In the Afterlight

by Alexandra Bracken

  “You were in one, too?” Rosa asked. “You got out and things got better?”

  “They’re getting there,” I told her. “Your mom is helping us.”

  There. One small, trembling smile. “Has she been wearing her red suit?”

  “Red suit?” I repeated.

  Rosa nodded, finally sitting back against the seat. “Mom had this dark red suit she always wore when she had to go in for a big vote or debate. She said it scared the old white dudes who kept trying to shut her up or make her sit down.”

  “No,” I said, “but you know what? I don’t think she really needs it anymore.”

  The girl spread her fingers over her blue uniform shorts. “And you’re totally...you’re sure she wants to...I mean, I would understand if she didn’t want to see me. I was with my Gran when they came. Mom never saw me after I got damaged—changed, I mean.”

  “She wants you,” I said, the words spilling out from some place I hadn’t dared to touch since I’d left Thurmond. “More than anything. It doesn’t matter what you can do, or what any of the people at that camp told you. She’s there and she’s waiting for you.”

  They were the right words. I knew it by the pain that came with wrenching them up from where I’d buried them.

  I knew it, because they were the exact words I’d fantasized about someone saying to me, just before Grams would arrive to rescue me.

  She turned toward me. “Thank you for coming to get us.”

  I wasn’t sure I could trust my voice, but I said, “You’re very welcome.”

  “You’re going to get more kids out, right?” she asked. “Not just us?”

  “Everyone,” I reassured her, leaning my head back against the seat and closing my eyes. It was the only way I knew of to keep from crying. It was more than just a possibility. We had done this. We could do it again at Thurmond. We could make this moment everyone’s reality. Every single kid.

  Zach brought the bus into the garage as Cole had instructed. The kids who’d stayed behind were there, opening the large, rolling door we’d kept shut and locked the whole time we’d used the space. Senator Cruz and Cole stood a way inside; the woman had her hands folded in front of her, and while she seemed otherwise serene, even from a distance, I could see the white-knuckled hold she had on herself. I pulled back the curtain and leaned away, so Rosa could see her as well. The senator must have spotted her at that exact moment, because she lost the fight she’d been waging to control herself and ran for the bus’s doors, just as I stood to let Rosa pass. The girl launched herself at her mother from the top step, and nearly took them both to the ground.

  The other kids looked away. We’d explained, on the drive back to California, what had happened in Los Angeles. And knowing that many of their parents had been involved in the Federal Coalition, or had simply lived in the area, hadn’t sugarcoated the harsh reality.

  “But we’ll help you find them,” I’d promised. “If Senator Cruz doesn’t know for certain where they are, we’ll try searching the different networks for clues.”

  Cole had remained where he was, nodding to the team members who came down from the bus, slapping their backs and proudly congratulating them as they spilled out and formed a cluster around him. There was a backpack at his feet, but he didn’t reach for it, not until Liam and Alice finally exited the bus. I knew what was about to happen, but frankly, I was too damn pissed off myself to try to prevent it.

  He signaled to Senator Cruz. With Rosa still pressed against her side, she said calmly, “All right, everyone, follow me. We’ll get you a nice warm shower, some new clothes, and a good meal. How does that sound?”

  Liam and the Amplify reporter had their path toward us cut off as the Oasis kids streamed by, forming a line that followed the senator to the tunnel down, passing Zu, Hina, Mike, and Kylie, who’d come running to meet us. They joined the group of kids who had been left behind here, standing on the white crescent moon painted onto the cement.

  The moment he was within range, Cole stooped to pick up the backpack and tossed it to Liam, who sagged under its weight as he caught it.

  “I took the liberty,” Cole began, his voice edged with ice, “of packing your things. You’re finished here. Get on your little bike and go home.”

  “I’m not going anywhere.” Liam’s expression hardened as he shoved the bag back at his brother. “And I’m just getting started. You can’t make me go.”

  Cole let out a derisive laugh, but I was the one to answer. The words sprang into my mind, filled my mouth like bile. “No, but I could.”

  I saw Zu jerk her gaze from Liam to me, her lips parting in shock. It was nothing compared to the pain of seeing Liam set his jaw and blanch, his eyes burning with a terrible, silent disappointment. How dare he act like this was the real betrayal here? He’d gone behind my back for all of this. I’d sensed he was keeping some kind of secret, but nothing of this magnitude. Nothing that risked the safety and lives of every kid here.

  And why? Because he was mad Cole dismissed his idea? He didn’t understand how these things worked. He’d left the League, run away. He’d checked out of training too early to understand that you fought fire with fire.

  “You went behind my back,” Cole said, heat pouring off the words, “and somehow contacted Amplify when I specifically told you not to. You were stupid enough to email confidential files, risking Gray’s Internet crawlers picking them up and tracing them back to us. You clearly lied about going to meet that other group of kids and met with Amplify instead, wasting our gas and our time. You interrupted an Op in play and endangered every single kid participating in it, including yourself and the ones we rescued. And to top it off, Liam, you brought a civilian into play. I really hope it was worth it to you, because while you’re getting the hell out of here, she is staying where we can keep her secured and locked up until this is all over.”

