Never Fade tdm-2

by Alexandra Bracken

  “We’re okay,” I said. “We’re okay. Just keep going.”

  My mind caught the words and carried them forward in the dark. Just keep going. The longer we walked, the harder it became to tell the difference between my fear, my anger, and my guilt. They were a swollen mass in my chest, a rising sore. Someone ahead of us was either laughing or sobbing; the noise was so unhinged, I couldn’t tell the difference.

  The biggest fear, the one that kept my heart firmly lodged at the base of my throat and my knees sliding forward, forward, forward as the cement gripped at my shoulders, was knowing that, at any point, the whole thing could come down on top of us.

  Breathe.

  It should have been comforting to feel Liam pressing close behind me. We finally reached a section of the tunnel that was whole and where we could stand at our full height. It felt better to be moving that way, like it was a sign we were almost through. But it was still so impossibly dark. No matter how many times I tried to look back, I couldn’t see anything past the vague shape of Liam’s face.

  Keep going—Head down, arms in, only going forward, forward, forward as fast as I could move my feet. I lost track of time. Five minutes passed, ten minutes, maybe. Fifteen. The mildew smell changed to an all-out rancid stink as the drains constricted again. I kept my hands out on either side of me, letting them glide along the slick, dripping cement. Liam let out a strangled grunt as he cracked his head against the sloping ceiling, and a second later, I had to duck.

  The standing water was thick and reeked of rotting things and mold. I heard someone start to retch, and it was like it always was—once one person started, everyone else’s stomach was heaving, too.

  I clawed blindly at my face, trying to clear the hair that stuck in clumps to my cheeks and neck. It snuck up on me, the suffocating—the thick, sticky air seemed to vanish, the tunnels constricted, and I couldn’t see a thing, not one damn thing.

  We are not going to die down here. We were not just going to disappear.

  I tried to stay focused on the rhythmic, slow shuffle of skin against concrete and the way the water seemed to recede with the ceilings. How was it possible that the tunnel felt so different heading out than it had coming in? I felt it widen again, dipping down; it might have been my eyes adjusting to the dark, but I could have sworn it was getting lighter.

  I wasn’t imagining it. The change had been gradual at first, a hint of a glow, but it was bright enough now that I could see Liam’s surprised face as it turned down to meet mine. The tunnel filled with sounds of relief. I stood on my toes, trying to see over the heads in front of me. The smallest pinprick of light was staring us down the long tunnel, and it grew just that tiny bit larger with each step. A sudden burst of energy kicked my legs up, moving them faster, and faster, and faster until I could see the ladder, the figures climbing up out of the crippling dark and into the light.

  For a long time, there was nothing beyond the smoke.

  It hung around us in a curtain of graying brown, warmed only by the setting sun. The debris that had been blasted in the bombing still hadn’t settled. It floated down through the open door, a fine, crushed cement that swirled as we stirred it. My arms shook the entire climb up the ladder. Cole was waiting for us at the entrance to the tunnel, gripping my arm and hauling me out before turning back to get Liam.

  “Goddammit, you stupid kid!” he cried, shaking him. His voice was hoarse, and he seemed to choke on each word. “You scared the shit out of me! When I say stay behind me, I mean stay behind. Why didn’t you just leave when I told you to? Why can’t you just listen to me!”

  He wrapped his arms around his shoulders, and Liam, in all of his relief and exhaustion, let him. I couldn’t understand what they were saying to each other as they stood in front of the door, but Vida’s “Some of us are still trying to get out, assholes!” shattered the moment.

  Another agent guided us down the embankment of the Los Angeles River, to the spot where the others were huddled beneath the center of the bridge overhead. I pulled my shirt up over my nose and mouth to avoid breathing it in, but the chalky taste was already in my throat. I had already swallowed the day’s poison down, letting it mix with the smoke and bile.

  The sights of Los Angeles and the warehouse district were too much for any of us to take. No one was willing to turn around and face the wreckage in the distance. We knew, all of us, that the city had been attacked, but to actually see the burning skyscrapers on the horizon, watch the black smoke funnel out and up and into the clear blue sky, was sickening.

