I closed my eyes, laughing. “No. Really?”
“Really. She told him that he had to report to the meeting room the next morning,” Liam continued. “He was either elated or irritated by the honor. Sometimes it’s hard to tell with him.”
I listened to the sound of him breathing in the silence that followed. “Are you okay?”
“Yeah. Yeah, darlin’, everyone’s fine,” he said, but there was an obvious strain in his voice. “Mom’s getting here tomorrow. She keeps saying that word, too: fine. I’m…I just wish you were here, is all. I’m going to come first thing tomorrow.”
“No,” I said, “first thing in the morning, I’m coming to you.”
“Maybe I’ll just have to meet you halfway,” he said, a laugh tucked into the edge of his voice.
I listened as he told me about the hundred-odd kids who were still waiting to be picked up by their parents. They’d been given free rooms at the hotel, free meals too, and a veritable army of volunteers had come in with supplies and clothes. He told me about catching Vida and Chubs getting handsy with each other in the elevator. Zu’s small shrug when she was told her parents had managed to leave the country, and, until they could be contacted, she had a choice: go home and stay with her aunt, uncle, and Hina, or live with Vida, Nico, and Cate near D.C., so the latter could consult with Senator Cruz. How it hadn’t even taken her a second to settle on D.C.
I told him about my parents. The way the soldiers posted outside of my door peeked in every time it opened. The way the doctor’s hand shook, just a little, as he examined my cuts. And at some point, I felt myself begin to drift off to sleep.
“Hang up, go to sleep,” Liam said, sounding just as tired.
“You hang up.”
And in the end, neither of us did.
The next morning, clear on the other side of town, I sat sandwiched between my parents on a couch in the lobby of a Marriott hotel in Charleston, West Virginia. It was a testament to how packed it was that no one, not a single member of the press, seemed to notice me as we sat there. At about a quarter til, the crowds began to migrate toward the elevators to head up to the large conference room.
As we waited, Mom kept insisting I needed something—water, a snack, a book, some Tylenol—until finally, Dad reached over and placed a calming hand on her arm. I caught him watching me out of the corner of his eye, though, as if he needed to keep checking I was still there. This was how we were warming to each other: slowly, clumsily, earnestly.
Grams paced the floor in front of us, and it was only because she stopped that I knew someone was coming.
But it wasn’t Liam or Vida—it was Cate. Her pale blond hair had been smoothed back into a neat ponytail, and she was wearing makeup, a dress. She seemed shadowed somehow, face drawn in a way that made my heart clench. I flew up to my feet, my dad reaching up to steady me as I rocked forward on my walking cast. Her pace slowed somewhat as she saw me, and I was glad when I saw the smile stretch across her face. If she had started crying, I wouldn’t have trusted myself not to.
“I’m so proud of you,” she whispered. “You fill me with awe. Thank you.”
I hugged her as fiercely as she hugged me and I was filled, filled to the brim, with the warmth of her love. When I finally released her and introduced her to my family, it was clear they were already well aware of who she was.
She clasped my hands in hers. “Can we talk later? I need to run upstairs, but I didn’t want to go another minute without seeing for myself that you were okay.”
I nodded, letting her draw me into another embrace. Just as I started to pull back, she said, her voice low, “There’s someone here you won’t want to see.”
I had a feeling I knew exactly who she was talking about, and was grateful she had given me a warning ahead of time to prepare myself.
Liam, Vida, Nico, and Zu got off the elevator that she got on. I couldn’t stop the broad grin from spreading across my face. Zu was the first to reach me, a streak of pink dress cutting through the lobby to wrap her arms around my center. Nico hung back, shifting awkwardly between his feet until I urged him over. Vida had no such qualms. She gave me a hard punch to the shoulder, which I think I was supposed to read as “playful.” And Liam, well aware of my parents’ eyes on him, reintroduced himself to them, shaking their hands. He came toward me slowly, giving me time to get a good read on him. His hair was cut and tamed, and he was clean-shaven. If he was tired, it didn’t show—but I saw a shadow of grief in his eyes. When he offered a small, shy smile, I returned it, my heart feeling like it was about to leap out of my chest.
“Hello again, ma’am,” he said, perfectly polite as he shook Grams’s hand. She planted a big one on his cheek and turned to me with a wink.
When he reached me, Liam simply took my arm and asked, “Everyone ready to go up?”
It was stupid to feel a pang of disappointment that I hadn’t gotten a proper greeting, but my hands were practically burning with the need to run my hands through his hair, smooth the lines from his face.
When the elevator doors slid open I started forward, but he held us in place, allowing my parents, Zu, Vida, Nico, and about a half-dozen others onto the elevator. “You know what?” Liam said, waving my dad off when he reached to hold the doors open. “We’ll get the next one.”
And the minute the doors slammed shut, his arm slid around my waist, his other hand wove through my hair, and I was being kissed to within an inch of my life.
“Hi,” he said when he finally came up for air.
“Hi,” I said, now both dizzy and breathless as he leaned down to rest his forehead against mine. “Do we have to go up?”
He nodded, but it was another few moments before he actually reached over and pushed the up button.
