Never Fade

by Alexandra Bracken

  The League had backdoor access to both the PSF and skip-tracer databases of kids, but neither of Liam’s profiles looked like they had been updated in ages. I knew—I checked twice a week. No wonder it looked like it hadn’t been updated the last time I looked.

  “How did you know to go to his house?” I asked. The timing couldn’t have been a coincidence.

  “I figured it had to be something to do with the protocol Harry set up to help them find each other—based on the sightings, I thought maybe the two of you were coming down to his old house to check to see if his stepdad set up the procedure.”

  “Which was what?”

  “When Cole and Liam left to join the League, Harry told them that if he and their mom felt like they needed to get out, he’d leave coordinates under the windowsill of Liam’s old bedroom.”

  “And you have the coordinates?” I asked.

  “No,” he said, “there was nothing there.”

  “That must be why he went to find Cole in Philadelphia—to see if he knew anything.”

  Chubs rubbed a knuckle over his lips, nodding. “That’s what I’m thinking, too. It doesn’t help us, though, if Cole had no idea, either.”

  “I know,” I said. “Running blind, just like old times.”

  Chubs sighed, and I swayed toward him, resting my forehead against his upper arm.

  “We’ll watch the skip-tracer network, see if there are any other sightings.” Chubs shifted, hiking the cans up against his chest. “He’s screwed up a few times in the past. Chances are, he’ll do it again.”

  It was a terrifying thought. We might pick up hints of him here and there, but chances were, we’d be too far away to swoop in and help if he were captured. He had a big enough head start on us that he could put some real distance behind him. And it was overwhelming to know that; suddenly, everything seemed so much harder and more impossible than only a few minutes before. It all felt so pointless.

  “I’m so tired of this,” I told him. “I know I don’t have any right to be; I know I did this to us, to myself, but I don’t want to fight anymore. I’m so tired of everything, of all of this, and knowing it’s never going to get any better—that nothing I do will ever make anything better. I’m so sick of it all.”

  Chubs shifted the cans in his arms, ducking down to get a closer look at my face. I wasn’t crying, but my throat ached and my head was pounding.

  “No, what you are is exhausted,” he said. “Depression, anxiety, difficulty focusing—you’re a classic case. Come on, you’ll feel better after you get food and some sleep.”

  “That won’t solve anything, either.”

  “I know,” he said, “but it’s a start.”

  I learned a long time ago that it was possible to be so far past the point of exhaustion that sleep no longer felt like an option. My stomach ached with the need for it, and my head felt heavy, but I could feel myself waiting for something, muscles tense and brain unable to settle. It was like no matter how hard I fought to focus on the point of the tent’s roof, to count off sheep, my mind kept drifting back to the night we had spent in the abandoned Walmart. To the kids we had been so convinced were going to screw us over in the worst way.

  I must have nodded off at some point, because the next thing I knew, I was startled awake by a cold blast of air. Vida was at the opening of the tent, unzipping it slowly and as quietly as she could and stepping through. My head was slow to come up out of the fog of sleep, but I was alert enough to be suspicious, no matter how much I wanted to drift back into dreamland.

  I counted to thirty, to sixty. I listened as her footsteps grew softer. Watched, waiting for her to come back.

  She didn’t.

  What are you up to? I thought, crawling over Chubs’s long legs to the tent’s opening. If she had needed to get a breath of fresh air or relieve herself, she would have been back by now.

  Despite the crippling dark, I spotted her right away. She was shivering, rubbing her arms to try to shake off the night’s icy grip. I saw her glance back toward the tent once, and pulled back, hoping the moon wasn’t bright enough for her to make out my shape behind the tent’s thin waterproof covering.

  Vida slinked her way around Chubs’s tan Ford Explorer, circling it twice before coming to stop by the driver’s side.

  Sucks to be you, I thought, feeling a little smugger than was probably necessary. I had reminded Chubs to lock it, and with the gun inside the glove box, she’d have to find a rock or something heavy enough to break the glass if she wanted in—something that would be difficult to manage quietly.