  Liam and I sat down a small ways from the other kids, who were crying and hugging one another. It was enough for me that he was sitting next to me, that his shoulder was pressed against mine. I watched them, the tears streaming down their faces, and I wished I could have let myself break down, too—to clear out the twisting mass of terror still churning inside me.

  But out here, my exhaustion numbed me. The sight of the everyday objects scattered nearby in the river quieted the thoughts racing through my head. The dust-covered cars in inches, the ground in feet. It gave way under us like playground sand. We were miles from downtown, but we were finding papers, an office chair, sunglasses, briefcases, and shoes that had been dropped and forgotten or blown out from nearby demolished buildings. The airstrike had left One Wilshire, the old skyscraper that housed the Federal Coalition, a burning black husk. I had seen it, just for a second, belching out rolling streams of smoke, turning entire city blocks dark.

  And all Liam could say, over and over, was “Damn.”

  I took a deep, steadying breath. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Jude standing out from under the bridge, his eyes closed, his face turned up to the patch of sun that had broken through the smoke. I couldn’t bring myself to stand, but I pretended I was there, too. Tilting my head back, letting the warmth dry the sticky, wet clumps of my hair. Letting it burn away the taste of fear on my tongue. Pretending we were somewhere far away from here.

  Liam stood as Chubs and Vida came toward us, their dark skin plastered with silvery dust. He hooked an arm around his friend’s neck, guiding him over to where I was waiting.

  “We heard Cole talking to some of the other agents who got out of the tunnel first. They said every car and every phone they found was dead. Cole thinks it really was some kind of electromagnetic pulse. We just couldn’t tell because we were so far underground.”

  That was one of the reasons Alban had insisted on building it so deep into the earth, for protection from that kind of thing. If Cole was right and they had set off an EMP, everything fell into place the way Alban had assured us it would. The detonation knocked out the power station supplying electricity to HQ, but the backup generator had kicked in, at least for a time.

  I couldn’t believe Gray—or whoever was in charge—had gone this far—had fried every vehicle, computer, and TV, ensuring he’d be helpless. Defenseless.

  “We can’t make contact with Cate,” Vida said.

  “She’s all right,” I told her, hoping I didn’t sound as hopeless as I felt. The flash drive. Cate still has the flash drive. And if something had happened to Cate, then…

  “The city…?”

  “Swarming with soldiers, apparently,” Chubs said. “It’s not good.”

  “Full-on invasion,” Vida said, dropping next to me. She pointed to where Nico was standing at the door leading down to the tunnel. He was staring down it, as if waiting for one last person to come through.

  I rubbed my face with my hands, trying to clear away the image of Clancy Gray trapped down in the dark. That’s where he belongs, came the savage voice in my mind. He was the only reason we had come here in the first place—he’d lied and risked every one of our lives, and for what? So he could work out some kind of demented mommy issue?

  I didn’t want to think of the dead, so I focused on the living. I kept my thoughts on the people beside me, the rare kindness life had shown in getting us out just before the whole structure collapsed. It didn’t
feel real to me yet, but these kids were. Liam, his head bent toward his best friend, whispering, “We’ll stay with them until we figure out how to get out of the city.” Chubs nodding, visibly struggling not to cry. Vida lying back, her hands on her stomach, feeling its rise and fall with each deep breath she took.

  And Jude—

  I turned to my right, glancing around the circles of kids. And—there he was. The dark head of curls I was looking for was walking away, chattering excitedly with some other kid. Where the hell did he think he was going? He tilted his head back toward us, and was—

  Not Jude.

  Why did I think that? This kid, he looked nothing like him—he was one of the Greens, a good head shorter than him. Why did I think that was him? I had taken one quick glance at his hair, and it was like my mind had defaulted on memory.

  Why would I ever think that?

