“For what?” Ellie asked.
“For us.”
After we ate the bread and tasteless soup they served in the Mess Hall for dinner, we made our way back to the cabin again, a Red shadowing our every step, arms swinging at his side. They’d shaved his hair down to dark fuzz beneath his uniform cap, let his tan skin go sallow. There was nothing in his eyes, not a trace of emotion in his face. During dinner, I’d had to look away to keep my heart steady and caught Sam doing the same. He’d stopped behind her at one point. She’d dropped her spoon into her bowl and stopped pretending she wanted to eat. But afterwards, I saw her look at his back, eyes devouring his shape…and I wondered.
Up until that moment, I had managed to clear my thoughts of what was happening to the others. What they were doing. If they were safe. Whether or not they were actually coming. I couldn’t let it distract me from what needed to happen here. Just thinking of Liam out there alone, trying to find his parents to tell them what had happened…
As we walked, I shifted my thoughts to sweet, small memories instead. Laughter at dinner. Firelight on Zu’s smiling face. Jude falling over himself and Nico when one of their handmade toy cars worked. The way Pat and Tommy had worshipped the ground Vida walked on. Seeing Chubs in North Carolina for the first time in months, and knowing he was alive. Cole’s easy smile as he reached over and smoothed down my hair. Liam. Liam in the driver’s seat, singing along. Liam kissing me in the dark.
I am going to walk out of here.
I am going to live.
Sam was tracking me now out of the corner of her eye; the skin tightened around her lips, pulling their corners down. There was still a hooked scar, a faint pink line curving to connect the chapped upper lip to her nose; but that, like the rest of her, had faded. And when I turned to meet her gaze, she only looked away.
I knew Sam, though. A year apart, three years since I’d blanked out every memory she had of me, and I still could read her face like it was my old, favorite book. She got braver as time went on, less uncertain about my presence. The thoughts were working behind her light-colored eyes, and she watched me from the moment the morning alarm went off at 5:00 A.M., through the entire ten minutes we were allotted to eat oatmeal in the Mess Hall, and then next to me, as we made our way through the damp, freezing morning air to begin the day’s work.
I’d noticed her slight limp the night before as we moved to and from the Mess Hall, but her right leg was clearly stiffer that morning, and the movement was more pronounced.
“What happened?” I whispered, watching her catch herself on the edge of her bunk. The moment she slid over the side of her bed and down to the ground, her ankle collapsed under her. I leaned over to help her make up her bed, since no one had bothered to give me sheets to use on mine, and tried to see what had caused it.
In their typical casual cruelty, the PSF in the Infirmary had given me a summer uniform set, shorts and a shirt, but the others wore their winter ones—long-sleeved shirts and pants. The loose fabric hid whatever was it was that was bothering her.
“Snake bite,” Vanessa answered as Sam pushed past me to line up. “Don’t ask. She won’t talk about it.”
The Garden was all the way at the far end of the camp, opposite the entry gate. The electrified fence sang to you when you got this close to it; when I was younger, I used to imagine that the hum came from families of bugs that lived in the trees surrounding us. I don’t know why that made it feel more bearable.
Our Red escort was the same boy we’d had the night before: hair shaved, eyes dark and almond-shaped. Beside me Sam cringed, her hands balled up tight at her sides, and limped along.
They took the life out of them, I thought, stepping through the low white fence and taking the small plastic shovel that was handed to me. I knew so little about how they had been—what had Clancy called it? Reprogrammed? Reconditioned? Mason had been shattered by what they’d done to his mind. Maybe they’d made a mistake with him, or he hadn’t been strong enough to take what they’d dealt him.
How many Reds were involved in Project Jamboree? Was it possible that—no. Stop it, I ordered myself, think about anything else but that.
A PSF was passing out heavy work coats, which they allowed us to have while we were out here. He looked down at the number across my chest and skipped me completely. The ten-year-old me would have accepted the punishment, mind fixed on the cruel smile the soldier offered in exchange instead. But I didn’t have to accept anything now. His mind was like glass, and all I had to do was pass through it like a ray of light. I shuffled back, taking the coat from him.
