The Darkest Legacy (Darkest Minds Novel, A)

by Alexandra Bracken

  “I have to be selfish,” Liam said raggedly. “I know kids are suffering. I know people have died. I want those bastards taken down, I want Zu to be cleared, I want some ounce of justice in all of this, but I’m terrified of what they might be doing to her. What they might have already done. I don’t want to do this without her.”

  All along, I’d been so afraid of our circle of friendship falling apart forever. I’d wanted things to go back to the way that they had been before everything had become so painful and complicated. I’d believed that they could, if we only tried. Watching Liam now, I felt the last bit of that hope slip away.

  I felt resolve slip into its place.

  We would never get back to what we’d been, because we were no longer those same people. That private world we’d created and filled with love and protection had to expand, had to grow and flex into something stronger. There was nothing in the world that would ever be powerful enough to keep us from being there to carry each other forward in those moments when our strength gave out.

  The floor creaked as Max stepped back into the room. He scratched at one of the sores on his arm. “I’m ready, if you are.”

  “What do you need to do this?” Vida asked. “Some kind of conductor? Silence?”

  “I just need to borrow his mind,” Max said. “Well, and a bucket.”

  “To knock me out with?” Liam asked weakly.

  “Not…exactly,” Max said.

  “The ride’s pretty gnarly,” Priyanka explained. “A lot of people hurl.”

  “Great,” Liam said. “Didn’t like the lunch I ate anyway.”

  I switched places with Liam, giving him my spot beside Max on the couch. Roman dutifully retrieved the trash can from the small bathroom and set it down next to Liam.

  “What do you need me to do?” Liam asked Max. “Do you want our audience to give us some space?”

  “It’s all right,” Max said, taking one last gulp of his water. “Do you mind if I hold on to your arm?”

  Liam rolled up his sleeve, offering it to him. I could see him trembling from where I sat on the arm of Priyanka’s chair.

  “Remember that you’re not there,” Max told him. “We’re only riding a link between the electrical currents of your minds. No matter what you see, you have to let me pull you back.”

  Liam nodded.

  “Think of the last time you saw her,” Max instructed, his hand hovering over Liam’s skin. “It’ll help us locate her faster.”

  They both closed their eyes, shutting out the world and us with it. For a while, the only sound that filled the farmhouse was our breathing. To distract myself, I counted the electric currents moving through the walls and across, and under, the floor, taking stock of the digital clock on the bookshelf, the television, the refrigerator….

  Liam jerked hard, leaning back against the couch as if to get away from Max’s grip. His feet kicked out, slamming against the floor.

  “What’s happening?” Chubs asked, bending to check his pulse.

  “It’s all right,” Priyanka said. “He’s connected.”

  The moan that escaped Liam’s lips tore at me. “Are you sure he’s okay?”

  “He’s all right,” Roman promised. “Max, what do you see?”

  I whipped back toward the couch. He’d gone so still, I’d just assumed that he was in some kind of trance state.

  “Lights…sterile gowns…gurney…” Max said, the words sluggish. “Tired…”

  “She’s alive?” I pressed. “You’re sure?”

  Liam jerked again, his whole body tensing.

  “Liam, it’s all right,” Chubs was saying. “You’re not there, remember?”

  Tears streamed through Liam’s lashes. He shivered. The hair rose on his exposed arm, prickling with goose bumps.

  Owen’s words at Haven drifted back to me. She’s cold. She’s so cold.

  “Door…label…” Max seemed to startle himself awake, a full-body tremor rippling through him as he released his grip. He blinked rapidly until his pupils were no longer dilated.

  Liam gasped in a ragged, wet breath, folding forward at the waist. Vida dutifully passed him the trash can, but he waved it off, swallowing.

  “You saw some kind of symbol?” Roman asked.

  Max nodded. “It was on a set of sliding doors…some sort of bird?”

  “It wasn’t just a bird,” Liam croaked out, his face bone-pale. “It was a swan. Blue Star doesn’t have her. Leda Corp does.”

  THE STORM WAS DANCING.

  Heavy clouds unfurled over me, but they brought no relief to the miles of dry land crying out for a drop of rain to drink. A wall of dust traveled through the fields each time the wind picked up. Now and then, I could taste it in my mouth, feel the grit of the earth between my teeth. And still, even knowing the power of the thunderstorm growling in the distance, I couldn’t go back inside to those grim faces. Not yet.

  Not until I’d figured out what I was going to do.

  The lightning made me feel as if the clouds were living things; they streaked across the violet sky like pulsing silver veins. Each singed my nose with a sharp, almost chlorine-like smell. The longer I sat there, watching, the more static seemed to gather on my skin and crawl across my nerve endings.

  I don’t know why I did it, exactly, or why it even occurred to me to try. My world had tilted so sharply onto its side that I’d gone from questioning nothing to questioning everything, including what my own limits were.

  The thread of power in my mind tentatively reached out, stroking the charge in the air. I kept both of my hands planted on the stone fence post, drawing up my legs and crossing them beneath me so I was balanced on top of it. I closed my eyes, imagining the thread weaving through the blanket of power enveloping me, imagining that I could draw it near enough to paint my skin with light.

  Warmth gathered at the center of my chest, building, feeding itself, burning brighter until it finally exploded, shooting across my nerves like the purest, hardest hit of adrenaline. I was floating and falling all at once, my body dissolved into particles that rolled with the deep thunder and flashed down to strike at the world with pure power. A laugh bubbled up in my throat and escaped, as surprised as it was thrilled. The dry summer air heated as the glow behind my eyelids intensified.

  Behind me, someone gasped faintly. That small intake of breath was enough for me to drop the thread, to release the heat and light back into the air. I whirled toward the sound, my heart still pumping wildly in my chest.

  Roman held up his hands, taking a step back. “Sorry. I walk now to clear—I was walking. Walking. Thinking in Russian. Speaking in English. Confused brain. I’m not sure why I’m still talking?”

  “Do you usually think in Russian?” I asked, curious.

  “Sometimes. Sometimes I dream in it, too.” Roman still looked like he wasn’t sure if he was supposed to stay or go. I slid down off the stone post, onto the wood fencing, hoping he’d at least read the invitation in that.

  I would have felt embarrassed for wanting him to stay, maybe, if it hadn’t been for the sparks still firing under my skin telling me try.

  “I came out to look for you,” he blurted out. “The storm…I thought it would be…”

  “Dangerous?” I finished. My whole body felt like it was shining as he stared at me. The warmth was back, curling through my blood until I was sure I’d have to run miles to work off the raw energy. I wondered if this was even a fraction of what Priyanka felt after she used her power.

  His expression was one of pure wonder. “You looked like a star.”

  Lightning streaked over us, and my heart gave that little kick again. He looked flustered, suddenly fixing his attention on his hands. “I don’t even know what I’m saying. I’m sorry.”

  “You thought I looked like a star,” I said softly. The words hung in the air between us, and not even the thunder was powerful enough to erase them.

  He forced that careful mask back into place, the one that revealed al
most nothing—but only to the people who didn’t know him. His expressions were like a language; you only had to learn how to read Roman’s face to decipher him. The line of his lips relaxed as he drew a breath and crossed the distance between us, sitting on the fence beside me.

  I relished the easy silence between us. The way we let the wind and thunder carry on their own conversation, like we might listen in and learn a secret.

  “Your friends are…” he began lightly, looking for the right word.

  “A lot?” I suggested.

  Roman looked a little relieved, nodding. “Vida made my ears wilt.”

  I smiled.

  “No,” he said, groaning. “What’s the English phrase?”

  “Your ears were burning,” I said, then thought better of it. “Actually…you know what? I don’t think there is an exact match.”

  He let his head fall back, clearly frustrated. “I’ve been here for so long. How do I still mess these things up?”