  “Excuse me?” Alice stepped up, brown eyes flashing. To Liam she muttered, “You said he’d be pissed, but this is...”

  “Reality,” Cole finished, holding out his hand. “Give me your camera.”

  She leaned away, pressing her hand against the device, which was now stowed away safely in her bag. “Listen to me when I say this,” she said, “because I mean it literally—over my dead body. You think I’m scared of you? I survived the D.C. bombing and covered eight major city riots, including the one in Atlanta that killed my camera guy and my fiancé. So go ahead and try it, asshole.”

  “Okay, sweetheart,” Cole said, “you can keep your camera. May the tender, glowing light from the digital screen keep you company when we lock you in your new room and throw away the key.”

  “That’s—”

  Liam held out an arm, stopping her. The woman didn’t shrink back, though, and her ivory skin didn’t lose its tinge of pink.

  “You’re right,” he said. “I did go behind your back and find out how to contact Amplify. I met with Alice and her team, but only after I found Olivia and Brett, who I told not to come in until I was sure being here would guarantee a lower chance of getting killed than trying to survive alone in the wild. I downloaded files onto a flash drive to prove my story to Amplify; I never sent them. And you know why I did all of those things? Because no matter what you said in Los Angeles, this hasn’t been anything that resembles a democracy, let alone a fresh start. You’ve ignored everyone’s ideas in favor of your own and you haven’t once listened to what I’ve tried to say, even though you know nothing about our lives and what we’ve been through. You like the fight, but some of us don’t.”

  “Not your best argument,” Cole said, gesturing to the team, “considering today worked out pretty damn well.”

  “He’s telling the truth,” Alice insisted. “We never would have asked him to risk sending the files digitally. He only brought us printouts, and only a few to prove his affiliation with the League. Or whatever the hell it is you�
�re calling yourselves now.”

  Liam blew out a harsh breath. “We can use the footage Alice captured today, deliver a media package to their contacts to run—a package that carries an actual message. That proves something, even if it’s just that people have nothing to fear from us kids. You don’t get it. It doesn’t matter if we get all the kids out of the camps and blast through every damn fence and wall between us and them. If we don’t change people’s minds about us, then where the hell are those kids going to go?”

  Cole crossed his arms over his chest and said simply, “Bye, Liam.”

  I had started to turn, intending on following Cole to the tunnel, anger making my head throb, erasing every last trace of light inside my heart, when a voice piped up. “If he has to go, then so do I.”

  It was the Green girl I’d seen a few nights ago, the one who had painted the crescent moon on Liam’s helmet. That moment, when I’d questioned who “she” was, finally made sense. The symbol was how Alice identified him during their meetings.

  “For any particular reason...?” Cole prompted.

  “I covered for him.” She tossed her dark hair back over her shoulder. “I knew he was going to meet Alice and I didn’t tell anyone.”

  “Me too,” said Lucy, wringing her hands red. “I lied about supplies he never brought in, and I don’t really want to fight, I’m sorry.”

  “Ditto,” Kylie said. “Not sorry, though.”

  “And me,” piped up Anna, one of the Greens who’d made it out of Los Angeles. “I’m the one that showed him how to access and download the files.”

  Beside me, Zach scratched his head and looked up at the ceiling. “I might have showed him how he could, if he needed to, establish a contact procedure with someone.”

  “I’m the one who asked Senator Cruz how she contacted someone in Amplify,” said another one of the Greens. “So I guess I’m out, too?”

  “Me too, since—”

  Cole held up a hand, interrupting Sarah. “Okay—Christ, I get it, Spartacus. You all made your point.”

  He glanced over at me. I lifted a shoulder, letting him decide this one. I didn’t trust my judgment in that moment, and, truthfully, if they were all interested in sabotaging our hit on Thurmond, I wouldn’t have been sorry to see them go off and live somewhere safe and away, especially if Harry delivered on his promise of trained soldiers.

  “You get one shot,” he told them. “Prove to me this works the way you want it to, and we’ll adapt our plan, but—” His voice turned sharp as the kids behind us began to chatter excitedly. I stepped closer to him, wanting to use Cole as a shield from the now-obvious truth that most, if not all of them, had known what Liam was planning, and none of them had been inclined to let me in on it.

  They probably think it serves you right, a voice whispered in my head, for keeping them in the dark about getting rid of the agents.

  But the difference was, that had only been done to protect them. Cole was absolutely right—Liam interrupting a carefully choreographed Op and introducing an unknown variable could have ended badly for all of us, including the kids we were trying to rescue. A fresh wave of anger steamed through me.

  “But,” he continued, “you all stay here and you cannot, for any reason, leave the Ranch without getting permission. That includes you, Carrots.”

  Alice colored at the nickname, absently reaching up to smooth back her red hair.

  He took a step closer to her, lowering his voice. I knew that look, the way his blue eyes hooded, how the otherwise friendly smile betrayed nothing of the contempt he felt. Only his low, rough voice. “If you reveal our location to anyone at Amplify, I’ll know.”

  Alice leaned toward Cole, her arms crossed over her chest. One brow went up in challenge. “No you won’t. But I’m not in the business of getting kids killed. Unlike you.”

