In the Afterlight

by Alexandra Bracken

  “You,” Cole repeated slowly, as if Liam’s hearing had been the problem, “are out.”

  “What the hell for?” Liam spun toward me, gesturing with his hands, asking me for something I had no intention of giving him. The minute the words had left Cole’s lips, relief had flooded my system. Liam’s expression changed abruptly, darkening as he shook his head and twisted back around in the direction of his brother.

  “Why? I’ve done everything you asked—both me and Mike have experience hitting trucks. So why?”

  The kids around us began to shuffle their feet and look away, the tension swiftly moving from awkward to painful.

  “Because,” Cole said, jumping down from the ladder, “I decided twelve is too many—you guys are practically tripping over each other. We need to be in and out faster and quieter. If you take this personally, you’re an idiot.”

  “That’s bullshit,” Liam said, his hands on his hips. “You just want me out of this.”

  “Well, your attitude isn’t doing you any favors either, baby brother,” he said, holding out his hand. “Your helmet and gun. You go cool off somewhere. Mike, I need you as another PSF—third door on the right, yes, you got it—”

  Liam ripped the gun strap off his shoulder, pushing it into his brother’s chest, and unbuckled the helmet, letting it fall to the floor. He turned on his heel and strode toward the garage’s tunnel door, his body rigid with stiff, furious lines.

  I held up one finger to Cole, not waiting to get a negative response from him, and followed Liam out. He was already a good ten feet into the tunnel before I caught sight of him and called, “Hey!”

  He stopped, but didn’t turn around. I unclipped my own helmet and approached slowly, recognizing the red staining the back of his neck, the way his hands were clenched into fists—the veins stood out in his forearms, he had such a tight grip.

  “Liam,” I said softly. “Look at me.”

  “What?” he said, plucking at his fatigues. “Did you need me to hand over these, too?”

  “I want you to calm down,” I said. “I’m sorry—but you know it has to be this way.”

  “And which way is that?” he asked. “The one where you stand there silently and let me get dismissed like a kid being sent to time-out?”

  I let out a sound of frustration. “We have to listen to him. There has to be some kind of order here—structure. Otherwise this whole thing will fall apart.”

  Liam stared at me, disbelief fading into a humorless smile. “I get it,” he said as he started walking again. “Believe me, Ruby, I get it.”

  By the time we filed back into the Ranch six hours later, he was long gone. Zu was waiting for me in the bunk room, a folded piece of paper clutched in her hands. She watched me as I read it, her eyes making my heart ache.

  Finding Liv. Good luck.

  I wasn’t upset. I was furious.

  “He left without taking any kind of backup—again,” I said, pulling my shirt up over my head and kicking off my fatigues. Zu had already changed into the oversized shirt and boxers she slept in. “Didn’t he?”

  She nodded, then held up her notebook with the message, What’s going on? She flipped the page. Why are you acting like idiots?

  “Did Chubs tell you to ask me that?”

  Zu went back to the first page, underlining the first question twice. What’s going on?

  “Just a disagreement,” I assured her, the little lie already gnawing at me. I pulled the worn shirt and sweats on and sat down next to her on my bunk. “Looks like it’s just you and me tonight.”

  I lay down on my back and she followed suit. I was grateful for the warmth of her next to me, her presence, which always seemed to sweeten sour situations. I’d spent the rest of the simulation feeling like someone was walking over my grave. I still couldn’t shake the feeling.

  She picked up her pen and notebook again and wrote, Are you okay?

  “I’ve been better,” I admitted.

  You keep going to your bad place, she added. I have one, too. I get trapped there if I stay too long.

  I shifted so I could wrap an arm around her shoulders and draw her in closer.

  You don’t have to go there alone. She paused, as if collecting her thoughts. Do you remember, right before I left East River, I said I had something to tell you, but I didn’t know how?

  “I do.” Thinking about that day was like raking nails down over my heart.

  It wasn’t really that I didn’t know how—I wanted the words to be better. More beautiful, I guess. But Lee told me it doesn’t matter, sometimes simplest is best. She turned the page, scribbling the words down quickly. The sound of the pen against the paper was strangely soothing. It doesn’t matter what you do, it won’t ever change how we feel about you. I’m proud to be your friend.

  I stared at her, swallowing the knot in my throat. “Thank you. I feel the same way about you. The luckiest day of my life was when I met you. You saw how scared I was—”

  It wasn’t because you were scared, Zu wrote, then added quickly, maybe a little, but do you know how I knew we could trust you?

  I shook my head, fascinated by this insight into her judgment.

  When the people following you, looking for you, started to get really close, you were going to run again, not hide behind Betty. It was because you didn’t want them to accidentally find me either, right?

  “That’s right.”

  She put out her hands as if to say, well, there you go. She picked up her pen again. That meant you were never going to purposefully put us in danger. That you were a good person.

  “That’s an awfully big assumption,” I said. “It could have just been me panicking, not thinking at all.”

  Zu gave a little shrug. Better to risk helping someone than regret what you could have done. Lee said that.

  “That sounds like him,” I said dryly. And that was the exact reason Chubs and I had to be so vigilant about every new kid we crossed paths with.

  Are you and Lee fighting about the memory thing?

  Ah. So he or one of the others had told her.

  “Not exactly.” But then, what were we doing, exactly? Not being friends to each other. Not being whatever it was we had been. “It’s complicated. After what I did to him, it’s been nothing but complicated. And I accept full responsibility, but...”

  Zu, as always, zeroed in on the root of the situation. Do you think he doesn’t forgive you?

  Reluctantly I reached around her, pulling out the Beach Boys CD case from the dresser drawer. The paper was soft and beginning to tear at the center from how many times I’d opened and read it and refolded it again. I don’t know why I felt like I had to keep rereading it every night, punishing myself with it.

  Zu read it, the crease between her dark eyebrows deepening. She clearly recognized his handwriting, but when she looked up, I saw confusion, not understanding.

  “What?”

  She wrote, What does this prove?

  “The fact that he felt like he had to write this is a pretty big clue he thinks I’ll do it again—take his memories, I mean. Send him away.”

  Zu calmly folded the note back up and then reached up to smack me in the nose with it with her patented are you serious? look.

  Seeing I still wasn’t getting it, she picked up her notebook and pen again. OR—he wrote it because he was scared someone else would make you do it, like his brother. He says he wants to stay. This means he wants to stay, with you, with us, even knowing what happened. Did you even ask him about it? Does he know you took it? She gave me a very different look now. You shouldn’t take things that don’t belong to you.

  “I haven’t talked to him about it,” I admitted.

  Did you miss this? She pointed to the last line.

  I shook my head, swallowing hard. “I saw.”

  Zu studied me f
or a moment, dark eyes penetrating, flickering with understanding. Do you feel like you don’t deserve it?

  “I think he...I think he deserves better than the best I could offer him.” It was the first time I’d admitted it out loud, and somehow putting it into the open only added to the weight of truth. I felt sick, lightheaded. He deserves better than me.

  She looked torn between kicking me and hugging me, but settled on the latter. Too late, I’d realized how this would affect her—how someone already so panicked and afraid would react to seeing the people she thought of as her rocks crumbling.

  When he comes back you have to talk to him, okay?

  “Okay,” I said, not as certain as she was that he’d want to talk to me.

  If you go to the bad place again, she said simply, tell one of us so we can help you back out.

  “I don’t mean to be such a burden,” I whispered. All I ever wanted to do was protect you.

  It’s not a burden if people are willing to carry it, she pointed out and, having made her final point, let herself drift to sleep. I rolled onto my side and tried to do the same.

  It must have taken at some point because then I was dreaming, walking the damp, dark hallways of HQ, taking the path to Alban’s cluttered office, eyes tracking the exposed light bulbs overhead. The next moment, I was in a different hallway, cold tile under my feet, small hands fisted in my shirt.

  I jerked back, my mind ripping out of the foggy haze of sleep, scrambling away from Zu’s terrified look. The lights in the lower-level hallway were switched off, as they always were after midnight. She stood in contrast to the shadows, worry overtaking confusion on her features. Her brow creased as she stepped toward me tentatively, reaching for the hand I’d pressed over my heart, trying to steady it.

  “Sorry,” I told her, “sorry—sleepwalking—stress—it’s—” I couldn’t get my tongue around the right words, but she seemed to understand. Zu took me firmly in hand and walked me back toward our room, never once letting me stumble. My head felt light enough to drift away, and when I climbed back into bed, I banged my clumsy knees against the metal frame. The last thing I was aware of was Zu stroking my hair, smoothing it again and again until the pain pounding in my skull eased, and I was able to breathe normally again.

  In the earliest hours of the next morning, the Op team and I set off for the open desert of Nevada.

  I KEPT MY BELLY DOWN flat against the wash, ignoring the tinge of pain in the muscles of my lower back. It seemed wrong for the desert to be so damn cold, but I guess without the sun, and without the benefit of thick-leaved trees and brush, there was nothing to trap the heat of the previous day. Nameless mountains hovered behind us, the lighter of two deep shades of black. I kept looking over my shoulder as the hours passed, watching their jagged shapes lighten to the color of a new bruise. Aside from the yellow, dried-out clusters of low, prickly desert shrubs, there wasn’t much anything else to look for.

  “What was that?” I heard Gav ask. “Is that a rattlesnake? I heard rattling.”

  “That was me drinking from my canteen, dumbass,” Gonzo said. “Jesus, dude. Did you leave your balls in California?”

  I shushed them, and then shushed them again when one of the girls started complaining about having to pee.

  “I told you not to drink that much water on the drive,” Sarah told her. “You never listen to me.”

  “Sorry I don’t have the bladder of a freaking sloth.”

  “You mean camel,” Sarah corrected.

  “I meant sloth,” the other girl said. “I read somewhere they only have to go once a week.”

  I rolled my eyes heavenward for strength, wondering if this was what Vida felt like every moment of every day.

  “Status?” Cole’s voice was clipped in my ear.

  “Same as an hour ago,” I said as I pressed my earpiece. “Nothing so far, over.”

  We’d taken the two SUVs down to this barren stretch of Interstate 80 and were dropped off on the side of the road; Lucy and Mike turned the cars around and drove them back to Lodi. Cole and I had mapped out the sweet spot on the highway in terms of distance from the camp. Just far enough from the camp that no one would notice the vehicles making a quick stop. But the only cover we had to hide in was the wash running along the cracked asphalt. We curved our bodies to fit its shape, and waited.

  It was another ten minutes before my ears picked up on the faint hum of a distant engine. I knew I hadn’t imagined it when the others began to squirm, trying to get a better look at the lip of the wash. A few seconds later, the first pinpricks of light appeared—headlights that grew in size and intensity, slicing through the darkness.

  I glanced down the wash—and there it was, three bursts of light from a flashlight. Ollie had been stationed there to check the markings on the truck. It was the right one.

  Zach slapped my back, the excitement bringing a grin to his face. I felt it like a jolt of electricity to my system and flashed a smile back at him as I stood.

  I walked out into the middle of the road, hands shaking only a little bit as the semi-trailer truck barreled down the road. I held up my hands as the headlights blinded me—I couldn’t see the details of the driver behind the windshield, but I saw the quick movement as his hand went to strike the horn. I let the invisible hands in my mind reach out blindly, feeling for his, stretching, stretching, stretching—and connecting.

  The truck rolled to a stop three feet away from me.

  There was a flurry of movement at my left as the makeshift tact team came scrambling up from the wash, moving toward the rear of the truck to open the trailer and jump inside.

  I pushed the earpiece as I jogged around to open the passenger side door of the truck’s cab. “We have our ride, over.”

  “Fantastic. Proceed with second phase.”

  The driver was frozen behind the wheel, waiting for his instructions from me. I searched through his memories and teased one up from the week before, of him making this exact ride in. I pulled that to the forefront of his mind and said one word. “Drive.”

  I crouched as low as I could in the cab, drawing the black ski mask down over my face. I pulled myself up to look over the dash periodically to make sure we were still heading in the right direction. The truck driver had been blasting some rap music that was angry and pounding enough to set me on edge, so I reached over and switched it off, missing the exact moment the gray, sun-bleached two-story structure and its ten-foot fence came into view.

  “In sight,” I said. “Everyone good at the back of the bus?”

  “Peachy,” was Zach’s reply. “ETA?”

  “Two minutes.”

  I took another steadying breath as we turned and headed off the highway onto a dirt road. The two PSFs at the gate dragged the thing open as the driver, a thick-waisted, bearded man in a short-sleeved button-down, went through the motions of turning the truck and reversing through it, his face blank. A tarp was spread out over the loading area adjacent to the main building. There were already flatbed carts out, waiting for the supplies to be unloaded. Two PSFs were sitting on them, smoking, but threw the cigarettes away and stood as the truck backed toward them. The others, having secured the gate, were hurrying back over as I took one last deep breath.

  “We’re in—prepare for action,” I said. “Two PSFs positioned at your door, two more coming around the back.”

  “Silent and fast,” Cole reminded us. “Ten minutes starts now.”

  A fifth approached the driver’s window, calling out a, “Mornin’ Frank!”

  I pushed the image of Frank rolling down the window into his mind, leaned over him, and, before the PSF’s eyes could so much as widen, had my gun pointed directly at his face. He was young, around Cate’s age, maybe. At the sight of me, he lost the easy smile on his face. His whole body pulled back in alarm, and he reached for his rifle.

  “What th
e fu—”

  “Hands where I can see them.” I couldn’t control Frank and the PSF at the same time, and Gonzo and Ollie eliminated my need to. One of them cracked him on the back of his skull with the butt of his own rifle, and the other had him facedown in the dirt, gagged and secured with zip ties. He was hauled behind the truck, where four other limp forms were already propped up.

  I knew some of the kids hadn’t understood why we’d run through this so many times, but I think, now that we were here, they saw the answer in how smoothly we assembled into formation. The real benefit of simulations was to train your nerves to behave, to make something like this feel as normal as waking up and walking to the showers each morning. It seemed to have worked—even as we approached the door the PSFs had left open and quietly stepped inside of the building, the group felt as steady as stone to me. We certainly looked menacing enough, dressed in all black and wearing ski masks.

  The hall was dark, but a stream of light spilled out of one of the rooms—the third one down on the right. I felt myself pause. The smell of bleach tinged with lemon, shoe polish, and human odor gripped me in a stranglehold. Some part of me recognized that it made sense for this camp to smell almost exactly like the Infirmary in Thurmond. Why wouldn’t they use the same military-ordered cleaning supplies? But more than anything, it rubbed up against my nerves.

  Gav stepped into place, kneeling down and aiming as the others crept forward. Voices trickled down the tile from the open door I’d spotted before. I waved the kids forward and crept along the wall with them until Zach grabbed my arm and pointed to the door marked CR. Control Room. That was our cue.

  As we ducked out of formation, I cast one look back into the open room—four PSFs were sitting around the table, uniform jackets slung onto a nearby couch and the backs of their chairs as they laughed and smoked, dealing cards around a cramped table. As Gav and Gonzo filled the doorway I saw one look up and then look again, diving for a weapon he never reached. The Blues upended their table, threw the PSFs against the wall, and silenced them before they could gasp out a warning over their radios.