I followed my line down to the mounds of earth they’d turned up yesterday and knelt down. The dirt gave way under the softest touch, packing beneath my nails as I used the shovel to ease the buried potatoes up from the ground. I brushed the dark dirt away.
The shade of burnt skin.
I pressed the back of my hand against my mouth, instinctively looking up at the three red vests standing near the entrance. They stoically watched as each cabin of kids filed in and accepted their assignments.
Are they the same Reds?
My fingers flexed, tightening around the shovel. I glanced sideways, to my right. Sam was only miming work, smoothing dirt away. Still, after all this time, they forced us into alphabetical order.
“How long have they been here?” I asked in a low voice. “The Reds?”
At first, I wasn’t sure she’d heard me. I pulled the next potato up and dropped into the plastic tub between us.
“Three months, maybe,” was the reply, just as quiet. “I’m not sure.”
I sagged slightly, blowing out a soft sigh. They weren’t Sawtooth Reds. But that meant more camps, more reconditioning facilities.
“Don’t you…don’t you recognize some of them?” Sam whispered, leaning over as if to help me. “A few of them used to be here.”
I couldn’t risk another glance back to confirm this; I’m not sure I would have been able to, anyway. The Reds at Thurmond had always lived in my memory with shadowed faces. All of the dangerous ones did. But I knew for certain that I didn’t recognize the Red that Sam kept searching for; every time she found him, she shuddered and oriented herself away from his gaze. But, like clockwork, she’d look up at him again.
“Do you know him?” I whispered.
She hesitated so long, I didn’t think she would answer. But finally she nodded.
“From before? Before-before?”
Sam swallowed hard, then nodded again.
Sympathy swept through me, leaving me at a loss for what to say. I couldn’t imagine. I couldn’t begin to imagine what this felt like.
A PSF passed behind us, whistling without a tune, making his way up the rows between each patch of vegetation. The Garden was enormous, at least half a mile long, and required the most supervision. The handheld White Noise machine clattered against his supply belt, swaying in time to his slow steps.
I risked another glance up, realizing why my skin had crawled the moment he came into sight. This was one of the PSFs who oversaw work in the Factory—the one who liked to press himself up against the girls, hassle them to get them flustered, and then punish them for reacting in any small way. It hadn’t made sense then what he was doing to me, to Sam, to the other girls, and we’d just stood there and taken it silently. Now, though—now I had a pretty good sense of what he’d really been doing, and it lit my fury. He strolled by us and Sam stiffened. I wondered if she could smell him, too—a salty, sharp tang of vinegar, mixed with cigarette smoke and aftershave.
I didn’t relax until he was a good ten girls away from us.
“Ruby,” Sam whispered, earning admonishing glances from the girls working the row across from us. “Something happened…after you left, I realized something was wrong. With me. My head.”
My sight narrowed to the hole in front of me. “Nothing’s wrong with you.”
“I missed you,” she said. “So much. But I barely know you…and then I
get these senses, these images. They come like dreams.”
I shook my head, fighting to keep my pulse steady. Don’t you dare. You can’t. If anyone catches on…if she slips up…
“You’re different,” Sam finished. “Aren’t you? You’ve always been—”
Sam was ripped away, hauled back and away from my side. I whirled around. The PSF from before was back, his hand knotted in Sam’s long ponytail.
“You know the rules,” he snarled. “We work silently or we don’t work at all.”
For the first time, I saw what this past year had done to my friend. The old Sam, the one who had stood up for me countless times, would have spat back an insult, or tried to twist out of his grasp. Struggled, in some small way.
Now her dirt-stained hands went up to protect herself, without a beat of hesitation. A practiced movement. Her whole body sagged as he shoved her forward, sending her sprawling into the mud. Fury whipped through me. And then it wasn’t enough for me that I would kill this man, eventually. I wanted to humiliate him.
I pushed a single image into his mind, an urge that was easy enough to suggest.
The front of his black camo pants darkened, the stain spreading down his leg. I jumped back in overblown disgust, catching the attention of another PSF just across the row of vegetation. He came back to himself with a shudder—and with slow, dawning horror, looked down.
“Shit—shit—”
“Tildon,” the PSF who’d been watching called out. “Status?”
“Shit—” The man’s face burned pink as he covered himself, seemingly torn between staying as he was or excusing himself to take care of the situation. Kids were sneaking glances at him, at each other. He seemed to realize it too, and rose on unsteady feet. I had just enough of a grip left on his mind to slide my right leg out to the side, and listen as his own leg mirrored the response and sent him crashing to his knees just before he reached the gate. The PSF—Tildon—he’d think he had tripped over someone. The image was the last one I planted before gently peeling back from his mind, refusing to watch as he walked briskly in the direction of the Control Tower.
Too much, I chastised myself—next time I’d have to go for something subtler. But this one, this one I wouldn’t regret, no matter what. I rose unsteadily onto my feet to help Sam back onto hers, guiding her back over to our places. She was shaking, staring at me as if she knew what had really happened.
“Fix it,” she whispered, “whatever you did to me. Please. I need to know.”
I couldn’t bring myself to look at her, knowing what sort of expression I’d see there. It had been like this with Liam, hadn’t it? All of the feelings, none of the memories—that’s what I’d left her with. No wonder she had seemed so confused and hostile after I’d wiped her memory. It must have been overwhelming. If she’d felt half as close to me as I did to her, the strange sense that something was wrong must have torn at her each day.
I met her pleading eyes with a plea of my own. And just like always, she understood. A spark of the old Sam surfaced. Her eyebrows drew together and she pursed her lips. This was the silent language we’d developed over the years.
The PSF who’d been gazing in our direction, hand shading his eyes to make out Tildon’s distant form growing smaller and smaller, stepped over the mounds into our row. I tensed, waiting to feel his shadow cast over me. Try it, I thought, try it with any of these kids, and see where it gets you.
Instead he walked away, continuing the watch that Tildon had been forced to abandon. I held my breath and slid my hand over, under the loose dirt, to grip Sam’s.
We worked through the morning into the afternoon, with only a small break to eat the apples and sandwiches they distributed for lunch. I devoured mine with dirt-stained hands, watching the changing colors of the sky.
And that night, as I lay in the bunk beneath her, I slipped into Sam’s mind as soft as a breeze.
I thought of that morning I’d stepped up beside her in the Infirmary, the way her coat’s tag had flipped up against her neck. The exact moment I’d taken her memories of me by mistake, the heaviness in my chest still unbearable as the moment played through.
The images were in her mind now, too, perfectly matched with mine. I was swept along with them, falling through the white, fluttering images around me. Her memories were almost too bright to watch, the wisps too thin to grasp. But I knew what I was looking for when I saw it. The black knot buried deep beneath the others. I reached out, touching it, increasing the pressure until it unraveled.
If each memory that drifted up were a star, I was standing at the center of a galaxy. Beneath vast constellations of lost smiles and quiet laughter. Whole, endless days of gray and brown and black that we’d spent with only each other to hold on to.
I’d assumed she’d been asleep the whole time; her mind had been so calm and still under my touch. But a pale arm came down over the side of the bunk, stretching down toward me. The familiar gesture stole the air from my chest, and I had to press my lips together to keep back the tears that came dangerously close to the surface. I reached up, meeting her halfway, locking my fingers around hers. A secret. A promise.
MY PLAN CAME TO ME IN PIECES OVER THE NEXT TWO DAYS. I assembled it hastily while I worked in the Garden, ignoring the blisters on the palm of my hand, and in those minutes before I passed out in exhausted sleep each night. Knowing that it would be over soon, in a matter of hours, made me feel reckless in a way I hadn’t expected. Somehow it was too much time, and yet still not enough; I couldn’t shake the fear that the others had changed their timing from the original plan that Cole, Nico and I had outlined. I’d told them March first, but what if it was impossible to get here in time?
