Priyanka cast an anxious look my way.
“I know,” I told her. “But if they’re not here, then we’ll search the next one, and the one after that.”
“He’s going to move them,” she whispered. “Once we hit this headquarters, he’ll know. If they’re even still…”
She didn’t finish her sentence. Alive.
We had slowly worked our way through Mercer’s known warehouses and facilities, searching for any sign of Roman and Lana. Mercer wasn’t traveling with Lana now, which gave me hope that she and her brother were still together. In all the times Max had tried to go fishing for their exact location, he’d only seen darkness.
“They are,” I told her. “They’re alive, and we’re going to find them. But we’re also going to get these kids out of here, no matter what.”
She straightened. There wasn’t a flicker of doubt on her face, not one, as she said, “You’re damn right we are, and that’ll be enough.”
We’ll be enough.
The interior of the warehouse was exactly as Priyanka and Max had described it: a single hallway of rooms and Mercer’s office, which was currently locked. We’d waited, sending Max fishing for Mercer, too, every day for the last week and a half, until it was clear he’d left Blue Star’s primary headquarters here for a trip to meet up with Moore and his people.
Priyanka had wanted him here; she’d wanted to burn the building down and force him to watch, bound and gagged, in the back of a car heading for the nearest UN checkpoint. But I think we both knew that would never be enough; someone would rise to fill the void he’d left behind and assume control of his interests. If we wanted Mercer out of the game, we needed to raze the foundation of his business and uproot all the criminal dealings he kept so carefully hidden.
We were here to save the children he’d stolen, but we were also here to recover files and records of his business dealings and associates. And if what evidence we found wasn’t enough for the law, we’d subject him to our own.
Priyanka gripped the lock on his office door. Before she stepped inside, she caught my arm. “Come together, leave together?”
“Come together, leave together,” I promised. “Lisa, Jen—you’re with Priya.”
The two girls peeled off. I waved the rest of the group forward to search the other rooms for the kids. “Head back to Jacob when you finish!”
I got a round of acknowledgments from them as I ran on, rounding the corner of the hall. According to Priyanka, Mercer—the paranoid bastard—traveled with a massive security force at all times. I felt the lack of them now, as I easily took care of the one lone man who tried firing on me from behind the shelter of a nearby doorway. There was a phone on him, but not for long. His screams echoed down to me as I finally found the set of doors I’d been looking for.
The room stopped the breath in my lungs. There were hulking machines in every corner, vibrating with power, even as they idled. A small metal operating table stood directly in front of me, and, behind it, there was a hospital bed and a little black-haired girl resting on it, unmoving. Her skin was a waxy white, as if the blood had drained from her.
For a moment, I wasn’t seeing the little girl there at all. I was seeing Priyanka. Roman.
I clenched my jaw as rage spilled up through me. The monitors and devices on either side of the bed displayed her steady vitals, but I ignored them, focusing instead on the dark-skinned man in the lab coat. His back was to me as he carefully adjusted the girl’s IV drip.
At the sound of my boot squeaking against the tile, he froze.
“Step away from the girl,” I told him, keeping my gun trained on him. “And put your hands up.”
“We found the kids,” Vida said over the comm. Underscoring her voice was the sound of clattering and a scuffle. “But Roman and Lana aren’t here.”
My side crimped with a sharp pain. I released a hard breath, trying to let that bit of hope go.
“I could use a little more help,” Vida said. “Some of the kids are not coming quietly.”
“I’ll be right there,” Priyanka told her. A few others chimed in, but the voices faded under the sound of the machines whirring.
“John Wendall?” I confirmed, an ugly pulse of hate moving through my heart.
He nodded. I saw Max in that face, under the heavy wrinkles and strain.
“You’re so damn lucky I promised your son I wouldn’t kill you,” I told him, my voice shaking. That little girl…if he’d hurt her…
“Max?” he whispered. “My Max? He’s here?”