  Every muscle in my body, every joint, every ligament hardened to stone. I was shaking again with the effort to move, to spin around one last time. I tried to call out for him, but the sound came out like a gasp. I brought a hand up to the base of my throat, pressing hard to dislodge whatever nightmare I had just swallowed.

  “Ruby?” Chubs said. “What’s wrong?”

  “What?” Liam said, turning toward me. “What is it?”

  “Where…” I began. “Where’s Jude?”

  The boys shared a look, then turned to survey the kids themselves.

  “Jude!” Vida called, looking around. “Judith! This isn’t funny!”

  I didn’t see his face in the kids sitting around us, and the agents were making sure that no one left the cover of the bridge now. Faces were starting to turn toward us, including Cole’s.

  “He came down, right?” I asked, my voice high with panic. “He was with you guys at the back, wasn’t he?”

  Oh my God.

  Vida’s brows drew sharply together. Some dark thought flickered over her face.

  “Vida!” I grabbed the front of her sweatshirt. “When was the last time you talked to him? When was the last time you saw him?”

  “I don’t know!” she cried, pushing me off her. “I don’t, okay? It was so dark—”

  I started at a run, pushing past Vida to get to the tunnel’s opening at the top of the embankment. Nico looked up at me, and I finally understood that he was waiting for Jude, not for Clancy.

  “Ruby…” he began. “Where is he?”

  “Stop,” Cole said, catching my elbow. I struggled against him, trying to twist away. Jude was down there. He was down there. And the last place I would ever leave Jude was alone in the dark.

  “You were at the back, weren’t you?” he continued. “I sent one of the agents down to make sure we didn’t leave anyone behind. They said the whole structure must have caved in—”

  “Shut up!” Liam said. He pulled me away from Cole. “Chubs and I will go, okay? I’m sure he just got separated from the group.”

  “No way in hell I’m letting you back in there,” Cole said. “I will knock your ass out if you take one step closer to it.”

  Liam ignored him.

  “He could have twisted his ankle maybe or slipped and hit his head,” Chubs added, but he looked sick. “Maybe he’s just caught in the debris…”

  “No!” I snarled. “He’s my—”

  “Ruby, I know, okay?” Liam said. “But you and Cole and the others need to figure out how to get us out of here, and fast. Let us do this for you at least.”

  “It’s on me,” I said. “I’m Leader.”

  “You’re not my leader,” he said softly. “Remember? It’ll be faster if Chubs and I go. We’ll be back before you even know we’re gone. You and the others have to figure out how to get us out of here.”

  I shook my head.

  “Ruby, let them go,” Vida said, taking my arm. “Come on.”

  Cole let out a sharp, angry grunt, shoving a glow stick against his brother’s chest. “You have an hour, no more. Then we’re leaving without you.”

  Liam glanced at Chubs, tilting his head toward the waiting door.

  THIRTY-TWO

  THEY DID NOT COME BACK IN AN HOUR, or even two.

  I tried to guess how long it had taken us to get through the tunnels the first time—it had only been, what, a half hour? Longer? At the time, it had only felt like forever.

  Vida and I sat on either side of the opening, backs flush against the wall. She had her arms folded across her chest, her legs stretched out. Every few minutes her fingers pressed hard into either arm, and she began anxiously shaking her foot.

  Cole and the others were arguing about splitting the group up for the third time. Most of the kids had crashed, no matter how hard they fought it. They curled up in the shade or leaned against one another’s backs. Every so often, a breeze would carry Jude’s whispered name up to us, spoken in the same breath as the kids who had been killed in the initial blast.

  Eight of them, gone in an instant. Almost half our group.

  I caught the sound of the footsteps first and pushed myself off the ground. Vida stayed exactly as she was, keeping whatever thought was skipping through her head to herself. I squinted into the darkness to find the source of the movement. I could count them by their dim, shadowed shapes as they moved up the ladder. One—two—

  Two.

  Two.

  Liam was out first, stretching a hand toward me without a single word of explanation. I let him guide me back down the embankment, into the sunlight and away from the others. I looked over my shoulder just the once to see Chubs crouch down next to Vida.