  “Hey,” I warned. And clearly Liam must have mentioned something about me, because she finally backed off.

  “All right, everyone good? Everyone cool?” Cole nodded, motioning for the others to start nodding, too. “Great. Let’s get the supplies off the bus and everything organized. Someone needs to tell me about the PSFs’ faces when they saw you.”

  The tension broke at that, Gav busting out laughing as he relayed a story about how one of the PSFs may or may not have pissed himself when he realized what he was up against. Zu tried to catch my hand as I walked past her, but, in all honesty, I just wanted to be alone—I didn’t care if it hurt her feelings, I didn’t care that she was worried about me, and I didn’t want to pretend that I was fine with this outcome. Losing focus was wasting time. It meant more dead kids I wouldn’t be able to save.

  I wanted to check in with Nico about any news of Cate and whether or not Vida and Chubs had checked in. Then I wanted to finalize the details for how I’d be taken back into Thurmond.

  I burned off what extra energy I had by taking the tunnel between the Ranch and the garage at a run. The frustration drained out of me with each strike of my boots against the cement. I was through the kitchen, passing by bowls of pasta and pretzels the Oasis kids had picked up on their way, if I had to guess, to eat in the big room, when I finally heard him calling my name.

  I didn’t slow down, didn’t let any part of me soften the armor of anger I wore. Liam ran to catch up to me. “Ruby! I want to talk to you!”

  “Believe me,” I told him, “you don’t.”

  I continued down the hall until he grabbed my arm and spun me around. I stared up into his face, looking past the strain, the shadow of scruff along his jaw and cheeks, to the intensity of his eyes, and for a single instant my body confused the need to kill him with the need to kiss him.

  I yanked myself away and pushed the door open to the stairwell.

  “Are you mad because I didn’t tell you, or because you know I’m right?” he demanded. “Because as far as I can tell, it’s both.”

  “I think Cole gave you a pretty decent outline of the many reasons to be pissed at you,” I said, turning as I reached the first landing. He was right at my heels, trying to back me into the same dark corner I’d stolen a kiss from him in. And somehow, that only made me angrier, like he was doing it on purpose.

  “I’m right, Ruby,” he said, taking my wrist again.

  “Touch me one more time,” I warned him, “and you’ll regret it.”

  He released his hold on me and backed off. “Please, listen to me—”

  “No!” I said. “I don’t even want to look at you right now!”

  Liam’s smile turned mocking. “Because I dared to disagree with Cole, who could never be wrong, not about anything.”

  I whirled back on him, shoving at his chest with both hands. “Because you came within an inch of being blasted away at the wrong end of Zach’s gun! Because you could have died and I wouldn’t have been able to stop it! Because you didn’t think and everything we’ve been working toward could have fallen a—!”

  His eyes flashed, blue flames, as he pulled me to him.

  He kissed me.

  He kissed me the way I’d kissed him in the forest at the edge of the East River camp. In the darkness, the smell of damp earth and dust and leather wrapped around us. Hard—desperate—his hands fisted in my hair, mine in his jacket.

  He kissed me, and I let him, because I knew it was the last time.

  I pushed him away, feeling something in my chest tear wide open as the cold air filled the space between us. Liam braced himself against the wall, trying to catch his breath. I fought the stupidest urge to sit down on the stairs and cry.

  He took a shaking breath. “Anna said...she said that Nico’s been working secretly on some kind of virus. She thinks it’s for the Thurmond hit. It’s the kind that someone will have to go in and install before any kind of attack can happen.” His voice sounded hollow. “Would you happen to know anything about that?”

&
nbsp; I looked away.

  “Jesus, Ruby,” he said quietly.

  He was giving me the chance to come clean about the Thurmond hit, but nothing, least of all him, was going to prevent me from doing this. I didn’t need his approval.

  “They will kill you,” he said, anger seeping into the words. “You know this. They know what you are and what you can do. Are you going to sway the whole camp? Get them under your control the way Clancy did at East River? They aren’t going to let you leave that camp alive, and you don’t even care, do you?”

  He scrubbed at his face, letting out a sound of pure aggravation. “Do I even have to ask who put this idea in your head? He’s not one of us, Ruby! He’s not, and you still side with him, you tell him the things you used to tell me. Tell me what happened, tell me how to make this right between us again. I don’t understand how we broke down. I don’t understand why he has this hold on you!”

  “I don’t have to explain myself to you.” I felt a cold drop of ice spread down my spine at my own words, no matter how true they were.

  “You used to want to,” he said. “Do you want to know why I didn’t tell you about Alice and Amplify? I came close a hundred times. I almost told you that night we were in the garage, but I stopped myself because lately...lately it doesn’t matter what I say. You and Cole think it’s wrong, stupid, or naïve. Dammit, I am sick to death of that word. I’m not stupid, and I’m not blind either. I can keep us fed, I can fix every damn fixture that’s falling off, I can make sure all of the cars run, I can find us the one real shot we have doing some lasting good in a world that’s already too violent, but it’s not enough. I don’t even register, do I? Not to him. Not to you, not anymore.”

  I said nothing. Felt nothing. Was nothing.