In the Afterlight

by Alexandra Bracken

  I held up my hands. “Worth a try?”

  “More than worth a try,” Cole said. “It’s time we checked in on her anyway—”

  There was a bang on the loading dock door—one loud sound that came like a shot through the calm that had settled over the room. Liam jumped to his feet, a grin splitting his face as he jogged to the door. It was the only reason I let myself relax as he and Kylie unhooked the padlock they’d installed there and the door rolled up, rattling like thunder as sunlight spilled in.

  I counted off the eight kids as they came in, each somehow looking worse than the next; filthy, in a variety of mismatched knits. We could smell them from where we were standing, which Cole chose to note with raised brows and an expression I’d seen Liam wear a dozen times.

  I recognized the new faces, but I hadn’t been in Knox’s camp in Nashville long enough to assign them names from memory. The kids there had been so hopeless, left with next to nothing by way of supplies because Knox and a few of the others had taken everything they brought in for themselves. Now this group only seemed to be in slightly better shape. Between them, they had a few backpacks and makeshift bags tied together from old sheets. If I hadn’t known any better, I’d have thought they walked from Nashville.

  Liam had reached up to start pulling the door down, but stopped, leaning out to wave the last two in. One, a tall blond girl, stopped to clasp a hand on his shoulder. The other, an even taller guy wearing a bright red-checked hunting hat, dropped his backpack and stretched.

  Olivia, I thought. Brett.

  And sure enough, Kylie and Lucy rushed forward with a cry of “Liv!”

  The girl turned toward them and the other two were brought up short, actually skidding against the cement at the full sight of her face. One side of it had been burned by Mason, the Red that Knox had kept prisoner in his camp, and had scarred badly as it healed.

  “Got a makeover,” she said in a light voice, “as you can see. Hi, Ruby.”

  Brett was there in an instant, running a hand down her long braid to rest against her lower back.

  I crossed the last few feet between us. Despite the fact that neither of us were particularly warm, cuddly people, I hugged her like it had been years, not a month, since we’d parted ways. “It’s good to see you,” I said. It really was. “You too, Brett.”

  “Feeling’s mutual,” he assured me. I stepped back, letting Kylie, Lucy, and Mike approach her, hug her, bring her more firmly into the fold. “So this is Lodi, huh?”

  “This is it,” Liam confirmed. “We’ve been busy. Did you catch the news today? We did the camp hit I mentioned to you before.”

  “You did it?” Olivia said, blinking. “I remember you mentioning it, but...”

  She exchanged a confused look with Brett.

  “It was all over the radio as we were coming in,” Brett said. “You guys do know that the Children’s League is taking credit for it...right?”

  And just like that, the wind went completely out of Liam’s sails—in fact, the air itself seemed to have been sucked completely out of the garage. It was Cole who walked over to the workstation, sending the kids standing there scattering as he switched on the radio.

  We’d caught the male radio host mid-sentence. “—we’ve just received the following statement made by representatives of the Children’s League—”

  I looked down at my boots, hands on my hips. Senator Cruz and Rosa came rushing in from the tunnel, Nico right behind them. The woman’s face was pale as she opened her mouth to call out to us. The grave voice coming through the speaker prompted her news.

  “‘Early yesterday morning we carried out an assault on one of Gray’s rehabilitation camps located in Oasis, Nevada. We have taken the victims of his cruelty, the children interned there, and will release them only following the president’s immediate resignation. Should these demands not be met, we will strike our next target.’ Powerful words. If you’re just tuning in, we have a breaking news update about the images and video released this morning by several noted papers...”

  “They can’t do this!” Zach shouted over the chatter buzzing around us. “They had nothing to do with it! They’re making us look like terrorists—”

  “Is this real?” Senator Cruz asked Cole. “Would they claim responsibility for it? Or is Gray trying to pin it on them to justify another attack on them?”