  “I know,” I heard her say, her voice gravelly. “Don’t bother.”

  Liam brought my attention back to him, clearly struggling to tame his own emotions. So they hadn’t found him. Now I could try. I knew Jude better than they did—there must have been miles and miles of tunnels under the city, and I’d have an easier time guessing—

  He turned my hand up and pressed something smooth into it. His eyes were such a fair blue, the irises the color of a new morning sky. When they drifted down, mine followed their path. Down his torn shirt, across the stained skin of his wrists, to the bent, twisted remains of a small silver compass.

  And it was so strange how swift the numbness was to settle. How it smothered every word, every thought, until I forgot I needed to keep breathing. I felt my lips part at the same moment my chest seemed to collapse in on itself.

  “No.” My fingers clenched around it, hiding it from sight, denying it was there. The glass face had completely shattered, the red needle was gone, and the force of whatever had crushed it had folded it almost in half. No. It was just that one word, but it was enough to spark a blaze of furious denial. “No!”

  “We traced the path back,” Liam said, holding onto my hand like an anchor. “All the way back to the entry point. As far as we could get with the debris…and…”

  “Don’t,” I begged. Don’t tell me this.

  “I don’t—” His voice choked off. “I don’t know what happened. I almost didn’t see him at all, but there was…I could see his shoe. We found him, but there wasn’t anything we…Chubs couldn’t do anything. He was already gone and we couldn’t get him out. He was at the back; the explosion must have just caught him—”

  I threw the compass at him, and when that didn’t rock him, when that didn’t hurt him, I threw my fist after it, pounding against his shoulder. He caught it with his other hand and pinned both of mine to his chest.

  He’s lying. It wasn’t possible. I had seen him outside, looking up at the sky. I had heard him, seen him, felt him.

  I felt myself rock forward, the instant before my knees went. Liam had a good enough grip on me to prevent me pitching forward, but he was exhausted, too, and it was amazing he was able to keep us upright at all.

  “We have to go get him,” I said. “We can’t just… He can’t stay down there; he doesn’t like the dark; he can’t handle silence; he shouldn’t have to be alone—”

  �
�Ruby,” Liam said gently. “There’s not going to be anything to get. And I think you know that.” I recoiled violently, trying to push back against him, against the reality. But that burst of energy was as quick to pass as it had been to come. The tears were hot on my cheeks; they mixed with the dirt, rolling over my lips, dripping off my chin. His hands came up to either side of my face, wiping them away, even as I felt his own drip against my hair.

  “I c-cant,” I said, “I can’t—”

  For the first time, I wondered if the reason he hadn’t wanted me to go wasn’t because he thought they wouldn’t find Jude but because he thought they would.

  “He was alone,” I cried. “He didn’t have anyone with him—he must have been so scared. I told him we would stay together.”

  My mind was fixed on Jude’s face, the way his ears stuck out from the sides of his head like they’d been mismatched with the rest of his body. What was the last thing I said to him? Stay close? Keep going? And what had he said back? All I could remember was his pale face in the faint light of Cole’s yellow glow stick.

  Follow Leader. He had followed me out and I had led him to this. I had done this to him.

  “Lee!” Chubs called, and again, louder, when neither of us moved. There was a plane flying low overhead, dropping a cloud of something that looked like red gas. Liam raised his arms, covering our heads as the wind blew it toward us and dropped thousands of fluttering sheets of paper.

  The kids and agents left the safe cover of the bridge to try to catch one. I snatched a stray sheet as it winged past us. Liam leaned over my shoulder and I held it up for us to read it together.

  Centered at the top of the page were the presidential seal, an American flag, and the insignia for the Department of Defense.

  Following the assassination attempt by the disturbed Psi youth, President Gray was taken to an area hospital where doctors examined him. As he was wearing a Kevlar vest during the attack, he sustained only abdominal bruising and two fractured ribs. Once he was discharged from their care, he released the following statement: