and I had to press my lips together to keep back the tears that came dangerously close to the surface. I reached up, meeting her halfway, locking my fingers around hers. A secret. A promise.

  MY PLAN CAME TO ME in pieces over the next two days. I assembled it hastily while I worked in the Garden, ignoring the blisters on the palm of my hand, and in those minutes before I passed out in exhausted sleep each night. Knowing that it would be over soon, in a matter of hours, made me feel reckless in a way I hadn’t expected. Somehow it was too much time, and yet still not enough; I couldn’t shake the fear that the others had changed their timing from the original plan that Cole, Nico and I had outlined. I’d told them March first, but what if it was impossible to get here in time?

  What if they’re not coming at all?

  I shoved the thought away before it could plant itself too deeply in my heart.

  At six o’clock that evening, I lay in my bunk, hands folded on my stomach. Sam’s mattress shifted as she rolled onto her side, distorting the shapes I had made in the plastic. I reached up, taking a small piece of the curling plastic cover between my broken fingernails. Tugging gently, I pulled the strip off, carefully working it around, around, until it formed an even circle.

  “—so the girl, after the robbers decided to take her away, she managed to steal one of their daggers and cut the rope off her hands...” Rachel was leading the story today, filling in the hour before we were called to dinner. Tonight, she wove the tale of yet another nameless girl, in yet another perilous situation. I closed my eyes, a faint smile on my lips. The stories hadn’t gotten any better or any more original—they all followed the same plot: girl is wronged, girl struggles, girl escapes. The ultimate fantasy at Thurmond.

  Physical exhaustion kept me still. As much as I had trained at the Ranch, these hours of endless work with no break, on limited food and water, were designed to drain us of the energy we’d need to muster to escape or push back. My body was a mess of quivering muscles, but I felt oddly calm, even though I knew what would happen if I made one misstep, or they figured out what I was before I could complete what I’d come here to do.

  I have to walk out of here.

  “Ruby?” Ellie called from her bunk at the center of the room. “It’s your turn.”

  I shifted onto my elbows, scooting back to swing my legs off the cramped bunk. I worked out the kinks in my lower back as I thought about how I was going to finish this story. “The girl...” When I was younger, I would have passed it
on to Sam after adding only a few words, but I could use this. I wasn’t sure they would understand, but I hoped some part of them would recognize the warning when the time came.

  “The girl cut herself loose from the rope and knocked the bandit off the horse in front of her. She took the reins and turned the horse around the road, heading back in the direction they had come from—back toward the castle.”

  There was a murmur at that. Vanessa had spent the better part of fifteen minutes describing the battle raging outside of its walls. It had provided the distraction the bandits needed to take the girl in the first place.

  “She used the darkness,” I explained. “She left her horse in the nearby forest and crept toward a passage she knew was hidden in the far stone wall. The fighting had stopped once the knights in black had taken the castle. They locked the white knights out, and they were unable to help the families trapped inside. But no one noticed a small, plain girl coming through the back door. She looked like a helpless servant girl, bringing a basket of food into the kitchen. For days, she stayed in the castle, watching. Waiting for the right moment. And then it came. She slipped back outside and made her way through the shadows of night, unlocking the gate for the white knights to come pouring back in.”

  “Why would she come back? Why didn’t she just escape—hide?” Sam asked, her voice small. I blew out a soft breath, glad that, if nothing else, she understood.

  “Because,” I said finally, “in the end, she couldn’t leave her family behind.”

  The girls shifted silently in their bunks, looking at each other as if wondering the same thing. No one asked the question—I don’t know how many of them actually dared to hope. But three short minutes later, the electronic lock on the cabin’s door popped open. The door swung in and a PSF stepped inside.

  “Line up,” she barked.

  We hastily assembled in alphabetical order, staring straight ahead as she counted us off. She motioned for the girls at the front of the line to start moving.

  I couldn’t help myself. A step before we reached the door, I glanced back behind me. No matter what happened, it would be the last time I ever saw Cabin 27.

  But when we walked through the door of the Mess Hall that evening, I already had to revisit a key component of my plan. Because, set up against the wall opposite of us, to the left of the window where we lined up to receive our food, was a large white screen. O’Ryan stood in front of it, his arms crossed over his chest, the blue light from a digital projector washing over him. Sam threw a nervous look my way as our PSF escort pushed her toward our table.

  The last time we’d seen them use this screen had been our first week here. The camp controllers had set up the projector to scroll through the list of camp rules. No talking during work duties. No talking after lights out. Do not speak to a Psi Special Forces officer unless spoken to first. On and on and on.

  Rather than have us line up to get food, the PSFs signaled for us to sit down and remain seated. The energy in the room was unsettling; I couldn’t get a read on any of the camp controllers or PSFs.

  “There have been some recent developments,” O’Ryan said, his natural voice loud enough to carry through the building, “regarding your situation. Pay attention. You will only be shown this once.”

  The move, I thought. They were finally going to tell them about closing the camp.

  O’Ryan stepped back as the lights were dimmed slightly. A computer was hooked up to the projector, giving us a glimpse of a desktop before the video window expanded and the PSF hit play.

  The video wasn’t about the move.

  Next to me, Sam actually recoiled, her hand reaching for mine. I blinked in horrified disbelief.

  It was a sight I hadn’t seen in eight years: President Gray standing at a podium in front of the crest of the White House. He smiled so generously that dimples appeared on his cheeks. He waved—beckoned—to someone out of the camera’s frame and, this time, the room full of reporters and cameras in front of him burst into sound as a pale-haired woman stepped up beside him, dressed in an immaculate suit. Dr. Lillian Gray.

  “I’ve never been one to bury the lede, have I?” President Gray laughed. The First Lady disappeared into the fevered flashing of the cameras; the furious clicking of camera shutters would have put any machine gun to shame.

  “It’s good to be home in Washington again, to be back in this room with all of you, and with my beautiful wife. She’s alive and well, contrary to wild speculation.”

  Nervous laughter in response.

  “Her appearance here means that, at long last, I can tell you that our prayers have been answered and we now have a safe treatment that will rid American children of the psionic disorder forever,” he said.

  More rumblings from the press, more camera flashes. The kids around me had been trained too well to react outwardly beyond startled gasps of their own, or quick, covert glances at each other. The majority of them just sat there in disbelief.

  “For years, Lillian has stayed out of the public eye so as to conduct research on this exact subject. It has remained confidential only to avoid interference from the former terrorist group, the Children’s League, and other domestic enemies. While we are continuing to seek out the cause of this tragic affliction, please rest assured that all children will be able to undergo this life-saving operation. Detailed information about the procedure is being distributed to you now.”

  A few reporters tried to leap in with questions, shouting Lillian’s name; trying, I guess, to coax her to the microphone. Instead, she found a patch of carpet to stare at. Whoever had dolled her up had also managed to vacuum the life out of her.

  “As you’ll see from the footage and reports we’ve included, our own son, Clancy, was the first to receive this procedure.”

  A wave of dizziness passed over me as another form was walked out onto the stage beside them by a man in a dark suit. His head had been shaved and covered with a baseball hat decorated with the presidential seal. He kept his face turned down and out of sight, denying the cameras in front of him a shot until the president leaned away from the microphone and said something to him. His shoulders hunched, Clancy finally lifted his head. He reminded me of a horse on the ground, leg broken under it; never able to stand again, let alone run.

  With all of the terrible things he’d done, and all of the terrible things I had imagined doing to him, never had this come to mind. I was shocked by the swell of emotions that rose in me, all of them too close, too wild for me to distinguish one from another. I felt sick.

  He trembled, looking smaller by the moment as his parents kept their smiles plastered on their faces, giving the reporters what they wanted: a family portrait. How perfectly, I thought, have these people drawn Clancy into his own worst nightmare.

  “You’ll remember that he came out of the camp rehabilitation program several years ago. Unfortunately, like with any disease, there are relapses; and this is one of the reasons why we have not felt comfortable releasing the children from these camps. We needed a more permanent solution, and we believe we have found it. There will be more information to come in regards to a timeline of when the procedure will start being performed, and a likely end date for the camp rehabilitation program. I ask you, knowing already how much you’ve sacrificed and suffered these long years, for more patience. For understanding. For your belief in the future we’re about to enter—one that will see the reemergence of our prosperity and way of life. Thank you, and God bless the United States of America.”

  Before the first avalanche of questions could sweep up and knock him off his feet, President Gray hooked his arm around Lillian’s shoulders, gave a friendly wave to the cameras, and guided her off the stage and out of the room before she could get a single word in.

  The video ended, frozen on that last image. I felt trapped in that moment, too.

  No, I thought. Remember why you came here. Now.
Do it now.

  Our PSF escort signaled for us to stand and begin re-forming our line to receive our meals, her face creased with impatience. The surprise video had put me off my original plan, but it was easy enough to pick up the pieces and reassemble them in working order. We were near the kitchen, shuffling forward, when I felt the eyes of the PSF on me.

  I shoved Sam, knocking her to the ground. And if that wasn’t enough to dry up every small sound around us, me shouting, “Shut up! Just—shut up!” to her did. My voice whipped through the silence, landing like a blow across her confused face.

  Play along, I begged, flashing her a look. Please.

  A small nod. She understood. I lifted my arm, as if to strike her, ignoring the way Vanessa tried to catch my wrist to prevent it. The hardest thing was not reacting to our PSF as she came toward me, crossing the distance between us in furious strides. This was more than enough to get me punished.

  More than enough to get me ejected from dinner.

  The girls around us kept their heads down, but their fear and confusion polluted the air around me as the woman caught me by the collar and hauled me away. O’Ryan and the other camp controllers disassembling the projector and screen didn’t even look up at the scuffle.

  I didn’t have to suggest anything to the PSF to get her to drag me into the kitchen. The Blue kids scrubbing the pots and pans under blistering water jumped. Several that were sorting the ingredients for the next day’s meals turned, momentarily distracted from their work. I searched the ceiling for the black cameras, counting them off as I went—two, three. One above the serving window; one near the large pantry; another over the long stainless-steel work table, where several of the kids were peeling the potatoes we’d only just pulled from the Garden.

  The back of the Mess Hall faced the forest, providing maybe ten feet of walking space between the building and the fence. The cameras never recorded what happened there, but only pointed out into the woods. It was one of the “blind spots” we’d learned to be afraid of very quickly.