“Outside,” I told him. “You can come willingly, or I can drag you, but either way you’re going to spend the rest of your life making up for what you did here.”
His Adam’s apple bobbed as he swallowed. “Willingly. The other children—”
“We already have them.” I glanced toward the girl. “Can she be transported?”
Max’s father nodded, moving to unhook the machines. The girl didn’t stir, sighing deeply in her sleep as he began to reach for her.
“Don’t touch her,” I said.
“We’re out, Zu,” Vida said.
“I’m coming back your way, are you still—?”
The door swung open behind us.
Dr. Wendall’s face changed again, almost brightening. “Priya.”
The feeling was not mutual.
“That’s right,” she snarled. “Came back to personally drag you to hell.”
Knowing she had a weapon on her, I holstered mine and picked up the young girl. Her cheek fell against my shoulder and, instinctively, she wrapped her arms around my neck.
“March, demon,” Priyanka told him. “Faster. Or do you need a cloud of sulfur to ride out of here?”
“There’s no need for hostility—” Dr. Wendall began.
She pushed him forward, keeping her gun against his back. “Oh, there is every need.”
We went out the same way we’d come in. Jacob had hung back, waiting for us, but now he took the weight of the girl off my hands and hurried up to the small freight truck that screeched to a stop on the street in front of us.
Priyanka put a hand on my shoulder, unable to hide her disappointment.
“We’ll go to the next one,” I told her. “And the next one…and the next…however long it takes to find them.”
She drew in a deep breath and nodded.
I had wanted Roman to be here so badly, but this was enough. Knowing these kids were safe and would never again fall into Mercer’s or the government’s hands, knowing that they would never see the inside of another lab…It was enough for me.
Vida jumped down from the cab, leaving Max up in the driver’s seat. With the interior light on, I had a clear line of sight to Max’s tense face as Priyanka walked his father past him, toward the cab of the truck. The gate rolled shut, cutting off the sound of the kids’ nervous chatter.
Vida glanced at the small girl as she lifted her head off Jacob’s shoulder.
“She’s the last one,” I told her.
“Did you…?” the little girl began, her voice barely a murmur.
Jacob’s feet slowed. “What was that? Do you need something?”
“The girl…with the flower,” she breathed out, fighting to open her eyes.
Priyanka’s gaze sharpened on her. “What girl, love?”
The long silence that followed was almost agonizing. My chest was too tight to take in more than a small breath.
“In the office,” she whispered. “In the dark.”
Priyanka and I turned to each other, and I saw my own hope reflected on her face.
“We checked the office,” Vida said, pulling her mask up over her face.
“We went into the office, but we didn’t search it,” I said, the words tearing out of me. “You go ahead with the kids. We’ll check it out and catch up with you later.”
Vida raised a brow, but she didn’t look surprised. “Don’t forget to send Chubs the all-clear.”
“I won’t,�
�� I said. “Drive safe.”
“I prefer to drive like a motherfucker,” she said with a wink.
The kids would be safe at the new Haven they’d established until we sorted out if there might be families looking for them. I worried about doubling the number of kids there in one night, but at least with Harry and his mom still there, Liam’s hands wouldn’t be quite so full.
I followed after Priyanka as she ran back into the building, her feet sliding through the loose rubble on the ground. I followed a step behind her, desperate to keep up as we raced down the hallway, back to Mercer’s office.
She kicked the door open, fumbling with the flashlight. The remains of servers and his computer were scattered across the floor, and his shelves had been overturned in the search for hidden files or flash drives.
Priyanka felt along the walls frantically, searching for some kind of gap or hidden door. I stood still, feeling my heart hammer all through my body as I released that silver thread from my mind.
It found our comms, two blips of power compared to the electricity moving through the nearby buildings and streetlamps.
I forced myself to take a deep breath, hands curling into fists at my sides.
And there, like the soft brush of a finger against my cheek, was a ripple of power. Weak, but there. Hidden.
I surged forward toward the desk. “Help me!”
Priyanka’s breath was labored as she helped me shove Mercer’s imposing metal-and-wood desk toward the wall. Our hands ripped at the rug, tossing it back to reveal an armored door and electronic lock.
“Holy shit,” Priyanka breathed out.
I gripped the lock, but she was faster, her mind hacking the combination. The numbers appeared on its small digital screen one by one, ticking my pulse up with each new one that appeared.
With a last electronic beep, the lock clicked, releasing. Together, we hauled up the door, letting it crash down against the floor.
Lana’s pale face stared up at us. She shielded her eyes against the flashlight’s beam. Priyanka sucked in a sharp breath, her expression moving through shock and relief and fear. By the way her throat was working and her eyes were glimmering, it didn’t seem like she could speak.
“Where is he?” I asked, instead.
“Here,” Lana croaked out. One of her hands was on the ladder built into the hidden room’s wall; the other gestured to a part of it we couldn’t see. “Hurt.”
Priyanka flattened onto her stomach, casting the flashlight’s beam into the room, and in the direction Lana had pointed. A figure was curled up on his side, his bruised and bloodied back to us.
Lana stepped out of the way as I jumped down, followed closely by Priyanka. “What happened?” I asked her as I knelt beside him. “Roman? Roman, can you hear me?”
“Hurt,” Lana said, backing into the corner. She turned her face away from us, but even in the dim light I could see her hands shaking. Priyanka looked torn between going to her and staying where she was, kneeling by Roman’s side.
I turned to truly take in what they’d been subjected to and immediately wished I hadn’t. The half-rotten food and crude buckets explained the horrible smell that permeated the lightless space. It was boiling hot down here, and they had nothing in the way of bedding or water.
“Roman?” Priyanka said, giving him a hard shake. “Ro, can you hear me?”
We turned him onto his back, but with his face so bruised and swollen he was almost unrecognizable. My body was gripped with horror at the sight of it.
Alive, I reminded myself. He’s alive.
“Didn’t want to…I didn’t want to leave him,” Lana mumbled. “He hurt him. He said he wouldn’t. He said…it was…”
“Are you all right?” I asked her.
Lana couldn’t stand to look at us. She turned and faced the corner, and began to cry.
“Roman!” Priyanka was practically shouting now. She cast a helpless look my way. “We’re going to have to carry him out—”
I put a hand on her arm, stilling her. “Wait. Let me try something.”
I only needed the smallest thread of power, just one shock to bring him back to consciousness. I pulled the comm out of my ear, clenching it in one hand and pressing my other palm against his chest.
“What are you doing—?”
The power pushed through him, rippling out through his body. One heartbeat he was still, and the next—
Roman gasped, his upper body rising off the ground as his eyes opened wide. His hand gripped mine as he took another unsteady, sharp breath, his gaze bewildered.
“Easy, easy,” Priyanka told him, her voice breaking. “It’s all right, it’s just us. We’re going to get you out of here.”
Roman’s eyes landed on me, and even battered and swollen, I could see the amazement there, the wondering disbelief as he tried to catch his breath. I leaned down, pressing my forehead to his.
“You’re okay,” I breathed out. “You’re okay. But we have to go. We have to go now.”
He shifted his hand, moving it to his right shoulder. His throat bobbed with the unspoken word. Okay.
Somehow, Priyanka and I managed to get him propped up enough to half drag, half carry him over to the ladder. Before he would take hold of the closest rung, he turned back to Lana, reaching out for her.
“Come on,” he rasped out.
Lana shrank back—but this time, it wasn’t in defiance. It was in shame.
“You can stay here,” Priyanka told her, her voice steady. “Or you can come with us. It’s your choice. It’s—” She cut herself off with a shake of her head, then repeated, “It’s your choice.”
After the last few weeks spent trapped in a cycle of hope and fear, I knew what those words must have cost her. But Priyanka was right. Lana needed to choose. If they forced her to come with us now, it would only deepen the confusion and resentment Mercer had planted in her.
“Please,” Roman whispered.
“The kids…” Lana began.
“They’re safe,” I told her. “They’re already out.”
This time she looked to Priyanka and held out her hand. As their fingers brushed, she began to tremble, but, finally, she nodded. Priyanka held on to her and didn’t let go, not even as they climbed up the ladder after Roman and me.
After helping him to his feet, I looped his arm over my shoulder and absorbed as much of his weight as I could. Priyanka led Lana forward into the smoke still lingering in the hallway. Roman’s grip on me tightened as the headquarters’ collapsed wall came into view, revealing the dark street beyond it.
Every muscle in his body seemed to vibrate with the longing and need to escape this place. I helped him navigate through the remains of the bunk beds and cinder blocks and steadied him as we stepped out onto the street. My reward was feeling his chest expand with a long, deep breath.
We rounded the corner at a limping gait, but his steps seemed to be growing steadier, and quicker, the farther we moved away from that place and the memory of what had happened there.
I slowed us only long enough to reach into my jacket pocket for the burner phone, and hit SEND on the message I’d composed before we’d stormed the complex.
ALL CLEAR. RELEASE THE PACKAGE.
We’d bundled all the records and photos we’d found on Ruby’s flash drive, along with all the other footage we’d collected. I’d sat in front of another camera and stared into its dark eye, explaining everything Mercer and Moore and all of their associates had done in killing innocents and selling children. Chubs and Vida still thought there was a way forward inside the system, but I knew, as soon as I said those first words, I was burning my only bridge back.
My name is Suzume Kimura, and I’m the leader of the Psion Ring. But everything else you’ve heard about me is a lie.
Chubs had a list of contacts in the government and media that could fill miles of open road, and all of them were about to receive the footage. The only question for me was who would care enough to try to do something
about it.
But instead of confirming receipt, Chubs sent something else. A photo of a frail figure with a shaved head, wrapped in blankets and sitting up in bed. Her face was turned away from the phone’s camera as she looked out the window, the smallest hint of a smile on her face. To anyone who had seen her photo in the papers or on the news, she would have been unrecognizable. But not to me.
Ruby.
“You ready for this?” Priyanka asked as we caught up to her and Lana.
I looked into the darkness ahead, sparks gathering in my heart. “Beyond.”
Then we were running, shadows racing the night.
WHEN I FINISHED IN THE Afterlight, I knew there was a chance I’d want to return to the world of the Darkest Minds one day—it was only a matter of finding the right story, and the right character to tell it. In the years between then and now, I’ve been lucky enough to travel and meet so many new people. Every now and then, I’d think of the cast of characters and wonder what they were up to, and what adventures they’d gone on in the meantime. When an idea finally clicked into place, and I sat down to write the opening chapters of what would become The Darkest Legacy, it felt like coming home and reuniting with friends.
First, I have to thank you, wonderful reader. Whether you’re new to the series, or returning to it after years away, it’s a joy and a privilege to tell you stories. To the readers who stuck with this series from the beginning, you helped to keep these characters alive in my heart and mind. I would never have been able to write this book without your incredible support, and I hope I’ve delivered a story that brought you both joy and plot twists aplenty. If there’s one message I wanted to convey with this book, it’s that there’s power in our voices: never be afraid to use them to ask for what you deserve, and to fight for the rights of others and what you believe in.
The Darkest Legacy would still be an idea floating around my brain if not for my incredible publisher, Hyperion. It still amazes me that we’ve been publishing books together now for seven years! (Where has the time gone?!) Thanks, as always, go to Emily Meehan and Hannah Allaman, who not only helped me shape this book into something special, but also kept us on track during some truly crazy deadlines. You guys are magnificent captains of this ship! To Seale Ballenger—you are one of the best souls in this world, and the kindness you’ve shown me over the years has made such a difference in my life. And Marci Senders? You retain your title as Cover Queen! Thanks for designing a cover that truly lets Zu shine.
The Darkest Legacy Page 48