  If it hadn’t been for her bright hair, I would have lost her in the darkness as she headed off the trail into the forest. I stood and slipped out, tracing her steps around the car, trying to see how far she’d go. My toes were frozen stiff, sticking to the frost of the clumps of wild grass and mud. Vida kept walking, and I kept inching forward, more and more, until she was far enough for her hair to disappear into the night-cloaked trees completely—but not far enough to hide the blue-white glow of the device in her hands that cut through the darkness.

  ELEVEN

  WAIT FOR HER TO COME BACK, my mind reasoned. Surprise her here.

  But I was running, even before the thought had fully formed in my mind. All of the training the League had tried to drill into me, all of my better judgment, all logic was ripped away with the first flash of that strange light. If she were contacting Cole, why would she have to hide it from us? Why would she need to send a message to him in private?

  Because she’s not contacting Cole.

  I slid around the car. The coming winter had stripped the nearby trees bare; the naked branches snapped against my face and arms. The fine patches of ice and frost coating the clumps of grass stung my feet like hell, but it was nothing compared to fighting my way through the thickets of dead brush.

  It didn’t matter how much noise I was making. I wasn’t aiming for surprise; it was impossible to get the jump on Vida. I just wanted as much momentum as humanly possible when I tackled her to the ground.

  She was still clutching the device when I lowered my head and rammed my shoulder into her. Vida had enough time to try to swing a knee up, square into my chest. With my full weight on her, and only one foot planted on the uneven hill, we slammed into the ground.

  I hooked my leg around hers, and she reached up to get a good grip on my neck, and neither of us was willing to let go, even as we rolled down the slope, smashing through underbrush and nailing what was very likely every single rock on the damn mountain. We didn’t stop, we couldn’t, not until we crashed into a tree and sent a shower of dead brown leaves down over us.

  My vision swam both from the spinning and the blows, but I was on top—I had the advantage, and I took it. A warm burst of Vida’s breath clouded the air. I had my legs locked around her center, trying to keep her in place as I started to reach for the black device lying beside her neck.

  Never in my life had I seen terror like that in Vida’s eyes.

  She reared up under me, freeing her arm from where it was pinned beneath her, and slapped me hard enough that, for a second, my vision blanked white. With a grunt, she swung her open palm again, clubbing me in the ear and effectively knocking me off her.

  Vida jumped to her feet and I staggered up after her. My sight split in two, and I wasn’t sure which one of her feet was actually flying toward my stomach until it made contact. I threw my arms up in front of my face to block the next one.

  “How could you—?” I gasped out.

  My fingers caught her wrist, but she ripped it free. I swung my fist toward her again and watched, stunned, as she went flying back through the air a good two dozen feet before I could even touch her.

  “—op! Stop!”

  I panted hard and was only able to keep on my feet for one more second. I sagged sideways into the rough embrace of a tree and slid all the way down onto my knees. The words were faint under the roar of blood pulsing in my ears. I turned, watching as J
ude stumbled down the slope, tripping through the dense cluster of branches and soggy leaves until he dropped to his knees at Vida’s side.

  Chubs stood a short distance away, his arms still outstretched in the direction he had thrown her. “What,” he called, “the hell is going on?”

  “S-She—” I sputtered, bringing a shaking hand to swipe at my mouth. He marched toward me, flicking his flashlight in my direction. “She had—device—calling—DC—”

  When he finally reached me, he grabbed my arm. I squirmed away from the intense light he was trying to shine directly into my face. I lurched away from him, the ground rising up to meet me. “Do you see it?” I heard myself asking. “Do you see it? Give me—give me the light.”

  “—ask her!” Vida was shouting. “She attacked me!”

  Chubs dutifully aimed the flashlight where I pointed. “You need to sit down. Hey! Are you even listening to me?”

