Blackout (Darkness Trilogy)

by Madeleine Henry

  His short biography was the only one I actually read. Turns out, Flash is from Dark Orlando. Two years ago, he left six brothers behind in the Dark Zone. He crossed the Frontier just like we did and was entered into the Carnival. Then he fell in love with Clementine at first sight—so he claims—and they got married at the end of the week. Flash’s picture shows him grinning like the rest of the Chauncers, but he looks different. A scar cuts across one eyebrow, leaving a hairless path, and his teeth are crooked. His hair is black.

  I wonder if Flash really loves her and fidget with my phone. There’s not enough time to do anything else but think and wait before the next alert. Right now, I’m lying faceup on the bed that almost belonged to Big Eyes. Tinder said this room was bad luck, but it can’t be worse than a room where two DZs were killed. Besides, I’ve been in here since the permissions, and nothing bad has happened—not yet.

  “Phoenix!” Elektra calls from the hallway. She adds something I can’t quite make out. My door is shut, so I can’t hear her that well.

  “What?” I bellow.

  “I said are you dressed?” she asks, louder.

  “Yeah,” I say, tucking my chin into my chest and looking down at my outfit. I chose a starched, white collared shirt, khaki pants, and brown loafers with tassels that swing when I walk. Conservative and plain for the Chauncers. “Why?”

  “Zip me up,” she says, clearly now. She knocks quickly on my door.

  “Whatever you say,” I mutter.

  My phone vibrates as I stand, and it sounds like I’m getting a call. Surprised, I check the screen to see a familiar number. My phone continues to buzz while I place the sequence. Where the hell have I seen this before? After a moment, I realize: Star. This is Star’s number, and she’s ringing me now. I wedge my phone immediately into my armpit to muffle the noise, and I hold my breath. I hope to God Elektra didn’t just hear that buzzing.

  “Are you coming or not?” she asks.

  “Uh…no!” I call.

  “Why not?” she demands.

  “I need to take a piss,” I lie.

  That excuse should work. Elektra sighs impatiently as I run into the bathroom and slam the door too hard behind me. I wince. My phone keeps vibrating, and I pull it quickly out from under my arm. Answer it as fast as I can to stop the noise. I desperately want to talk to Star, but I’m going to have to speak quietly now to keep Elektra from overhearing. If she suspects we’ve been in contact, we’re doomed.

  “Phoenix?” Star asks.

  “Star,” I whisper.

  “Do you still want to meet up?” she asks.

  Standing over the bathroom sink, I glimpse my tortured expression in the mirror. What I wish I could say burns through my mind: Of course I want to see you, Star. I’d do anything to come over—I’d come over now and hold you—but Elektra threatened us this morning. I can’t explain what she said because she’s right outside, but we can’t talk to each other anymore. Just until we’re safer, maybe for the rest of the Carnival. I’m sorry, Star, but you have to trust me. This is what’s best for us.

  “Phoenix?” she asks. “Do you want to? After dinner?”

  “I can’t,” I murmur.

  “Okay,” she concedes in a small voice. She feels so far away. A silence grows between us, and I’m starting to feel uncomfortable. I scratch the back of my neck anxiously. If I spend too long in here, Elektra will become suspicious. I run the faucet so that Elektra will think I’m washing my hands.

  “Are you ready for your dinner tonight?” she asks.

  “We promised not to talk about the Carnival,” I whisper.

  “Sorry,” she says. “Just…why did you write an update about Flora?”

  “Star, please.”

  “You’re playing Flora, aren’t you?” she asks.

  I rub my forehead and feel her hurting through the phone. Elektra starts knocking on my door again, and I have to hang up. I have to. I grimace as I do it and stare at my own narrow eyes in the bathroom mirror. Star’s voice—“You’re playing Flora, aren’t you?”—repeats in my mind. Anger slowly builds, and I watch as a vein bulges red in my neck. I hate this. I run my hands through my hair to calm down.

  Elektra keeps knocking, but I’m not composed enough to face her. Everything with Star feels out of my control. I made a commitment—to fight for us—but all it’s done is hurt her. There’s no denying it anymore; the awful thought I’ve been avoiding is true. By being here and playing in this Carnival, I’ve only made things worse for Star.

  I remember the moment I decided to follow her to America. The morning sky was dark gray, and the Frontier beside me looked ominous and grim. Unbearable emptiness was ripping me apart—my whole world was falling apart—and the sadness hurt so much that I decided to leave with her after all. But that’s it. My head snaps up to attention as the realization chills me. I didn’t come here for “us,” not really. I crossed the Frontier for me. I followed Star into this country because I didn’t want to endure the heart-wrenching pain of losing her.

  Burn’s words echo suddenly in my mind, “When you love something, you set it free.” I know how much I love Star. Goddammit, I do. I’ve always loved her, but she is not free and that’s partly my fault. There’s not a shred of good that’s come from us being together in this Carnival, and—and I’m going to have to let her free. Free from my anger, from my selfishness, and from my jealousy. Free from this cycle of pulling her in so close and then scaring her away. I’ve put my own emotions first, but now that’s going to change.

  I won’t fight for “us” anymore. I’m going to fight for her. And that means—it means letting her go for a little while. For as long as necessary. I swallow a rising lump in my throat. I will do whatever makes her the most happy, the most safe, the most free, regardless of how it makes me feel. I’m going to tell her not to worry about hurting me anymore. She will have my full blessing—my encouragement, even—to throw herself at Bing. And no matter what happens between us, I will always, always love her.

  Suddenly, the lights go out. The bathroom is pitch black.

  Goddammit, the bulbs must have died. I wipe my face to get a hold of myself, figuring I’m no good to Star if I get myself hurt. Spreading my arms, I creep backward to open the door and see the bedroom is dark, too. Huh. With the curtains shut and the ceiling lights now off, I might as well be at home in the middle of the night. Bewildered, I make my way carefully into the hallway, where Tinder is spinning in a slow circle with wide, mystified eyes. Elektra is standing next to him, stock-still and hyperalert. Her neck looks perfectly straight as if she listens for some kind of answer. Slowly, I realize what’s going on.

  This might be a blackout.

  “They must have…generators,” Tinder whispers fearfully.

  I grunt to agree, but the lights are not turning back on. Elektra rushes past me to the side of my bedroom and starts flipping the light switch up and down—for nothing. The room is still dark. She runs to the curtains and flings them open, revealing a New York City gone completely dark. Tinder gasps, and my heart is racing. Every tower in the skyline is almost black. The traffic lights below have stopped working. Easies walking the sidewalks look up at the sky in a daze, trying to figure out what’s going on. More and more of them clamber out of their cars, searching in vain for just one yellow square of light.

  It’s really happened: A blackout has struck.

  “Do you think it will last?” Tinder asks.

  “I don’t know,” I say.

  I imagine how this might play out. If the electricity returns soon, then the Carnival will continue as usual. There would probably be punishments for everyone who tried to escape. But if the power stays off for a whole day—or for the rest of the week—then that might be enough time to get out of the city…

  Elektra turns around suddenly, distracting me from my thoughts. There’s a glint in her eye, and I can sense what she wants to do. She’s about to leave the Carnival. Before I can stop her, Elektra leans forward to b
olt like lightning down the hallway. I chase determinedly after her, pumping my arms in the slowly chilling air. Get back here. She sprints much faster than I do, but I can’t let her leave. Elektra’s been my ticket since I got here, and there are still four days left to the end. I need her advice. She has to stay.

  Elektra gets farther and farther ahead of me. Too fast. She sails smoothly past every dark room, and now she swings herself around her doorway and slams her door. I’m only halfway there, in the foyer. I slow to a stop and catch my breath right as the front door opens beside me. Two DZs from the adjacent suite poke their heads in and observe our dead chandeliers and lamps. Their eyes are wide at the possibility.

  “You too?” one asks.

  I nod.

  At the end of the hallway, Elektra’s door creaks open and she jogs out of her room. She’s dressed in her black leather pants and jacket from day one. She’s even reapplied the charcoal around her eyes and swept her hair into a high ponytail. A full-fledged Shadow again. Elektra runs past me and the neighboring DZs out the front door—and I have only one choice. I have to get her and bring her back.

  She races down the stairwell next to the elevators. I follow her at top speed, my chest already burning from the sprint. The stairs are dark as hell, but this is exactly the kind of place where I feel most at home. We run.

  “Elektra!” I shout.

  She laughs, and the sound echoes demoniacally throughout the shaft. She’s getting more and more ahead of me all the time. Goddammit, I can’t seem to keep up. I hear less and less of her with every new staircase. She’s a flight ahead of me, then two, now five, now almost ten. I can’t hear her at all anymore, but I keep jumping my way down. I pause on the third floor to listen and breathe, but now she has completely disappeared. The stairwell is deathly silent, and every exit door is perfectly still. She’s gone.

  I lean over the banister and stare down the remaining flights. There are four left. Puzzled, I check the exit door next to me, which indicates that I’m on the third floor. Just like I thought. I look back down. Four to go. There must be an extra door below the lobby level. Curious, I jog down toward it. My footsteps reverberate as I move.

  Standing in front of the basement door, I push it tentatively. On the other side, I find another door just like it. Slightly more nervous now, I get the sense that there is something important down here. I press the second door open and walk into a metallic space the size of my bedroom. Every surface in here looks like aluminum. The far wall holds a bolted iron door, with a plaque: THE CHAUNCER LABORATORIES. Before the sign, two Suits stand carrying large semiautomatic rifles in the dark. As a gun man, I know exactly what those can do. And I’m shocked to see this room so guarded.

  “Hello, sirs,” I say. It comes out awkwardly.

  The Suits glare at me. Looking back at the plaque, I try to figure out what the hell I’ve gotten myself into. Chauncer Laboratories. Dr. Fletcher’s note comes back to me now, and I wonder if the reason he warned me about Mr. Chauncer has anything to do with this place. I get the feeling that it does. Thinking quickly, I try to come up with a way to get through the bolted door—and now I have it.

  I pull up my left sleeve, where I wear my family crest. One of the Suits leans toward me to get a better look at the tattoo. He raises his eyebrows in surprise, and now he looks back at his partner, unsure of how to proceed.

  “I am a member of the Troublefield Family,” I declare, taking advantage of his hesitation. Already, I sense that their approval is getting closer and closer. “Mr. Chauncer gave me permission to be here.”

  One of the Suits nods at the other and then opens a closet built into the side of the room. From inside, he pulls out a white lab coat with the initials TC on the front pocket and a blue mask to wear over my mouth. I put them both on as quickly as I can. The Suit enters a long code on a grid of single digits next to the bolted door. Now, it opens to reveal a well-lit hallway, and I almost gasp aloud. Electricity works in this part of the basement. They must have generators specifically for here. The rest of New York is dead, but I am basking in power—this place must be vitally important.

  I step forward.

  The hallway is lined with white doors and a pristine white floor. Each door has a number on its front, beginning with #100. Now, the message makes sense. I hear the door bolt again behind me as I realize this is where I will find the mysterious #328.

  I walk down the long hallway with quick steps. Faster. Faster. Suddenly, a door at the end of the corridor swings ajar. As it opens to face me, I see #321 displayed. Two doctors in lab coats emerge. To keep them from seeing me, I turn the handle of the nearest door and dash inside. The outside is labeled #316.

  In the room, a redheaded boy my age lies on a hospital bed. His green eyes are open, but there is a blankness behind them, as if he’s watching a world without meaning. The brass nameplate above his bed reads Flint Wilson. Flint, a DZ name. As my loafers squeak across the floor, he turns his head toward me. His mouth hangs open and I can see his teeth are cracked and crooked—definitely a DZ. When the door shuts, he jerks his attention back to the door.

  “Who’s there?” he calls, frightened.

  He struggles against the white belts that cross his body horizontally to bind him. He looks frantically from side to side, searching for me. Right in front of him, I feel hidden. I wave my hand through the air—in small circles at first, now bigger and bigger swoops—but he doesn’t turn in my direction. He doesn’t look at me at all. It’s as if he can’t see me—and now I realize that’s exactly it: He’s blind.

  “Shh,” I say, trying to soothe him.

  “Who are you?” he asks.

  “I am Phoenix of Dark DC,” I whisper. “I’m not here to hurt you.”

  “You have to get me out of here,” he says. His voice chokes up with growing sadness. His Adam’s apple bobs up and down nervously in his throat.

  “Calm down,” I say. “Just tell me what happened.”

  “I don’t know,” he says. “I lost the Carnival last year, and they threw all forty-six of us in here. Look at me, Phoenix. This is what they mean by isolation quarters. First, they chained me to this bed, and then they started giving me these shots. In one day, my vision was gone. Just gone. Things went blurry and then they disappeared. All I see is black. They turned the lights out in my eyes, Phoenix.”

  My hand is shaking slightly. I’m glad he can’t see my fear.

  “Why?” I ask.

  “They’re testing us for something,” he says. “I don’t know what. The players who won a prize didn’t get thrown in here, but the rest of us did. When they say you lose, they’re talking about your eyes.”

  I hear the doctors pass by Flint’s room and walk to the end of the hall. The bolted door opens. A pause grows, and now the door has shut again. They must have just left. I have to make it to #328 before they come back.

  “Flint, I have to go,” I say.

  “Don’t go, Phoenix!” he calls.

  I shouldn’t have told him my real name. I slip out of the door, and I lean against the wall for support. The Easies lied to us again. The stakes are even higher for winning than I thought. I need to know more. I swallow my fear and hurry toward room #328. Lightly, barely touching the handle, I push down and walk through the doorway. Two beds lie before me, one with a girl and one with a boy. Both are my age and strapped with the white bands. Both turn to look at me as I walk in. They—whoever they are—are not blind.

  “Who are you?” the girl asks fearfully.

  Her heart-shaped face sits beneath curly blonde hair pulled back into a neat, low ponytail. She looks into my eyes and seems strangely familiar, but I can’t remember where I’ve seen her before. Stepping slowly to the side, I watch as her clear blue eyes follow me. She looks at the boy in confusion, wrinkling her faint eyebrows together.

  “Are you a prize this year?” she asks.

  “No, I’m a player,” I say warily.

  “A DZ!” they say together.

>   “I need to know something, but I don’t have much time to stay,” I say. “Dr. Fletcher gave me the number of this room and told me to ‘be like #328’ if Mr. Chauncer ever got me. Do you have any idea why he might have told me that?”

  I look back and forth between their pale faces as they nod their heads in understanding. Now the boy seems familiar, too. He has a sharp chin and a wide jaw. His shaggy black hair is long, and also pulled back into a low ponytail. But I feel too pressured to try and figure out how I know them. I put my hands on my hips and wait. Time is ticking.

  “He said that,” she says, “because we’re immune.”

  “Immune to what?” I ask.

  “The blindness,” she says. “They officially declared us immune last week. Laser and I are the only ones who haven’t gone blind. We’re both from Dark Charlotte. Dr. Fletcher was one of our doctors until he left for the Frontier…”

  “Why did he go to the Frontier?” I ask.

  “We had three main doctors,” Laser says, his voice slow and deep. “Dr. Fletcher, Dr. Harris, and Dr. Travers. They weren’t like the other doctors we’ve seen. They cared about us. Anyway, when they found out we were immune, they thought something about our city had protected us. The water, I think. But they wanted to test their theory first.

  “Mr. Chauncer wouldn’t let them do it. He said the Dark Zone was uninhabitable, and he wasn’t about to let his best doctors die looking for a panacea. Mr. Chauncer said he would send a team down there, but he needed time to build it. Our doctors didn’t want to wait, so Dr. Fletcher and Dr. Harris staged a crash by Dark DC. Dr. Travers was able to pass through the hole they created in the Frontier while everyone was distracted. He’s still loose down there somewhere, trying to test their theory.”

  The breach was a distraction after all.

  “There’s a virus spreading,” Laser adds.

  “What?” I ask in horror.

  “It hasn’t reached this coast yet, but it will,” she says. “Every state west of Montana has been lost to the disease.”

  The news almost knocks me over as I put everything together, and it’s all eerily making sense. There’s a virus causing blindness spreading north of the Frontier. That’s why the Easies really started the Carnival. The Frontier forms a natural quarantine, so no one in the Dark Zone has been infected yet. I clench my fists. The Families never cared about giving back—they cared about getting their test subjects. That and they wanted their children to have dates without getting infected. That would explain the No Touching rule, too. All this time, it was because they didn’t want to get infected.