The White Noise came on, louder, higher, a bullet that slammed through my temples. I couldn’t keep the cry in. Sweat streamed down my back, my chest. It became a pattern—on agony, off pain, on agony, off pain. I couldn’t catch my breath. I had to fight to keep the sweet nothing of unconsciousness away. I couldn’t sleep. I couldn’t leave this moment. They would kill me. I wouldn’t be able to…I wouldn’t be able to…
“Who sent you?”
“Fuck you!” I shouted right back in his face.
I braced myself as he swung his arm back, but it did nothing—nothing—to prepare me for the explosion of white-hot agony that rocketed through me as his baton struck my exposed shin. I screamed, jerking against the restraints. I heard the crack, felt it inside of my head like it was my skull splitting apart. The PSF behind the camp controller only watched impassively as O’Ryan struck the broken bone again, smiling as I vomited onto the floor.
He swung again, stopping just short of my leg, a mocking smile on his face. He gave a silent wave of his hand toward the PSF, who reached for the White Noise device again.
“Not the Children’s League,” O’Ryan said over the hurricane of sound shredding my overloaded nerves. “It couldn’t be them. So who?”
I heard the echo of it even when it switched off, white spots sparking behind my eyelids.
“Answer me, three-two-eight-five.” He leaned over my face, thrusting the mangled flash drive in front of it. “What was on this? Tell me, and I promise that you’ll live.”
I want to live.
O’Ryan gripped my chin in his hand. “Three-two-eight-five, you should know I have no qualms about putting your kind down.”
My kind.
Orange. I sucked in a sharp breath, licking the blood that had run from my nose over my busted lip. Orange.
He turned back toward the PSF, motioning him forward. My leg was demanding my attention, burning up my concentration, but my eyes slid over to the younger man and I reached…I reached…
O’Ryan held up the White Noise device in one hand, his service pistol in the other.
“Which would you prefer?”
I have to walk out of here.
The gun came up in his hand, sliding up my throat, under my chin. The White Noise device rubbed along the edge of my ear.
“It would give me no greater pleasure than to see your brains scrambled and leaking from your ears. Splattered against this floor. Tell me why you’re here, three-two-eight-five, and I’ll stop this. It’ll all be over.”
I want to live.
The building shook, throwing him back a step and rattling both the nearby table and the simple light fixture hanging over us. The pop and snarl of distant gunfire. A strange, sweet symphony of hope.
Footsteps pounded down the hall, heading out toward the exit. O’Ryan shoved himself away from me and went to the one-way window lining the wall, cupping his hands against it to try to see through it. He knocked against the mirrored surface, waiting. My line of sight was shrinking again, heading into black. The door in the corner, the one we’d come in through, had no handle. It could only be opened from the outside.
I closed my eyes, tightening my fists against a second wave of nausea.
I want to live.
I want to live.
I have to live.
“Ruby,” I croaked out.
O’Ryan turned slowly. “What was that, three-two-eight-five? You ready to talk now?”
“My name,” I said between clenched teeth, “is Ruby.”
I overturned my chair, knocking myself over onto the ground, and an aftershock of pain lanced up my leg. I played the scene out in my mind, and heard the reality on a half-second delay. The PSF in the corner of the room lifted his gun and fired three times, missing O’Ryan on the first shot and shattering a section of the glass behind him, but hitting his mark on the second and third attempt. Chest. Head.
O’Ryan got one shot off, hitting the PSF’s throat before slumping down against the wall beneath the one-way window.
I must have passed out—for a few seconds, maybe minutes. The Control Tower was eerily silent, and the only sound I heard as I surfaced back to reality was my own heart’s slow, steady beat.
Move, I ordered myself. Move, Ruby, move.
My progress across the floor to O’Ryan’s body was slow and agonizing. I needed the knife on his belt to cut the ties on my feet and hands, but it meant dragging the chair through the puddle of congealing blood beneath him. I sawed frantically, nicking my palms as I worked the knife blindly behind me.