  I patted around the dirt, fingers groping through the mulch, rocks, and roots. I knew the moment I had found it; the black shell was unnaturally smooth and still warm to the touch. During the fight, the screen had flipped down to the ground, stifling the glow.

  “What is that?” Chubs crouched down next to me. “A phone?”

  Close, but not quite.

  “A Chatter?” came Jude’s startled voice. “Where did you get that?”

  He was standing behind us, supporting a swaying Vida. No—he wasn’t supporting her. He had one arm across her chest to keep her from going at my throat.

  Dumb, brave kid, I thought for the thousandth time. I turned my eyes back down on the screen and flicked it on.

  I had interrupted her in the middle of typing a message. Good. I brought the screen up close to my eyes, squinting at the series of nonsense numbers and letters. The little black line was still blinking, waiting for her to finish up.

  I HAVE THEM // PHASE TWO INSTRLWJERL:KS SLKJDFJ

  “You bitch,” I said, looking up. “You really thought you could play us? Turn us back over to the League? What did Alban promise you—that you could take over as team leader?”

  I was half blind with rage, too angry to let her answer. I stood, throwing the device on the ground. Vida and Jude both took generous steps back. My brain was humming with need, with nothing more than the desire to pry into hers and leave it mangled and ruined. My anger added a boost to their strength and I thought, I really did, if I let them loose, the invisible hands would take her this time without me needing to grab her. I turned, ready to let them fly.

  Instead, I felt a hand close over my wrist and pull me back. Chubs was on his feet now, too, his eyes fixed on the screen. I heard him click a button, and then the Chatter was hovering in front of my face, and I was reading an old, received message.

  HEAD SOUTH ON 40 // ADDRESS AS DISCUSSED // EXPLAIN UPDATED OP IMMEDIATELY UPON CONTACT // TELL HER I AM SORRY

  “Tell her I’m sorry?” I turned back toward Vida, who had turned away, her face a stone mask. “Who is this? Cole?”

  Vida’s swollen lip slurred her speech, and when she spoke, it was so quiet I had to strain to hear her. Her reluctance proved the blossoming theory in my mind—after all, there was only one person she protected like this.

  “No,” she said, “it’s Cate.”

  I was ready to have it all out there, but Chubs insisted that we return to the camp and rebuild the fire with a sharp “I prefer to not take my bad news in the freezing dead of night, thank you very much.”

  He steered me toward one end of the smothered fire and headed for his car. I was distantly aware of the beep of the car unlocking and the door slamming shut. When he sat back down next to me, Chubs started in on cleaning the cuts on my face and arms with a total lack of sympathy.

  “Someone better start talking now,” he said, “because, trust me, you don’t want to hear what I have to say about all this. Especially at one o’clock in the morning.”

  Vida sniffed, drawing her knees up to her chest. The right half of her face was cast entirely in darkness. Or covered in an enormous bruise.

  I held up the Chatter to the dim firelight, turning it back and forth. “Who gave you this? Nico?”

  She waited so long to answer I thought for sure she wouldn’t. All I got was a shrug. Her nails were clawing into the dirt, dragging clumps of it up into her clenched fists.

  “So he and Cate are in on this, too?” I demanded. “Who else?”

  Vida crossed her arms over her chest and stared out into the dark distance.

  “Why keep this from us?” Jude asked. “Did she ask you to? It doesn’t make any sense, and it really doesn’t make sense that you still won’t talk about it. You got caught, and now the Op has been compromised. And what are you supposed to do when that happens?”

  Accept, adapt, and act. Quickly. The words had been scrawled onto one of the walls in the training room. They might as well have been tattooed directly onto our brains.

  “Fine,” she said, circling her shoulders back as if to ease the tension there. She’s angry, I realized. Vida was furious—with herself. The perfect little soldier had blown her own Op, the special one Cate had entrusted her with. She was breathing hard, sucking air up between her clenched teeth. Cate was the single most important person in her life, maybe the only one who really mattered to her. I had an idea of why she had withheld that information, but I wanted to hear her admit it.