What if they’re not coming at all?
I shoved the thought away before it could plant itself too deeply in my heart.
At six o’clock that evening, I lay in my bunk, hands folded on my stomach. Sam’s mattress shifted as she rolled onto her side, distorting the shapes I had made in the plastic. I reached up, taking a small piece of the curling plastic cover between my broken fingernails. Tugging gently, I pulled the strip off, carefully working it around, around, until it formed an even circle.
“—so the girl, after the robbers decided to take her away, she managed to steal one of their daggers and cut the rope off her hands…” Rachel was leading the story today, filling in the hour before we were called to dinner. Tonight, she wove the tale of yet another nameless girl, in yet another perilous situation. I closed my eyes, a faint smile on my lips. The stories hadn’t gotten any better or any more original—they all followed the same plot: girl is wronged, girl struggles, girl escapes. The ultimate fantasy at Thurmond.
Physical exhaustion kept me still. As much as I had trained at the Ranch, these hours of endless work with no break, on limited food and water, were designed to drain us of the energy we’d need to muster to escape or push back. My body was a mess of quivering muscles, but I felt oddly calm, even though I knew what would happen if I made one misstep, or they figured out what I was before I could complete what I’d come here to do.
I have to walk out of here.
“Ruby?” Ellie called from her bunk at the center of the room. “It’s your turn.”
I shifted onto my elbows, scooting back to swing my legs off the cramped bunk. I worked out the kinks in my lower back as I thought about how I was going to finish this story. “The girl…” When I was younger, I would have passed it on to Sam after adding only a few words, but I could use this. I wasn’t sure they would understand, but I hoped some part of them would recognize the warning when the time came.
“The girl cut herself loose from the rope and knocked the bandit off the horse in front of her. She took the reins and turned the horse around the road, heading back in the direction they had come from—back toward the castle.”
There was a murmur at that. Vanessa had spent the better part of fifteen minutes describing the battle raging outside of its walls. It had provide
d the distraction the bandits needed to take the girl in the first place.
“She used the darkness,” I explained. “She left her horse in the nearby forest and crept toward a passage she knew was hidden in the far stone wall. The fighting had stopped once the knights in black had taken the castle. They locked the white knights out, and they were unable to help the families trapped inside. But no one noticed a small, plain girl coming through the back door. She looked like a helpless servant girl, bringing a basket of food into the kitchen. For days, she stayed in the castle, watching. Waiting for the right moment. And then it came. She slipped back outside and made her way through the shadows of night, unlocking the gate for the white knights to come pouring back in.”
“Why would she come back? Why didn’t she just escape—hide?” Sam asked, her voice small. I blew out a soft breath, glad that, if nothing else, she understood.
“Because,” I said finally, “in the end, she couldn’t leave her family behind.”
The girls shifted silently in their bunks, looking at each other as if wondering the same thing. No one asked the question—I don’t know how many of them actually dared to hope. But three short minutes later, the electronic lock on the cabin’s door popped open. The door swung in and a PSF stepped inside.
“Line up,” she barked.
We hastily assembled in alphabetical order, staring straight ahead as she counted us off. She motioned for the girls at the front of the line to start moving.
I couldn’t help myself. A step before we reached the door, I glanced back behind me. No matter what happened, it would be the last time I ever saw Cabin 27.
But when we walked through the door of the Mess Hall that evening, I already had to revisit a key component of my plan. Because, set up against the wall opposite of us, to the left of the window where we lined up to receive our food, was a large white screen. O’Ryan stood in front of it, his arms crossed over his chest, the blue light from a digital projector washing over him. Sam threw a nervous look my way as our PSF escort pushed her toward our table.
In the Afterlight (Bonus Content) Page 42