  “You’re not messing them up,” I said. “You’re expanding our idiom list with some fun new variations.”

  Roman gave me a dubious look.

  “Really,” I promised.

  “When it happens, it makes me…” The sky flashed with the storm, capturing him for a heartbeat in perfect, gorgeous light. I could see the way his throat bobbed as he swallowed, how he angled his face away, as if to partly hide it. “It reminds me that I wasn’t supposed to ever be here.”

  I watched him until he turned back to look at me. This time, neither of us looked away.

  I finally had the courage to ask. “Priyanka seems to think that you’ll want to return home once we help Lana.”

  Stay.

  “I want so many things,” he said. “And most of them are impossible. They contradict each other. They change and shift, and I hate them for being so far out of reach. Going home, telling our mother that we’re alive and okay, is something I want to do, not something I have to do. Priya and Lana wanting to stay and ruin men like Mercer always made me feel selfish and foolish for dreaming about a place far away from here. Somewhere quiet and safe.”

  “That’s not foolish or selfish,” I told him.

  Stay.

  Longing for security was as much a human instinct as wanting more or wanting to retaliate after being hurt or wanting to protect the people we love. If I could call down the lightning and burn out every last trace of darkness for my friends, I would. I would do it in an instant, even if it left me in ashes.

  After everything they’d seen, after everything Roman had been made to do just to keep from being separated from his sister, he deserved quiet anonymity. Away from Mercer and Blue Star. Away from a government who’d take an interest in breaking his mind down for analysis.

  Away from me.

  Stay, I thought again. Please stay.

  “Helping Lana, returning home…I thought that was what I wanted more than anything,” he said. “Now I’m not so sure.”

  Roman was still looking at me as he said it, his eyes the blue of a new morning sky. Earlier, he’d showered and shaved the last few days off him, leaving his skin soft and smooth. He looked younger, and there was an almost unbearable tenderness to his small smile. Hope and warmth lifted through me.

  “It’s okay to change your mind,” I said quietly. I couldn’t keep his gaze anymore, not with the painful, urgent squeeze of my heart. Instead, my eyes fixed on the small scar along his jaw. “About what you need. The things you want.”

  Roman’s hand was only an inch from mine on the fence. I thought of the way he’d described the music he loved, those old songs. Simple. It would be so simple to just weave my fingers into the spaces between his.

  “What do you want?” he asked.

  His question brought me out of that small, sweet dream.

  I turned. “If you had asked me that two weeks ago, I would have told you the only thing I wanted was to be able to stand beside my friends as an equal, and protect them the way they had protected me. I couldn’t accept that they’d left me. All of them, in their own way, had left me behind. My voice was never going to be loud enough to call them back. I was so sure the worst thing that could ever happen to us would be to lose one another. To break apart.”

  He didn’t say anything, only watched.

  “Of course, now I know breaking apart isn’t the worst thing—it’s failing each other,” I said. “I can’t stop thinking about Ruby, about what she’s going through. The fact that she’s alone. I know she was trying to protect us, but—did we disappoint her? Did she really not trust us to help her anymore? If she’d figured out that the government was somehow involved, or could be, and she’d lost faith in us…I don’t know. I’m so scared for her.”

  “She didn’t lose faith in you,” Roman said. “I don’t know her the way you do, but everything you and the others have said makes me think she wanted to shield you from any blowback.”

  It was the steadiness of his voice that I found reassuring, almost more than the reasoning itself.

  “This whole time, she was with Leda…even before the explosion,” I said. “Weeks. And I refused to believe it was possible.”

  It had been easier to swallow the idea of her choosing to leave Haven behind than it had been to consider the government might have her. But even if I’d known everything from the start, what could I have actually done to help her? I’d only ever had the illusion of power and influence.

  Roman closed his eyes. The first drop of rain struck his cheek, curving down the exact path my fingers wanted to take. The cool water splattered against my hair, my bare arms, but it did nothing to dull the heat growing there.

  “The irony is that these people destroyed my life, but in the process they freed me,” I said. “They brought me to a place where I felt weaker and more afraid than I had in years, but it only forced me to recognize the strength I already possessed. They made me out to be a traitor and gave me the opportunity to discover all the right reasons to rebel. The way forward isn’t to choose the best of two bad choices, it’s finding a way to navigate between them. To create our own path. One that provides Chubs and the Council with the kind of material they need to expose the people working against us and make a case for stronger, more permanent protections for us. One that helps Psi in need find people like Liam and Ruby and give them a chance at living free. One that takes back our story from people like Moore, and shows the world who we really are.”

  The lightning tore up the sky, illuminating the admiration on his face. “I’m not powerful, and I might be more trouble than I’m worth most of the time,” he said, “but…maybe I could help you with that?”

  Stay.

  “You are powerful,” I told him. “In this whole world, there’s no one like you.”

  “Thank God for that,” he said wryly, letting his clean shirt darken with the rain.

  “I mean you, as in you,” I told him, gently elbowing him. My heart was beating hard in my chest, about to burst. “I’m no more or less powerful than you. We both channel power.”

  “You’re wrong,” he said. “You don’t channel it, you become it. Touching your power was like—I’m not sure I know the words to describe it.”

  “Generally speaking, it is pretty indescribable,” I said. “I’m not sure I could even do a good job of it.”

  “It’s connection,” he said, looking back up at the storm clouds. “I know it was a lie, but…I liked that you thought I was the same as you at the beginning. I’m the only one like me, but you and the others, you’re part of something bigger. Brighter. You’re never alone.”

  “I liked it, too,” I told him.

  When I met Roman’s eyes again, they were burning. A deep heat flowed through me again, burning away those last traces of uncertainty. My chest was so tight I could barely breathe. I saw what I was feeling reflected in the softest shade of blue.

  “What did it feel like,” he asked, “to hold a storm in your hands?”

  I didn’t even have to thin
k about it. “Limitless.”

  “Will you let me feel that, just this once?” he whispered. “Just once.”

  My heart lurched inside of my chest, knowing what he was asking and how it would twist his mind into agony. “I don’t want to hurt you.”

  “Some pain is good,” he said. “It’s necessary. I’d rather feel it than nothing at all.”

  You say that, I thought. But then I’m the one who has to watch you suffer.

  This time, when I drew the crackling charge from the sky, I pictured myself covered in stardust—as something shining and luminous enough to push back against anything, even the night. The feeling of power was exhilarating, and the confidence it gave me invincible. I never wanted to wake up from this feeling.

  Simple, I thought. So simple.

  Roman was glowing with my light. He lifted his hand from the fence railing, turning the palm up toward me. I didn’t take it. Instead, I put both of my hands on his cheeks, and when he didn’t pull away, when he leaned into the touch and shut his eyes, I kissed him.

  The electricity streamed around us, wild and crackling. I was careful not to bleed too much from the air, or let it get close enough to burn, but static snapped at my fingers as they brushed his skin, and bit at my tongue. As his lips moved against mine, I couldn’t separate the rush of sparkling power from the heady sensation of finding him there, feeling him.

  Distantly, I recognized that the storm was dangerously close now, the lightning strikes near enough that they could be drawn to the power between us and kill us in an instant. I recognized that, but I still had to force myself to pull back.

  Roman’s face was stunned as we broke apart. The smell of the singed wooden fence and ozone filled my lungs, and my limbs were buzzing with the last traces of the charge between us, but I couldn’t tear my eyes away from his face. Not as he laughed in pure, unbridled amazement, until tears came to his eyes. Roman’s gaze found mine again, his throat working as if he wanted to explain.

  I know, I thought. I know.

  Neither of us spoke as we rose and raced back up to the house. Roman took my hand, ignoring the hard sting of the static that jumped between our palms. Cool rain struck the top of my head, then my face and shoulders, erasing the charge’s warmth from my skin.