I sucked in a harsh breath and looked down; the strange, tented skin on my shin made me gag, the sight reminding my body all over again that it was in pain. I hopped and hobbled over to the door, but I’d been right—there was no handle, and the hinges were on the other side.
I picked up O’Ryan’s pistol and positioned myself against the opposite wall, using it as a brace for the gun’s recoil. The reverberations raced up my arms and shoulders as the glass shards fell in waves. I switched the safety back on and went to work knocking the remaining pieces out of the window frame. Bracing my hands on the ledge, I dragged myself up and over it. The jagged teeth caught and tore at my arms and legs as I collapsed into the hallway.
The gun flew out of my hands. I reached for it through the halo of glass around me. My fingers closed around the grip, just as the squeak of rubber against tile reached my ears.
I rolled onto my back, lifting my torso up just enough to aim at the dark figure running toward me. I fumbled with the safety, switching it off. The barrage of gunfire outside heated my blood, focusing me in the moment. I saw the black uniform and my finger curled around the trigger. I was getting out of here—I was getting out—
“Don’t shoot!”
The power snapped off, throwing the building into darkness, but I’d seen his face as he pulled up his helmet. I thought at first that I was seeing a ghost—and somehow, the reality was almost more impossible.
Liam.
“Stop doing that!” I cried, dropping my gun in terror. “I almost killed you!”
His face was so thin, practically worn down to the bone. He rushed toward me, dropping to his knees and sliding the last bit of distance between us. His hands were everywhere at once, and he was kissing me—lips, cheeks, forehead, wherever he could reach—and I was breathing him in, clinging to his sopping-wet shirt, unable to process the simple fact that he was here, that he was okay.
He shifted, jarring my leg, and I couldn’t keep the scream from escaping my throat.
“Shit—shit, I’m sorry, Jesus—” Liam fumbled for the radio clipped to his jacket. “I found her—Dad, I need your help!”
It almost happened too quickly. Footsteps pounded against the ground behind me, and when Liam looked up, it was as if his helpless anger solidified, grew teeth. He reached for the gun in the holster strapped to his leg and a shudder ripped through me. I recognized the darkness in his expression; I’d seen it all too many times in his brother. My hand flew out, slamming down on his, keeping his weapon in place.
Not Liam. Not now. Not ever. He wasn’t a killer. Losing himself in a single moment would fracture him at his core. It would be a bone that healed crookedly inside him, until it changed his shape.
I saw the moment he came back to himself, the way his nostrils flared and his eyes cleared. When he looked up at the PSF running toward us again, this time he threw a hand out, sending the soldier crashing back into the nearest wall. Knocking him out cold.
He released a shuddering breath as he looked down at me again. Gently, with a level of care that seemed at odds with his actions only a second ago, he inspected the cuts on my arms and swore. I was trembling, but he must have mistaken the pain for cold because he ripped his jacket off and drew it around me, zipping it up to my throat to trap the warmth inside. I bit back the sob welling up in my chest.
“Why did it have to be you?” he demanded. “Why did it have to be you?”
“Sorry,�
�� I whispered. For Cole, for making him come here, for everything, in case the darkness came back and I couldn’t say it then. “Sorry, love you, love you so much…”
Liam kissed me again. “Can we get the hell out of here now?”
Another figure in black appeared at the head of the stairs, his shoulders heaving as he caught his breath. I scrambled for my gun, but Liam gripped my hand. “Over here—”
I saw a flash of black skin, a handsome, grizzled face as he rushed toward us. “Is she all right?”
“Not…really,” Liam said, leaning back so his stepfather could see my leg. To me he insisted, “but you’re going to be fine, you hear me?”
“Ouch, darlin’,” Harry said, crouching down to examine it. “We’re going to get you out of here, all right?”
“I have to walk out of…I have to walk out of here,” I told him, mind fogging over with the pain. “I have to walk out of here. My own feet.”
He exchanged a tense look with Liam.
“We need something to brace it with,” Liam started, looking around.
“There’s no time for that,” Harry said. “They’ll have medics at the meet point.”
“I have to walk out.” I didn’t care how crazy it made me sound, they needed to understand. Cole would understand—would have understood. Cole was past-tense now. I squeezed my eyes shut.
When I opened them again, Harry reached over to a radio clipped onto his left shoulder. “This is Stewart. We have her. Proceeding to exit. ETA three minutes.”
There was a flurry of static responses.
“Okay, darlin’, I’m gonna get you up,” Liam said, rising to his feet. “Put your arms around my shoulders, that’s right, just like that.” True to their word, once they had me up, they adjusted me so I could stand on my good leg.
I don’t remember the hallway as it passed us, only how it felt each time my right leg swung forward. The frigid air on my skin as we stepped out into the night, the first touch of rain. I smelled smoke. The air hung heavy with it.
Up ahead, there was a river of green and blue moving out of the camp’s front gate. The kids walked quickly, waved on by figures in black, their white bands stark against their sleeves. I was proud of how calm they were, the way they listened to the instructions they were given, even half-terrified or in shock. Thurmond, at least, had trained them to do that much.
“Reds—” I tried to say. I saw the warm glow of a fire at the far end of the camp, where the Factory was burning.
“They’re secured,” Harry said, giving the hand I’d hooked around his neck a gentle squeeze. “Put up one hell of a fight.”
“Hurt?”
“Everyone’s okay,” he promised. He let out a sharp whistle, and the nearest figure in black turned around expectantly and ran toward us. She moved with a kind of animal grace, arms pumping at her side, boots spraying mud everywhere as she trampled through the puddles and thick, black mud.
I couldn’t see her face through the curtain of rain, but I knew. Vida.
She would have crashed into us if Harry hadn’t put out a strong hand to catch her.
“Careful!” Liam warned, drawing me closer to his side as Harry pulled back and untangled his grip. Vida filled in the spot he’d vacated, wrapping both arms around me.
“Holy shit,” she said. “I’m going to kill you, I’m actually going to wring your little neck. I’m going to—to—”
“I’m going to sweep through the Mess one last time to check for stragglers,” Harry said. “Mac, John, and I will bring up the rear.”
“See you at the meet point,” Liam said. “Ruby, let me carry you, please—”
“I have to walk.” My throat ached, the words coming out in a croak. “Can you help me?”
He had already started to adjust his grip when Vida stopped him by taking the other half of my weight. “Whatever you want, as long it means getting you out of this goddamn nightmare factory. I mean, holy shit, boo.”
Our progress was slow and awkward through the mud, but we staggered forward, drifting into the rush of kids moving out, heading toward the gate that was blown wide open.
It rained the day they brought us to Thurmond.
And it rained the day I walked out.
I knew I was in trouble when I couldn’t shake the cold. Couldn’t stop trembling. As we walked through the woods, following the kids ahead of us, the black uniforms with white bands at the front, my shivering made my muscles lock and limbs seize.
Vida glanced over at Liam, and our pace quickened.
“Hurts,” I whispered.
“Do you want to stop? Rest?” Vida asked. “Is it your leg?”
I shook my head. “Everything.”
To fill the silence, or to distract me, Liam tried to explain what had happened. “Mom gave me the number to contact Harry, to tell him…about…about Cole. She told me how to find him. They waited for me, and by then I knew I should have gone straight back, that I wanted to. But by the time we made it to the Ranch, you were long gone. Chubs was beside himself, so was Zu—all of them. Nico held it together for them until we got back.”
“Fucking Clancy,” Vida said. “Fucking crazy-ass Grays. They did this broadcast, him and his mom…”
“I saw,” I said, not willing or particularly able to go into detail at that moment.
“How did you…never mind, it doesn’t matter,” Liam said. “You tell me later, when this is over and done with.”
“Cole…” I started to say, my grip on him tightening.
His face twisted with fresh grief. “Later, okay? It’s not too much farther. We had to set the meet point nearby—too many kids to drive out. I wish you could have seen it—Amplify pushed the information we gave them out everywhere. TV, the Internet, traffic signs—they bombarded the world with the truth.”
“Let’s see if it actually worked,” Vida muttered. “If there aren’t any parents waiting—”
“They’ll be waiting,” Liam insisted.
No matter how many steps I took, it still felt like we were falling farther and farther away from the lights filtering through the trees. I knew he was right, though, when the first helicopter appeared over us, casting a light down and kicking up the wind and rain. It was blinding—I couldn’t tell if it belonged to the military or to the news.
There had been a din of noise, this faint low buzz of energy and sound I’d barely been able to detect under the shrill ringing in my ears. Now it was like I could hear the pulse of the world around me, throbbing underfoot. Up ahead, there were more lights, all pointed toward us.
The assault team, kids and adults alike, brought the huge group up short, just past the line of trees. There were buildings nearby, most likely the abandoned downtown area of Thurmond, West Virginia. Liam and Vida navigated us up through the sea of stalled bodies, shouldering our way closer to the front.
Three thousand children spread out through the trees like an avalanche, stopping up every gap between them. I knew when we were close because someone got on a bullhorn and barked out, “Remain where you are! Any advancement will be seen as a sign of hostile aggression!”
But if the armed forces saw us, so did the families gathered behind them.
We were moving forward again, slowly now, but at a steady pace. Finally, through the blinding field ahead of us, shapes began to form.
Two large, white tents had been set up by someone. Lights from ambulances and cop cars flashed blue, red, blue, falling over us and the double lines of soldiers that stood between us and hundreds, if not thousands, of people.
I blinked, trying to clear my thoughts. This was right—this was how it was supposed to be. Alice would have released her last blast of information during the assault, including the names of the children at Thurmond, and a location where they could be retrieved. I’d assumed that it would also give the military time to respond, and I’d been right. The soldiers, National Guard, police, and PSFs alike had assumed a defensive stance, shielded by riot gear.
“Drop your weapons, get down on the ground, and place your hands on your head,” the same man ordered. “Any further advancement will be seen as a sign of hostile aggression and we will open fire.”
We kept moving forward, toward the men and women in camouflage, toward the few in black PSF uniforms, until we were less than three hundred feet away.
The tall, clear riot shields formed an actual wall between us, but didn’t mask the way the soldiers’ eyes flickered over us. The row behind them was armed and primed to do exactly as the officer had threatened; the muzzles of their guns were carefully placed in the gaps of space between the shields. They stood back-to-back with a row of FBI and uniformed police officers, who were facing the crowd of reporters and civilians. Cameras—there were cameras everywhere, flashing, recording, even as the men and women tried to block the shots or smash the devices altogether.
The helicopter’s propeller announced its arrival long before it appeared in the sky. Its searchlight swept over us several times, as if scanning for one person in particular. A soldier sat at the edge of the open door, an automatic rifle in his hands as he took stock of the situation.
The officer in charge stood just left of center, behind both lines of soldiers. There was a satellite phone pressed to his ear; he kept ducking in and out of sight, as if crouching down could somehow drown out the noise of the crowd that rose behind him, breaking over all of us in a rush.
Names, I thought, forcing myself to look beyond the weapons and the gear, to the faces of regret and hope behind them. One of the kids behind me recognized one of them, clearly, because she surged forward with a shout of, “Mom—Mom!”
“Get down on the ground and put your hands behind your head,” the officer yelled into the bullhorn. “Do it now—now!”
“Here!” a woman shouted back. “I’m here! Emily, I’m here!”
Watching the face of the soldier directly in front of me was like seeing a trickling creek become a river; emotion roared across his eyes, and not even the glare of the chopper’s searchlight could disguise the look he cast back at the woman, who was struggling against the three FBI agents pushing her to the ground. The civilians around her pushed back, trying to drive them away from her.
In the Afterlight (Bonus Content) Page 44