  “I think they’re claiming credit,” I said feeling a need to inject a calm voice into the panicking fray. “Gray doesn’t need another excuse to attack them, and he’s been scrambling to float the theory that everything was doctored. I guess it doesn’t matter, though. The League has the target on their backs now, not us.”

  Cole managed to wrangle his smug look—or at least dampen it somewhat. “Well, y’all have succeeded in putting another undeserved feather in their cap. But Ruby’s right. This is a good thing for us.”

  The anchor continued, undaunted. “—fifteen Psi Special Forces officers sustained mild injuries and were treated on-site. All declined to comment on the treatment of the children and the rehabilitation camp when questioned before the arrival of ranking military officials. As of yet there has been no response from President Gray, and Washington remains silent.”

  The unspoken words trickled through my mind. But not for long.

  Lillian was not only awake when we unlocked the door and came in, she was pacing the length of the room in the dark. She’d left all of the lights off, save for the one at her desk. Compared to earlier, she looked a little more presentable. Someone, likely Cole, had brought her wipes to clean off her face, a hairbrush, and a clean set of sweats. I’d seen her in press clippings wearing the costume of a First Lady—suits, perfectly coiffed hair, pearls—and I’d seen her in Clancy’s memory as a scientist, crisp and clinical in her white lab coat. Here, dressed like this, she could have been anyone. And that made it easier to approach her—easier to do what I had to.

  “Hi, Dr. Gray,” I said. “Do you remember me and Chu—Charles?”

  Vida and Cole had both wanted to watch, but I’d been worried about overwhelming Dr. Gray with too many people around her. I needed her calm, or at least calmer than she had been while dealing with me before.

  The woman mumbled something to herself as she continued that careful stride back and forth, back and forth, not breaking pace as she glanced over at her bed and the papers strewn over it. Suddenly, she stopped and pointed at them with urgency, her mouth struggling around each sound she was trying to make. Her entire body shook with her frustration as she pressed a hand against her throat, rubbing it.

  In that moment I understood. Clancy hadn’t just wanted to silence her from being able to tell others about the cure. He wanted to punish her, in the exact way he knew would hurt her the worst. He’d taken her brilliant mind and trapped her inside of it.

  “That’s right, we want to talk about the research you did.”

  “Chhaaaa—” She swallowed and tried again, looking as humiliated as I’d ever seen a person. I had to fight the urge to take her hand when she raised it toward us. “Chaaaart.”

  “Right, the charts.” I carefully took her shoulders and guided her toward the bed. I don’t know if she remembered what had happened the last time I was in here with her, but she didn’t struggle until I tried to force her to sit.

  “Ruby,” Chubs said. “Are you ready?”

  Her shoulders bunched up, the muscles tightening beneath my hand. She was already preparing herself. She knew what I was.

  Diving into her mind the second time was no less painful than the first. Dr. Gray turned her memories into a roaring river I couldn’t cross—a stream of landscapes, homes, roads, children’s toys, textbooks, flowers, silverware—anything and everything she could think of to protect the important memories.

  But we were connected. That was all that mattered.

  “Ruby.” Chubs was standi
ng behind me, I knew that, but it sounded like he was talking to me from outside in the hall. “Ruby, what’s...er...your favorite color?”

  “My favorite color,” I repeated, letting the word take shape in my mind, “is green.”

  The shift came midway through the word. One moment I was being dragged between scenes lasting no longer than a fraction of a second. The next, it felt as if I’d been thrown against a wall of glass shards. I recoiled, physically and mentally.

  “Tell me what your middle name is,” Chubs said.

  “It’s...” The words brought me up closer to the pain, the sharpness of it. This part of her mind was so dark, so unbearably dark. It must have been painful for her every time she tried to speak, to use this part of her mind. He wanted her to hurt. Hurt.

  “What’s your middle name?” he repeated.

  “It’s Elizabeth.” I felt my mouth form the words, but I couldn’t hear them over the rush of blood inside my own head. I have to push through this. This is glass. I have to break it. I have to get through it. Mirror minds.

