In the Afterlight (Bonus Content)

by Alexandra Bracken

  My throat bobs as I try to swallow. The muscles in my back and shoulders stretch as I try to get my arms free—just one of them free—to cover myself. Blood beats hot and angry in my face as they undo the restraints around my feet and lift me up, cleaning me like a baby. I kick one foot out weakly, but the nurse has me by the ankle and tightens her grip with a laugh at the attempt.

  “Don’t make me subdue you. I don’t care what your last name is,” she says through her light-blue mask. I don’t know what any of these men and women look like. Even when they watch me and Nico through the window of our room’s door, they have their paper masks up over their noses and mouths. They don’t want to catch whatever it is we have. They can’t be freaks like us.

  “Here, I’ve got him.” One of the male nurses clamps his arms around my legs, pressing them to his chest. I start to reach for his mind, snarling, but the first nurse lifts a small black device.

  I go very still.

  I hate myself.

  I hate them.

  I’ll kill you, I’ll kill you—

  Thick bile coats my throat as they strip me out of the wet scrubs and fold me limb by limb into the new dry set. The male nurse coos at me as he tightens the restraints. “Was that so hard, buddy?”

  My teeth snap around the plastic bit in my mouth. The nurse laughs, patting my chest as I try to twist away. “He’s ready to go again.”

  A tremor goes up my spine and back down as my ribs squeeze in tight. I want to be the darkness at the edge of the room. I want to be invisible, the thing that can’t be caught, but observes, waits.

  “He’s ready, too,” says a different nurse, sounding amused. “No accidents here. Looks like we’re the winning team.”

  “Don’t jinx yourself now,” the male nurse says.

  “You got the pisser, we got the crier,” the other calls back. “Calling it now.”

  Sparks shoot through my blood. I try to search for him in the blinding pool of light—to stab through his mind’s flimsy defenses. I’m not that—I don’t do that—they’re making it sound like I—I—

  My thoughts are moving too fast, scattering like sparks in my head.

  “Enough,” a female nurse says. “The two of you never shut up. Are you gentlemen ready to continue? I’m trying to keep to our schedule, here.”

  I crane my neck, trying to turn my sweat-slick cheek against the table, only to catch on the wires and nodes taped down along my skull. There’s another kid in here with me, but I can’t tell who. Beyond the floating splotches of burned-out black, I see the white coats gathered around a cluster of monitors, watching as lines and numbers jump on the screen.

  “This isn’t a good comparison model,” one of the white coats says. “Patient Gray is nine, Patient Ramirez is eight—”

  Nico. The other kid is Nico.

  “Developmentally, they’re at different points, and even with the adjustments we’re making to account for their different body masses, I’m worried the results will always be inaccurate. And their symptoms are too different to truly compare. Ultimately, they’re using different parts of their brains. Look—”

  “Patient Gray is done for the day,” one of them says. “His blood pressure is too elevated to safely continue. Keep Patient Ramirez for now. I’d like to run a few panels on him.”

  Not him.

  My lips feel like rubber, big and clumsy. They mess up my words when they do this—when they start poking. I can’t think straight. I can’t slip into their minds. I can’t focus on their faces.

  They can’t keep Nico. He can’t handle what I can. Why couldn’t they have picked anyone else today? He could barely walk after yesterday—

  Why do you care?

  The light switches off over me, leaving a blanket of darkness. One by one, the nodes are peeled off my head. They’ll shave it again tonight. I hear one muttering about the dark fuzz catching in the tape. The numbing medicine they put there wore off hours ago, and each one comes off feeling like it’s taken a chunk of skin with it.

  I gulp down a deep breath, trying to shove at the hands that reach for me. I want to see Nico. I want to make sure he’s okay. Just under the buzzing hum of the machines I hear a whimper, a small sob of pain.

  No son of mine runs away from a fight.

  A nurse grabs my arm, pushing me back down until they can get the restraints around my hands, but I want to see Nico. I want to make sure they haven’t hurt Nico, not any worse than they usually do. Nico isn’t strong like me. They can break him.

  “Give it to me, give it here—”

  I slip into the nurse’s mind without meaning to, diving through the silky-soft thoughts and wisps of memory. Her hands still on me, going lax enough for me to try to push up off the table—I see the scalpel laid out on the small metal table beside mine and lunge for it.

  The noise comes out of the small black device, screeching as it draws knives across my brain, sharpening until I feel my mind start to go soft. Somewhere, a boy starts to cry, the sound bleeding out of him.

  “What did I tell you?” one nurse says, laughing.

  The noise stays on until the feeling leaves my body. Until I feel my brain slip into the darkness. The laughter chases me deep into it, but I try to hold on to the sound of Nico, the way he begs, “Don’t leave me,” as they wheel me away.

  A heartbeat, and it’s gone.

  I am alone in my room, until, one day, I’m not. I open my eyes to the sight of another cot. Another boy sleeping in it.

  He is trembling so hard with the aftershocks of treatment, the cot’s metal legs are dancing on the freezing tile floor. His feet spasm beneath the thin blanket until, finally, they kick it off. I think about picking it up for him, but the feeling hasn’t returned to my feet. And, anyway, he’ll get used to it. Eventually.

  “I’m Nicolas,” he says into the darkness. He can’t stop touching his newly shaved head, pressing his small tan hands against the bare curve of it. “Who are you?”

  My body remembers that it hurts after today’s session and starts to shake, too. Something burns in my eyes until I squeeze them shut. No one.

  “Sleep on your side,” is all I say. “Otherwise you’ll choke on your own vomit.”

  A heartbeat, and it’s gone.

  “I had a report from your school today,” Dad says from the other side of the table. “I was very disappointed by what I heard.”

  He flicks a hand toward the servers who have brought the food out from the residence’s kitchen, motioning for them to disappear. He does that to me more than he speaks to me. I glance at an elderly man as he nods and exits the dining area, heading to one of the adjoining rooms.

  “Where’s Mom?” I ask him, hating the squeak in my voice. Why do I have to sound like such a baby?

  “Do you always need your mother? I knew it was a mistake for you to spend the summer away with her—I can’t believe I have a son who cries into his mother’s skirts,” Dad says bitterly. “Your teachers agree. They say you’re overly sensitive. Moody. That the other children won’t have anything to do with you.”

  I look down at my plate of salad, clenching my hands beneath the white tablecloth. “I have friends.…”

  “Do you, now?” he says, mocking. He pulls out a folded piece of paper. “I wrote it down exactly as the headmaster said. ‘His introversion leads to antisocial behavior. The other kids both fear him and mock him beyond what we might expect from the child of such a high-profile public figure. The Secret Service agents have likewise informed me that Clancy has become withdrawn and that he’s indicated on more than one occasion he has physically harmed other children by cutting them with scissors or pressing their hands against lightbulbs. I recommend transferring him to a different school, or perhaps homeschooling, until he can complete a psychiatric program and move through this phase of his life.’”

  That isn’t true—the kids throw things at me. They call me horrible names, words Mom tells me I’m not allowed to use. They tell me that my parents are
going to be murdered, and they kick me under the desk when the teachers turn their backs on us. They pull down my uniform pants during PE. They steal my homework and tear it up or flush it down the toilets and make me watch. They put notes about me wanting to kill everyone in the academy in my backpack for my Secret Service detail to find.

  I didn’t hurt the kids who wouldn’t leave me alone.

  I made them hurt themselves.

  I used to tell Dad sorry over and over again. Like a scared baby. But I’m not scared of him anymore.

  “Shut up.”

  His brows lower. Slowly, he sets the paper down on the table, just beside his steak knife. His eyes don’t leave my face. I want to look to the side, up at the sparkling chandelier, but I won’t.

  “What did you say to me?” he asks, his voice quiet, smooth like the smoke of the cigarettes he lights in secret, away from the cameras.

  He will hurt me no matter what I say. It is my turn to punish him.

  “Shut up,” I repeat.

  “Clancy,” he growls, standing. He shoves back from his chair so hard, it clatters to the floor. “You are not allowed to speak to me that way.”

  But I am. I can. Even as he reaches for his belt, I reach for something else—that small trickle of shimmering warmth strung tight like one of my violin’s strings. When I did this to him before, it felt like stepping into a warm, dark pool. Now it feels like I’ve crashed headfirst into a stormy ocean. Before, it was easy to see all his secrets. To make him dance when we were alone in the Oval Office. Now, I try to grab on to whatever I can, clawing at his mind the way I did to the kids.

  “Shut the hell up! Shut up, shut up, shut up!”

  “You are—” Dad’s face goes slack. His eyes open wide and stay that way.

  “Don’t move,” I tell him. “Stay right there. You’ll only make it worse.”

  One of his hands is still clutching his undone belt buckle, ready to pull the strip of thick leather free. I watch him for a moment more, then pick up my fork and knife and begin to eat my dinner. The steak is cold by the time I put the first bite in my mouth.

  The door from the living room of the residence slams open behind me. I turn in my chair, the fork still in my mouth. The two Secret Service agents pour in first, followed by a pale-faced Mr. Stern. One of his big hands clutches at the lapel of his jacket.

  “Holy shit,” Mr. Stern is saying. “My God.”

  The agents raise their guns, scanning the room.

  I remember a second too late that I never told Dad to release himself. My hand tightens around the stem of my fork. I narrow my gaze on the chief of staff, who only presses a hand to his mouth.

  Someone else grips my wrist and gives it a sharp twist. The pain startles me into dropping it before I can jab at the dark hand clamped around me.

  The carpet burns my cheek as Agent Dawes lowers me down onto it.

  “I don’t know what’s wrong with him,” I lie. “He’s been like that since they served dinner—”

  “No, he hasn’t,” Dawes says coldly. “We were watching the security footage the whole time.”

  Cameras. I forgot. My heart hammers in my chest, then gets loose. It jumps up into my throat, choking me.

  “I’m not bad,” I tell him.

  “You were right,” Stern whispers to someone behind him, horror lacing his words. “How did you figure it out?”

  “I’m not bad!” I scream and kick at the Secret Service agents who are tying my hands together, clacking my teeth and snarling at them. I try to get a claw into their minds, but there’s a pinch at the back of my neck.

  The shoes beside my face aren’t polished loafers anymore, they’re pale blue heels.

  The syringe in Mom’s hand is empty. The spot on my neck stings, even as she rubs tiny circles into it. “It’s all right.”

  “I’m not bad.” My face is wet. I hate it. I hate this. “I’m not bad!”

  “You’re my son,” she says as the room blurs around us.

  A heartbeat, and it’s gone.

  “You let those kids hurt you,” my father says, shoving me back against his desk. I try to dodge around it, but he’s too fast. He’s too strong. “No son of mine runs away from a fight—stay right there. Don’t move. You’ll only make it worse.”

  A heartbeat, and it’s gone.

  The crowd roars, the sound rolling up through the flags and signs fluttering in their hands. A song blares out from the speakers behind me, making me wince. I see a balloon and reach for it, only for Nanny to grab my arm and pull me back. She keeps one hand curled around the collar of my suit, a fingernail digging into the back of my neck.

  The lights from above surround Dad as he steps out into their spotlight, taking Mom’s arm. She wears a red dress I know she doesn’t like. She told me. But she smiles now. I see the curve of it as I stare at her, watching as she turns her eyes up toward Dad’s beaming face. They lift their hands and wave.

  I try to follow them, reach for them, but Nanny drags me back behind the curtains of the stage, and Mom and Dad get smaller and smaller. I think Mom turns around, looking for me, but Nanny won’t let me go.

  “You’ve been a bad boy,” she snaps. “All you had to do was stand there and not cause a fuss.”

  I look for Mom again, but the light and music and shouts have swallowed her. Panic runs through me, making me tug and tug at Nanny’s hand. I don’t want to be alone. I don’t want her to go away.

  A heartbeat, and it’s gone.

  “It was only a nightmare, sweet boy,” Mom tells me as she sits on the edge of my bed, smoothing out the blanket. She rests her hand on my chest, feeling my pounding heart settle. “I’ll protect you from whatever monsters you see there.”

  “How?” I whisper.

  “With my love for you,” she tells me, leaning forward to kiss my forehead. The room around her darkens. I close my eyes.

  Mom brushes the hair away from my forehead, over and over, her skin cool and soft. She smells sweet, like flowers, as her fingers smooth away the bad thoughts, smudging the faces of the monsters until they look like white clouds.

  A heartbeat, and I take a breath.

  A heartbeat, and the door closes behind her, stealing the heaviness, leaving nothing behind but the memory of her gentle smile, the warmth of her hands on my face.

  ALEXANDRA BRACKEN is the #1 New York Times and USA Today best-selling author of the Passenger series and the Darkest Minds series. Born and raised in Arizona, she moved east to study history and English at the College of William & Mary in Virginia. After working in publishing for several years, Alex now writes full-time and can be found hard at work on her next novel in a charming little home that’s perpetually overflowing with books.

  alexandrabracken.com

  @alexbracken

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