The press conference had been set up in the hotel’s ballroom space—a room that accommodated a hundred chairs, three-fourths of which were already taken by the time we got up there. When I saw that the others had saved us seats at the very back in the room, I almost cried in gratitude. Already, I was feeling eyes shift toward me, and the uncomfortable feeling would only have been compounded if we’d been in a position for the whole room to stare at the back of my head. If I couldn’t make a clean escape if I needed to. Liam seemed to sense this and guided me forward, a hand on the small of my back, to an aisle seat.
No sooner had we found our spots than two men, both in military dress uniforms, moved away from us to the other side of the room. Vida gave them a little toothy smile and wave when they glanced back at us again.
The room shushed itself into silence as the first people walked out onto the stage. All were men, some military, some clearly politicians—those were the ones who remembered to turn and smile for the cameras before sitting down. I released a deep breath as Senator Cruz appeared, followed by Dr. Gray, and then, surprisingly, Cate. Liam’s hand found mine as Chubs walked out, shoulders back, eyes forward. He wore a beautiful navy suit and a striped tie, finishing off the look with new, thin, wire-rimmed glasses.
“Nerd,” I heard Vida mutter, but she had this pleased little smile on her face.
I glanced at Liam and found an expression as grim as mine. It was a fine package Chubs had wrapped himself in, almost enough to distract me from the look on his face. I’d seen it a dozen times—the chin jutting out, the eyes sullen. It was the look of someone who had just lost a vote.
“Damn,” Liam murmured. “This is going to be bad.”
And it was.
“Thank you for coming here today,” Senator Cruz began, speaking without the sheet of notes someone leaned over and placed in front of her. “The last five days have been a true test of American fortitude, and I believe I speak not only for my former Congressional colleagues, but also for our foreign allies, when I thank you for your cooperation as we begin to roll out our recovery phases. The good news is, we’re already eight days into the first.”
Cameras click, click, click-ed.
“I’d like to take the time
to walk you through the agreement that we signed this morning. Please save your questions until the very end, when we’ll have a few moments to address them.” She took a breath, shuffling her papers. “The four peacekeeping zones we established will remain in place for the next four years. Reconstruction in cities and towns that were decimated by this struggle, or by natural disasters for which the government failed to provide aid, will be handled by the peacekeeping coalition of countries in each zone, the details of which will be covered in subsequent, separate press conferences.”
She let the audience absorb that before continuing. “Each zone will also be responsible for overseeing the neutralization of Agent Ambrosia in groundwater and wells found within its boundaries, as well as the destruction of any stockpiles of the chemical. Any further use of it throughout the world, as well as any use of Psi-afflicted youth as soldiers, clandestine agents, or government officials in this nation or others is explicitly forbidden by this agreement, and will be condemned.”
Lillian’s eyes scanned the room, almost catching mine. She sat up a little straighter, and looked pained, clearly knowing what was coming next.
“Children remaining in rehabilitation camps will be returned to their families over the course of the next month. We will be providing a searchable database to locate where each child is currently residing, but parents will not be allowed access to the camps. As part of our agreement, they will be destroyed.”
Shock hit me like a blow to the face. The room began to rumble with voices—low conversations, shouted questions, everything in between. Out of the corner of my eye, I could see Grams trying to gauge my reaction, but I couldn’t bring myself to tear my eyes from the stage.
“The life-saving operation developed by Dr. Lillian Gray will be provided, free of charge, for as long as this terrible mutation exists in our society. Any Psi-afflicted person over the age of eighteen will be allowed to decide whether to opt out of the surgery, but will be required to carry special identification. Whether or not a child under the age of eighteen receives the treatment will be left to the discretion of their parents or guardians.”
Lillian’s eyes fell back to the table.
“We have set aside several miles of land on which to build a community for any unclaimed child, or any child who feels as though they cannot return home safely. We will require that all Psi-afflicted citizens who choose not to undergo the procedure live out the remainder of their lives in one of these communities.”
I must have made some noise of disgust, because my family turned to look at me.
At that same moment someone on the stage let out a low, furious, “That is bullshit.”
And that someone was Chubs.
“Hold your tongue—” One of the men in uniforms was on the receiving end of a glare that would have melted a lesser man into a quivering puddle. Cate looked down at the table, biting her lip in an effort to hide her smile.
Senator Cruz coughed, shuffling her papers. Before she could begin speaking again, Chubs was already midway into his next sentence.
“Let’s lay this out fully, shall we?” he began.
“Oh Jesus,” Liam said, looking upward for strength.
“As an eighteen-year-old,” Chubs said, “I finally have the right to choose what I want for myself, but, if I make the wrong choice, I’ll still be punished for it?”
“Please save your questions for the end.” But even as she said it, Senator Cruz made a small, almost imperceptible motion with her hands, as if to encourage him.
“I’m not finished,” Chubs said. “If I were to choose to not have someone, potentially an incompetent someone, cut into my brain—the most important organ in my body—to ‘fix’ it, then I’m stuck in yet another camp, this time for the rest of my life?”
“Oh, I like him,” Grams said, delighted.
“It’s not a camp,” one of the men in uniform said impatiently. “It’s a community. Now can we move back to—”
“A community with barbed-wire fences? Armed guards? You realize that by doing this, all you’re accomplishing is reinforcing in America—throughout the world—that the word different means bad, ugly, dangerous. There’s no rehabilitation in that; you just want to sweep us under the rug and hope time takes care of us. I’m sorry, but that’s pretty damned terrible, and clearly you know it’s pretty damned terrible, because you’ve spent a total of two seconds laying out a plan that affects thousands of lives which have already been ruined by another group of people—some of them probably in this room.”
“Psi-afflicted humans have abilities that are dangerous and cannot be controlled,” the man reasoned. “They can be used as tools for individuals to commit crimes, gain unfair advantages, and harm others.”
“Yeah? So can a pile of money. It’s what a person chooses to do with their abilities that matters. By locking someone up for making a choice about their body that they have every right to make, what you’re essentially saying is that, no, you don’t trust us. Not to make good choices, not to treat others well. I find that incredibly insulting—and, by the way, I seem to be in pretty good control of my abilities now, wouldn’t you say?”
“You believe children as young as eight, nine, ten, should be allowed to make a life-altering decision?” Senator Cruz was feeding him a counterargument to play off of—I sat back slightly, relieved my opinion of her hadn’t been far off-base. She might have been overruled by the panel she sat with now, but she had found a creative way of getting her point across.
“I’m saying that the kids who’ve had years of their lives stolen have had time to weigh what they would choose if the opportunity came to be cured of it,” Chubs said. “They’ve had time to think about what they would choose, and can make an educated decision. Trust me, that’s all any of us ever thought about, as every hour of every day was controlled down to the minute, or when we had to struggle every day for food and water and shelter, while men and women literally hunted us. You’re going to set the mark at eighteen, knowing that eighty percent of all kids previously interned at a camp can’t meet that benchmark? I, at eighteen, was in a camp for a year. One of my best friends was in hers for six years, but she’s only seventeen. She has to subject herself to a decision made by the same people who sent her away in the first place?”
I grimaced, fighting not to look over at my parents. I didn’t need them feeling any guiltier than they already did.
“We need to move on from this topic,” another one of the men said, “otherwise we won’t be able to take questions—”
“I agree,” Dr. Gray said suddenly, then clarified. “With the young gentleman. Unless they’ve committed a crime, or the psychological toll of their experiences has impacted their decision-making abilities, or they’ve harmed someone, I believe the children we take out of the camps should be able to choose. However, parents of children who haven’t reached the life-or-manifest threshold should be allowed to make the decision and will need to do so before their child’s seventh birthday.”
Her voice was strained to the point of fraying, beyond tired. The reporters ate up every single word she offered, jumping to their feet to launch a volley of questions at her, all of which could be summed up as: Where is President Gray?
Senator Cruz stared at her notes, then asked casually, “Do you believe you could figure out a better system, given what we have to work with?”
“Yes,” Chubs said without a hint of arrogance. “And I think if you proceed with this option, you’ll not only be ignoring the mental and emotional health needs of the children coming out of the camps, but you’ll be condemning them to a life of fear and shame. And if it’s going to be that way, then you might as well have left them in the camps.”
“Good,” Senator Cruz said. “We’ll reconvene our discussion on this point following the conclusion of this panel. Should any other Psi-afflicted youth like to join us, please speak to me.”
In the midst of all of this, someone had disappeared from the front row of seats—a young
man in a baseball cap. He’d faded to the outer edge of the room, and was moving quickly toward the exit. With his face turned down and his arms crossed over his chest, he could have been anyone.
But I knew exactly who he was.
I slipped away, waving off Liam’s and Vida’s questioning eyes, and held up a single finger. I had a feeling this was going to take far longer than a minute, but with Senator Cruz talking again, this time about future congressional and presidential elections, their attention was drawn back to her.
The hall outside was ten degrees cooler than the stuffy sweatbox the ballroom was becoming. I had a feeling he had come out here for the silence, though, more than the cool air. He’d walked nearly to the end of the long hall, and taken a seat across from a window overlooking the hotel’s parking lot.
“Come to laugh, have you?” Clancy asked, his voice hoarse. He never turned his head, only kept his eyes trained on the window. “Enjoy it.”
“I’m not here to laugh,” I said.
He snorted, but said nothing. Eventually, his hands tightened in his lap, clenching and releasing. “I keep losing feeling in my right fingers. They said they’d never seen the complication before.”
I bit back the reflexive I’m sorry. I wasn’t.
“I told you this would happen, didn’t I?” Clancy said. “That the choice all of you were stupidly chasing ended up in the hands of the people who put you away in the first place. It didn’t have to be this way.”
“No,” I said pointedly. “It didn’t have to.”
For the first time, he turned and looked directly at me. The recovery from the surgery had drained some of the meat from his bones and the color from his skin. I had a feeling that if I were to lift off the baseball cap, I’d find a newly shaved head and fresh scars hidden there. “What happened to Nico?”
Well. I hadn’t expected that. “He’s here. Didn’t you see him?”
His shoulders rose and fell with the next deep breath he took in.
In the Afterlight (Bonus Content) Page 46