  “Who were you named after?” Chubs’s questions were keeping me in that part of her mind. Every time I had to stop and think about what he was asking, the pain became slightly more bearable.

  “Grandmother,” I said. “Grams.”

  Grams. Grams. Grams. The person who remembered me. Who I’d be able to find once this was over. I need you. We need you.

  My grip on her tightened to the point where I’m sure my nails dug into her flesh. With one final, deep breath, I pushed against the wall as hard as I could, turning my mind into a bat and slamming against it until I felt it give with a deafening crack. I slid forward, forcing my way through, until it shattered and cut the connection to ribbons.

  “Ruby, what was the name of our van? What did we call it?” Chubs must have been shouting the question to me. His voice was ragged.

  “Black...” I mumbled, my mind in pieces—pain everywhere—agony—“Black Betty.”

  I didn’t slide through, so much as fall past the remnants of the barrier. The world around me exploded into electric blue light—

  When I came around, rising up from the murky pain, I was flat on my back on the floor, Chubs’s anxious face an inch above mine.

  “Okay?” he asked, taking my arm to help me sit up. “How do you feel?”

  “Like I took a flaming knife to the head,” I got out around gritted teeth.

  “You were out for a full minute. I was starting to get worried,” he said.

  “What happened?” I asked, turning toward the bed. “What—”

  Lillian Gray was sitting at the edge of her bed, her face hidden behind her hands. Her shoulders shook, trembling with each gasp of breath.

  She’s crying, I realized, rising up to my knees, I hurt her—

  Her face was red, swollen from the force of her weeping. The air in the room had shifted, a thunderstorm of feeling had rolled back, and what was left was weightless blue sky. When she looked at me, she saw me. Her lips pulled back into a painful smile.

  “Thank. You.” She treated each word like the small miracle it was.

  And then, without warning, I began to cry too. The pressure that had built in my chest gave way with the next heavy breath in, and expelled fully as I released it. I did this. If I did nothing else worthwhile in my life, I helped this woman. I gave her back her voice. I hadn’t broken someone; I’d put them back together.

  “Um...” Chubs began awkwardly. “Should I maybe...er...”

  I stood up, swiping at my face with a laugh. “I’m going to find Cole,” I said. “Can you tell her what’s going on? Make sure everything is okay?”

  I used the hem of my shirt to scrub my face once I was outside of the room, allowing myself a few steadying breaths before I looked in on the gym and office, then the big room, where kids were already sitting down with their plates of macaroni and cheese.

  Right. Dinner. That meant...

  I took the stairs two at a time, bounding down the hall to the kitchen. The kids serving there only shrugged and said Cole had come in and left with two plates. It would have looked too suspicious for me to wait outside of the storage room; I slipped the string I held the key on up from around my neck and glanced back and forth, making sure no one was watching as I went inside and locked it behind me. The overhead bulb swung with the movement of air, and the door behind the shelf unit groaned, not fully shut.

  It was curiosity, more than anything else, that made me step into that narrow hall. It was the first time in days I’d gone to see him—Cole had simply waved me off each time I offered to do it, saying it was better for me to stay away and avoid antagonizing him when he was already furious with me. That he’d been perfectly cordial, with no evidence of trying to influence Cole’s mind.

  Now that she was back, I half expected Vida to be there, watching them from the small window in the door at the other end of the hall—but no. There wasn’t anyone there, making sure Clancy wasn’t running wild inside Cole’s mind.

  If you had told me that Cole and Clancy would have been sitting facing each other on the floor eating, separated by only an inch-thick wall of bulletproof glass...I would have told you to keep your delusions to yourself. But there they were. The two of them, relaxing and talking with the ease of old friends.

  I leaned forward, pressing my ear against the door, catching snippets of conversation.

  “—wouldn’t be any files on it, that’s how confidential it is, the only reason I know it exists still is a PSF account—”

  “—worth it if it means more boots on the ground—”

  “Don’t discount the propaganda they’re releasing—try to use it to get your own message out there. Recruit willing soldiers—”

  Ten minutes went by; fifteen. The elation I felt deflated into something that resembled dread. Not that the two of them were talking—I trusted Cole to take everything Clancy said with the largest grain of salt known to mankind—but that I was agreeing with what I heard.

  “The goal should be to keep as many choices open for the kids as possible, to not let someone sweep in with regulations on how they could or should be,” Clancy continued. “Is the senator even willing to stand up for their right to make decisions about their future?”

  The cure is another way to control us, take decisions out of our hands.

  I stepped back from the door, shaking my head. No—helping Lillian was giving us a choice. We couldn’t make a real decision without knowing what the cure was.

  Then why, all of a sudden, did the past few hours feel like such a mistake?

  “—nothing else you can tell me about Sawtooth?” Cole was on his feet now, taking Clancy’s empty plate from the slot in the door.

  Clancy returned to his cot. There was a new, thicker blanket there now—a real pillow, too. A stack of books beside the bed stood up nearly as tall as the cot. Apparently Clancy had been a very good boy, if Cole had been willing to bring him all of that.

  “You know everything I do. That wasn’t the camp I helped set up—it was the original one in Tennessee,” Clancy said. “Are you ever going to come in, Ruby?”

  I leaned away from the door, but it was pointless. His eyes shifted over to the window and caught mine through the glass. With a deep breath, I unlocked the door and propped it open with my foot. Cole’s hand twitched at his side as he strode toward me. I was starting to have a hard time telling his apprehension apart from his irritation.

  I waited until we were back out in the hallway before opening my mouth.

  “Don’t,” he said, holding up a hand. “I have this under control.”

  “Nothing is ever really under control with him,” I pointed out. “As long as you’re careful...”

  “You’re killing me, Gem,” he said, raking his hand back through his hair. “What is it?”

  “I think you
have to see it to believe it.”

  With the others occupied by editing Zu’s interviews and, at Liam’s suggestion, giving their own, Cole and I were left to do the planning for an actual assault on Thurmond. We stayed up through the night rehashing the details. I would go in with the flash drive on February twenty-seventh. On March first, our team of twenty kids and Harry’s forty-odd soldiers would storm the camp at approximately seven in the evening and engage and restrain the PSFs—I would need to get the program uploaded into their servers by a quarter till. The kids would then be brought to a secure location within walking distance of the camp to wait for their parents to retrieve them. Written out step by step, it almost sounded simple. The reality was stark.

  The morning officially began with Cole dropping a large blanket of paper over my head, startling me awake from where I’d fallen asleep at one of the computer room desks.

  “What’s this?” I asked, pulling it away. At least fifteen sheets of paper had been taped together to form a whole, cohesive image of rings of cabins, shoddy brick buildings, a silver fence, and the green wilderness around it.

  I jumped to my feet. “This is Thurmond. How did you get this?”

  In response, he calmly passed me a silver burner phone—there was something grudging in his expression, reluctant. I took it from him, raising it slowly to my ear. “Hello?”

  “Is this Ruby?”

  “Speaking,” I said, watching Cole’s face as he watched me.

  “My name is Harry Stewart—” There was static on the other end on the line, and it only made me grip the phone harder. Harry. Liam’s Harry. His voice was deeper than I expected, but I could hear the smile in it. “I wanted to let you know that last night we conducted an operation—”

  “We?” I repeated dumbly. Nico had come over to stand next to Cole, looking bewildered. I switched the phone over to speaker so that he could hear it as well.

  “One you never cleared with me,” Cole muttered.

  “A group of old, retired army types,” he said with a laugh. “Some new friends, too, who have recently had a change of heart about serving the President. This morning at approximately oh-two-hundred hours, we conducted a raid on a suspected black site prison.”