Through the Dark (A Darkest Minds Collection) (A Darkest Minds Novel)
Page 35
On our second day here, when Ruby needs to rest, to take time alone to swallow the pain and smoke and claws down to wherever it is that she can lock them inside herself, I wander the halls. The freedom of it—to go through the doors that used to be locked, to take a left turn down a hall instead of a right—makes me feel queasy. I push through the feeling and go looking for my old room.
My cell.
It’s at the very end of the hall, a heavy metal door with only a small grate to pass food through. It’s already open.
Sammy is inside.
She sits, her back as stiff as armor, on my cot. She stares at the wall that was the beginning and end of my everything for seven years. She sees the dents and clawed scratches I left behind, the evidence of cruelty, when I had to pretend to be as damaged and tortured as the others; and then from when I was brought back for reprogramming, when I was sure she was dead and I had killed her. There’s a gap in my memory, from when I came back here to when I woke up on the sofa of our old house, and no one seems all that eager to fill it, least of all Mia and Sam.
I hesitate in the door, watching her. She sees the last piece of me I haven’t already given her, and she doesn’t turn away from it. And it’s only then that I feel it: that heady, quick freedom that slices through me to the old pain at my core.
I sit beside her, and it is a small miracle, it is something I will never take for granted, that she leans her head against my shoulder. Her hand finds mine. I let the soft warmth of her skin melt into the fire that burns beneath mine.
“Tell me a story,” she whispers.
No more stories. No more fairy tales.
“I love you.” It is our beginning, our middle, and one day—please God, a long way away from here—our end. And it is the truth.
I only want the truth.
I want the future.
If I craft words, if I imagine a new world into being, I want it to be the one that we live in—me, Sammy, Mia, our friends.
My sister asks me why that story, why the monster? I tell her because no matter what they made me, no matter how far they dragged me away from home, how ugly they made me, some part of me always knew Sam and Mia would find me. I don’t know if that’s the truth, if we’re all just lucky as hell, but I want to believe it is.
There are hundreds, maybe even thousands, of kids who need to be found, too; who need us to rewrite the endings the world tried to give them. We talk about it, me and the others, late at night after our military escorts bring us back to a hotel or safe house to sleep. I think that is our future—how we’ll pass our days. We are a unit now. Somehow, impossibly, we three—the ones born in Greenwood—have been absorbed into a group that fiercely protects each other, that closes ranks when the world closes in.
We will hunt the snatchers, search for the kids never sent to camps, track down the runaways who couldn’t readjust to life on the outside. If these suits won’t give us permission, then we won’t ask for it. We will go.
We will not let them force us into the procedure.
We will not let them create boundaries, carve out stretches of empty land where they can install more barbed wire fences and designate it as home.
My home is here. Mia’s laughter and the fireworks of her temper. The laughter of our friends. Sam’s thick honey hair falling around us, her warm breath on my neck as I hold her. When we left the house, Dad said something to me that I’m only now understanding, that home is wherever there’s love; that as long as we’re together, we carry it with us. It will grow as we do.
It will grow as we bring others in, as we bring the lost ones together again, gather up the embers scattered from the same fire. One day, we will ignite and create a blaze that no one can put out, ignore, hurt. We will move forward as one, and in time, rise like sparks beyond the night.
But there is a secret in the woods, a place where old dreams still live.
It’s a place that has to be guarded. Protected.
But they will never take it. They can’t. It is ours forever.
It is there, waiting for new dreamers to fill its walls with stories; and maybe one day, they will.
But we will always know the way back.
We will always know where to find it.
THANKS FIRST AND FOREMOST TO the wonderful team at Hyperion, in particular Emily Meehan and Laura Schreiber, who not only helped me shape these stories, but gave me the encouragement I needed to step away from Ruby’s point of view and really play in the world. I also would like to thank Seale Ballenger, Stephanie Lurie, Dina Sherman, Marci Senders, Holly Nagel, Elke Villa, Andrew Sansone, and everyone who ever had a hand in helping these stories find their readers—and, of course, for all of the kindness you’ve shown me over nearly five years of working together.
As per usual, I have to thank Anna Jarzab for her support and feedback on so many early drafts—couldn’t do it without you, pal. Thanks for helping me look good!
Merrilee Heifetz is a queen among agents, an actual gem, and I’m so grateful to have both her and Sarah Nagel looking out for me every day.
Mom, Steph, Daniel…I hope you don’t need me to write it in a book, but thank you for your love and support through thick and thin.
And, finally, to the readers who have been asking me for a print novella bind-up for years (and, well, to readers in general): thank you so much for keeping this story, and these characters, alive in your hearts.
PRAISE FOR THE DARKEST MINDS SERIES
New York Times Best Sellers
USA Today Best Sellers
YALSA Best Fiction for Young Adults Nominee
“Haunting…Bracken creates a gripping and terrifying dystopian world. Ruby is a reluctant heroine, strong yet vulnerable in equal measure, who will endear herself to readers.”
—Kirkus Reviews
“[A] gritty, economically devastated near-future America where children are hunted and feared, and danger lurks even in the aisles of an abandoned Wal-Mart…the story’s quick-paced action leads to a heartbreaking cliffhanger that will have readers eager for the next book in this planned trilogy.”
—Publishers Weekly
“Heart-wrenching but completely riveting, the novel pulls no punches….Fans of the darker elements of Collins’ The Hunger Games and Shusterman’s Unwind will want to pick up this inventive new take on the science fiction survival story.”
—BCCB
“A new twist on dystopia, this is one not to miss.”
—Romantic Times
“A riveting, emotional read that kept me on the edge!”
—New York Times best-selling author Melissa Marr
“Ruby is a wonderfully flawed heroine: fiercely loyal to the ones she loves and refreshingly conflicted about the enormous power she possesses….After reading the first two books, readers will be left clamoring for the third.”
—Kirkus Reviews
“Tense, emotional, and brutal….It’s safe to say fans will appreciate the well-thought-out conclusion.”
—Booklist Online
ALEXANDRA BRACKEN is the New York Times best-selling author of the Darkest Minds and Passenger series. Born and raised in Arizona, she moved east to study history and English at the College of William & Mary in Virginia. You can find Alex hard at work on her next novel in a charming little apartment that’s perpetually overflowing with books. Visit her online at www.alexandrabracken.com and on Twitter (@alexbracken).