  “Cate and Cole planned this whole thing, pretty much from the second we brought his ass back to HQ,” Vida said. “They go back. She took him under her wing when he first joined, helped train him. He told her the truth about your dumbass Prince Charming and the flash drive, and you were the solution they came up with. For whatever reason, Cate stupidly trusts you to handle shit.”

  “Why have Cole give me the story, then?”

  “They’re watching her. Rob and the others. She knew what he was like, or at least figured it out a few months ago, but she was trying to stay close to his creepy ass to make sure he didn’t come after us. She couldn’t go to Alban or any of the advisers, because she was afraid she’d be reassigned from us if they saw her as being ‘difficult.’ Nico showed Cole, Cate, and me the video of Blake being offed and she just about went ballistic.”

  “When was this?”

  “Just after you left HQ.” Vida tucked a strand of hair behind her ear, glancing over at me. “Nico said you told him not to, but something you said to Cole made him push the issue. They’re sitting on the video until we bring the intel back.”

  Of course—because keeping the Children’s League together was the top priority here. Not protecting kids. Not cutting off the psychopaths.

  “Let me see if I understand this,” Chubs began. “Cate was in on everything from the beginning, but she kept silent on it? Was that to act as some kind of fail-safe?”

  “Not bad, Grannie,” Vida said. “Cole said Cate’s role had to stay a secret, even from you. If you dipshits got caught and were brought in for questioning, he didn’t want you to be able to implicate her—if he took the fall, at least Cate would still be around to be on our side. She hated it, but I told her she had to agree, otherwise I wasn’t going to help you. She didn’t say yes until she realized there was no way to get Jude removed from the mission without it making people suspicious. Rob requested him personally.”

  Jude looked like he was a breath away from throwing up all over himself. The firelight drew out the flush of panic in his cheeks.

  Vida threw a truly pitying look his way. “Cate said he ran after you called him out. Went totally off the fucking grid before Barton could bring him in for questioning.”

  “So he won’t be there when we get back,” Jude said, sighing in relief.

  No, but it meant that I had released a furious monster out into the world to rip it apart and remake to his own liking.

  “That’s everything I know,” Vida said. “The end. But I’m telling you now, if either of you breathe a word—one goddamn word—about Cate, I will come down on y
ou so hard, they’ll be naming hurricanes after me for a fucking century.”

  I opened my mouth to fire back at her but thought better of it in the end. For as long as I’d known Vida, I’d felt a sharp sense of pity over her obvious worship of Cate. I thought I’d been given a glimpse of the real Cate that lived below the pristine exterior. But now it was becoming harder and harder to believe that either one of us was completely right about who she was. To me, her belief in the League had always seemed naive—I really thought she blinded herself to everything going on around her to stay in that happy world that existed only in her mind. Maybe Jude really was right, and the League of today didn’t remotely resemble the one she had willingly joined years ago.

  Then why did she only give herself up to me in pieces? And why had it taken me so long to put them together into a somewhat complete picture?

  “You’ve been communicating directly with Cate, I suppose?” Chubs took the Chatter out of my limp hand and turned it over. “She’s been guiding you along?”

  “Yeah,” Vida said. “She sent me the routes to get down here. Too bad she couldn’t just load his ass into Google Maps. Not even Nico has been able to track him.”

  The screen between Chubs’s fingers flashed to life and let out a low, vibrating growl. The light it emitted was bright enough that we could all watch as his eyebrows rose steadily up past his glasses’ frames to his hairline.

  “Well, maybe she can’t send exact coordinates,” he said, flipping it around, “but she has an idea of where we could start.”

  TWELVE

  TARGET SIGHTED OUTSIDE NASHVILLE // HOSTILE BLUE TRIBE IN NEARBY AREA // APPROACH WITH CAUTION