“Nico!” I interrupted. “Listen to me! No. There’s no way in hell you’re going back in there! Even if they brought you back into the camp, how would you get yourself into the Control Tower to upload it? You haven’t been there since the camp changed. They don’t just let you walk around unsupervised. Every move you make in there is choreographed down to the minute. And it’s the most fortified building in the camp.”
He paused, trying to think this through. “I’d need to observe the schedules of the PSFs, figure out a moment I could slip away. It doesn’t matter if they catch me in the end, not really. It would be okay…I would get to…there’s not anyone left for me now that Cate’s gone. And this is how I could make it right.” His voice dropped to a whisper. “This is how I could make it right for Jude.”
I stood straight up at that, whirling around to face him fully. “Throwing yourself into danger…throwing your life away…what would Jude say about that? What would Cate say? I haven’t been a good friend to you these past few weeks, but Nico, I swear to God—please, I forgive you, I do, I understand what happened and I’m sorry I treated you the way I did. I’ve been up in my own head too much, and it was hard for me to see things clearly. But please listen to me—”
“It’s okay.” Nico’s voice was hoarse.
“It’s not!” It wasn’t. It wasn’t even remotely all right how I’d been acting—blaming him for everything, hating him because I couldn’t function if all of my energy went into hating myself. I tried to think of what Jude would say and do in this situation. Or even Cate, all those times she’d had to talk the kid out of a manic fit about some conspiracy.
“We can’t change what happened in Los Angeles. I was angry—I was so damn angry that he just…slipped away, and I couldn’t save him. I should have talked to you, should have helped you, or at least tried to understand what you’d done. I let everyone down, but it was easier to blame you. It hurt less. But the truth is, I knew what Clancy was capable of. I should have tried to confirm some other way that what he said was true. And you know what? Jude would have wanted to go anyway, even if I said no.”
“He was my best friend,” Nico choked out.
“I know. But…it’s different with Clancy, isn’t it?” I said quietly. “Rules don’t apply when you love someone. And that’s how it was with Clancy, right? It’s not like how you loved Jude, or the way I love Chubs.”
I’d known it the moment I saw his face in Clancy’s memory. The tortured expression and the ragged sobs were only part of it. It was the way Nico had held the other boy, how he’d fed him and cleaned him with every ounce of tenderness he had in him. You see it in others, I thought, when you recognize it in yourself.
“You trusted him, and he took your words and twisted them for his own ends,” I said. “I was so angry with you for believing him, for giving him everything you did. But I know firsthand that people are capable of doing things for the people they love that they never would have considered before.”
Nico buried his face in his hands, letting out a shuddering breath.
“I didn’t mean to ruin everything,” he whispered. “I trusted him. All the intel I gave him, he swore he was using to help us and I thought…”
“You thought that he would help keep us away and safe, didn’t you?” I finished for him. “I know. It sounds to me like maybe you fell into my pattern for a while there.”
“I don’t know why—I knew it was wrong, that it was bad, but he was good. When I knew him, he was good and he helped me. And I just extrapolated it would apply to everyone else. The only reason you were there was because I forecast the results incorrectly. I didn’t factor all of his behavioral outliers in.” His voice became so small, I had to lean in that much closer to hear him. “He wasn’t always the way he is now. They broke something in him.”
“I’m sorry,” I said. “For not letting you explain. For acting the way I did and not being there for you.”
“I have to fix this,” he said, voice ragged, “I have to make things right. I can’t—I can’t stop thinking about all of the other outcomes we could have had. Vida said if you hadn’t been there we wouldn’t have had the cure, but we don’t have it, do we? It was for nothing.”
It was a punch to the gut. I felt tears spring to my eyes and fought to hold them back. The pain in him was unending. His life was tragedy upon tragedy upon tragedy. And I’d ignored him, punished him. Vida hadn’t made any real attempt. Cate had left altogether. He didn’t have anyone to help him through this. We’d stranded him out in a dark sea without so much as a life vest.
“We can make it right,” I said, taking him by the shoulders. “You’ve done so much already, but there’s still so much left. We’ll figure out another way.”
“You have no logical reason to trust me,” Nico said.
“You may have noticed this about me, but I’ve never been good at listening to logic.”
“That’s true,” he agreed. “It’s not your pattern. Jude liked that. He said you knew when it was okay to break the rules to help people. He said you were like a superhero because you always tried to do good things even if the odds were bad.”
“Jude’s pattern was exaggeration,” I said, hoping he didn’t catch the hitch in my voice.
Nico nodded, his jet-black hair falling forward into his face. He looked sick to me—sick in body, mind, and heart. The pallor of his usually golden-brown skin made it look like his ghost had already up and left his body. “Jude never made logical decisions, but he tried.”
He tried. He tried so hard, at everything, with everyone.
“Ruby, what does the future look like?” Nico asked. “I can’t picture it. I try all the time, but I can’t imagine it. Jude said it looked like an open road just after a rainstorm.”
I turned back toward the board, eyes tracing those eight letters, trying to take their power away; change them from a place, a name, to just another word. Certain memories trap you; you relive their thousand tiny details. The damp, cool spring air, swinging between snow flurries and light rain. The hum of the electric fence. The way Sam used to let out a small sigh each morning we left the cabin. I remembered the path to the Factory the way you never forgot the story behind a scar. The black mud would splatter over my shoes, momentarily hiding the numbers written there. 3285. Not a name.
You learned to look up, craning your neck back to gaze over the razor wire curled around the top of the fence. Otherwise, it was too easy to forget that there was a world beyond the rusting metal pen they’d thrown all of us animals into.
“I see it in colors,” I said. “A deep blue, fading into golds and reds—like fire on a horizon. Afterlight. It’s a sky that wants you to guess if the sun is about to rise or set.”
Nico shook his head. “I think I like Jude’s better.”
“Me too,” I said softly. “Me too.”
AFTER LEAVING NICO TO HIS WORK, I HEADED TO THE UPPER LEVEL, BARELY KEEPING A LID ON THE FURY RIPPING THROUGH ME. It didn’t matter, not even for a second, that Senator Cruz was in Alban’s old office with Cole and they were having a serious, quiet discussion. I let myself explode into the room.
Senator Cruz leapt to her feet and pressed a hand to her chest. Cole only leaned back in his seat.
“He told you,” Cole said, his voice flat.
“Yes, he told me!” I snapped. “How could you authorize—”
“Shut the door—Ruby!” Cole slammed a hand down on the desk, cutting off my tirade before it could even really begin. The way his voice immediately softened, the pained quality of it, brought me up short. “Shut the door.”
I kicked it shut behind me, crossing my arms over my chest.
“It is a death sentence to send that kid into Thurmond,” I told him. “He won’t be able to handle it, and even if he could, who’s to say they’ll take him to the camp and not back into Leda’s testing program?”
“The one he was in was closed shortly after I got the flash drive out,” Cole said.
; “Like there aren’t others?” I said.
“You were fine with sending Tommy and Pat into Oasis,” Senator Cruz reminded me. She knew about this, too.
“I’m not fine with it. I don’t like it. But they’re functioning as eyes and ears only, and we’ll have them out within two days. Nico won’t be able to get away to install the program, and even if by some miracle he does, he won’t be able to get away from the Control Tower once it’s complete.”
“Then, what do you suggest?” Cole asked. “Really, I’m all ears.”
I thought of Zu’s reaction to Vida and Chubs leaving, the pale shock that had wrapped its icy hands over her. If Nico was right, and this was the only way, then it…I took a deep breath in, my fingers curling into fists. Wouldn’t it have to be me? Nico was too fragile right now. Being back there would destroy him. But I could—if it helped the people I loved, if it helped every kid that came after us—I could accept that it was the role I was meant to play in this.
They’ll kill you, I thought. Clancy had already confirmed what they had done to the other Oranges. You would have to convince them again—make them think you’re Green. I shook my head, trying to clear the thoughts. Last resort. This was a last resort plan.
“I think we need to consider Liam’s ideas,” I said. “Maybe we should go more indirect. Use the media. Get the parents involved. If we take Gray’s image down, shake up that last bit of trust people have in him, we can dismantle his government that way. The international community can’t ignore evidence of abuse and wrongdoing for long. They’ll step in—”
“Sweetheart, they’ve been ignoring evidence for years,” Senator Cruz said. “They tried to drop aid into the country and it backfired. Gray threatened to shoot their planes out of the sky if they crossed into our airspace again. I’ve tried and tried.”
“We just have to get them the right proof,” I said. “We can use Lillian Gray’s words about the cure and whatever she knows about what caused IAAN to prove it’s safe for them to travel in, and help overthrow Gray. Haven’t there been peacekeeping forces formed in the past?”
“We have a deal. Oasis for supplies,” Senator Cruz said sharply, turning to look at Cole. “Are you reneging?”
“No, I promise you, that’s not what we’re doing,” he said, both hands out and placating. “It’s natural to have cold feet before an Op like this. Can I speak to Ruby alone for a few minutes?”
Senator Cruz rose stiffly, casting an unhappy glance in my direction as she exited the room and pulled the door firmly shut behind her.
“Talk to me, Gem,” Cole said. “Tell me what’s going on in that head of yours.”
“We should keep the plan for Oasis, but I think we need to rethink our approach to Thurmond. Nico won’t be able to handle the strain, and we have no guarantee he’d even be brought in. We don’t have to be the League—default on a straightforward assault.”
Cole let out a humorless laugh, rocking back in his chair again. “Do you know why that became the general strategy? It wasn’t always that way. Alban tried for years to release the truth about Gray and the quality of life in the camps. He tried propaganda, straight-up emotional manipulation. And what messages did get through fell flat. It wasn’t that people didn’t care. It was that their heads were already in Gray’s game, and he told them, time and time and time again, that if they took their kids out of his camps, they would die. For what Liam’s suggesting to work, it’s not just about getting the parents there, it’s making them willing to come. And if you don’t think the PSFs wouldn’t open fire on civilians, you are dead wrong, Ruby. Dead wrong.”
“There hasn’t been a situation like this before, though,” I said. “You can’t know for sure.”
The metal banged and screeched as Cole reached into the bottom drawer of the desk and slammed it shut again. He stood up and began slapping down sheets of paper across the empty desk, one at a time, lining them up in neat rows, a gruesome echo of the pictures’ contents.
They were—all of those pictures were of kids in those thin, color-coded camp uniforms, black Psi ID numbers across their backs. Some of their eyes were open, but more often than not, they weren’t. Some were bloodied, their faces swollen. A few looked like they were just sleeping.
The only thing they had in common was the long, empty ditch at their feet.
“Where did you get these?” I whispered.
“Amplify released them a few days ago,” Cole said. “I don’t think I need to tell you that these aren’t doctored, no matter how hard Gray’s cronies try to spin it on the news shows.”
I shook my head, feeling like I was about to crawl out of my own skin. I would have backed away if there was room to move. As it was, the walls were folding in over my head, falling down over me, crushing, crushing, crushing.
I had to get out of this room. My palms were drenched in sweat, too slick to open the door. Cole grabbed my arm and forced me to stand in front of the desk, forced me to look down at the photos and see them, absorb the blood, the bone, the vacant eyes.
“These are the people we’re dealing with,” he said. “This is reality. These are people who won’t hesitate to kill anyone who interferes with their orders. This is what hesitation has cost us. This is why we have to fight. Revolutions are won with blood, not words. These photos have been out for days, and what have they done to get people involved—angry enough to stand up and protest? Nothing. Ruby, even this isn’t enough. They all think they’re fake.”
“Let me go!” I struggled out of his grip, the floor rising and rolling under me. That face, I knew that face—the girl in green—
“No one is going to fight for us, Ruby—we have to fight. We have to end this. Match force with force. Every second we waste circling back and debating the same shit is a second we could be saving these kids from something like this. What do you think sparked this? They were beaten to death. Was it because they tried to escape? They were caught in the middle of a fight? Did some PSF snap? Does it matter?”
Oh my God, I was going to be sick. I pressed my fists against my eyes, trying to remember how it was I usually went about breathing. “These pictures are from Thurmond—this is Thurmond. That girl—that girl in green—”
Cole’s grip on me tightened. I had the vague sense that he was the only reason I was still standing on my feet.
“I know her. Her name is…was…Ashley. She was one of the older girls in my…”
“In your cabin?” Cole finished. “Are you sure? Maybe you should take another look.”
I did and it changed nothing. I lived with those girls for years, I knew their faces better than I knew my own. Ashley had been at Thurmond for over a year before I showed up, and she took care of us like you’d think a big sister would. She was nice. She was…
Dead.
“Okay,” Cole said quietly. “I’m sorry. I believe you. I’m so sorry. I wouldn’t have showed them to you at all if I’d known. The source that sold them to Amplify didn’t identify which camp they’re from.”
Jesus—that ditch. The realization thundered down around me. They were putting them in that ditch? That was what they got? After everything—this?
Too late.
This was Thurmond. This was real. We weren’t going fast enough. I hadn’t been able to get to them in time. A swell of bile rose up in me, and I ripped myself out of Cole’s grip, collapsing onto my knees. I barely got my face into the trash can before I could throw up everything in my stomach.
When I came back to the moment, Cole was holding my hair back with one hand, rubbing a circle across my shoulder blades with the other. I braced my arms against the plastic container and gave in to the sting of tears.
“Did the source say what happened?” I used the tissue he handed me to wipe my mouth. I felt lightheaded, like I was slipping out of the moment, and fought against the pull.
“They issued a statement saying one of the PSFs stationed there snuck a cell phone into the camp and snapped the photos. Ruby…I think
—I don’t want to believe this, but it seems like too much of a coincidence that this happened and they’re closing the camp. There are over three thousand kids there and the other camps are small and crowded. Is it possible they’re trying to reduce the population of kids before the move?”
“They’ve killed kids before,” I said. “The ones who tried to escape…the Oranges. Reds who wouldn’t let themselves be controlled. If this has happened once, it’ll happen again. They’re going to keep doing this. We’re sitting around, waiting to get one useful piece of information, and they’re dying. This can’t just be about evidence. Not for Thurmond. We need to get those kids out now.”
I saw the future with sharp clarity and it wasn’t a road, it wasn’t a sky, it wasn’t anything that beautiful. It was electricity singing through metal chain-link and bars. It was mud and rain and a thousand days bleeding into a stream of black.
Cole must have sensed it, seen it reflected in my face, because he leaned back and finally let me go.
“We’re going to need actual fighters for the Thurmond hit,” I said. “Trained soldiers to go in first.”
“Agreed,” Cole said, looking away. “Harry…Harry offered to help us fight. I wasn’t going to say yes. I hate the idea of owing him anything, but we don’t have any time to waste now. Nico is right. The only way to shut down the camp’s defenses is by attacking them from within. I’ll see if I can try to bribe one of the PSFs—someone has to know someone there—”
“No,” I said, my voice calm. “It has to be me. I have to be the one who goes back. A PSF can flip, take a bribe, tip the camp controllers off to what we’re doing. If it has to be done, I’m going to do it myself.”
In the Afterlight (Bonus Content) Page 25