Hospital.
I dragged myself up, meeting the resistance of the wires attached to the back of my hand with a few gentle tugs. Someone had draped a thin white sheet over me, and I had to use my left leg to kick it off in order to inspect the new, unexpected weight around the right. A plaster cast. A long, flannel pajama shirt. Beneath it, my arms were heavily bandaged, and I felt the pull of tape along my collarbone; I reached up to feel the gauze padding.
I let myself relax, listening just for a moment to the sound of the street below, the stream of voices on the other side of the wall. Some part of me knew that I should be afraid, but I was too exhausted to try. When I couldn’t stand the sour, dry feeling of my mouth and throat any longer, I reached for the water glass on the stand nearby and downed it in one go, nearly knocking over a small vase of flowers.
There were crutches leaning against the opposite wall, under a TV mounted from the ceiling. But the moment I started to swing my feet over the side of the bed, the door cracked open.
I don’t know who was more surprised—me, or the petite, steel-haired woman who stepped inside with a small tray of food. Green eyes widened.
“You’re awake!” She shut the door quickly behind her, then turned back to me, absolutely glowing.
I stared at her, devouring the sight. She mistook my silence for distress—or confusion, I thought—because she quickly set the tray down and dragged a nearby chair over. “Do you know who I am?”
The word burst out of me. “Grams.”
She grinned, taking my hand and holding it between her soft, paper-thin skin. For a long time, we did nothing but study each other. Her face was softer now, and she’d let her dark hair lighten completely. But there was this look of mischief in her eyes that was so uniquely hers, I felt myself choke up at the sight.
“You’ve seen some trouble, haven’t you?”
I nodded and she leaned over and kissed my forehead.
“You’re here,” I repeated, somehow dumbfounded by this. “You found me.”
“Little girl, after they took you, we never stopped looking for you. The moment they released the list of children and the location of the camp, we were in the car speeding straight for you. It took us hours to find out which hospital you were in. You had quite the crowd guarding you, they almost didn’t let me and your folks in.”
I shook my head, unable to process this. “They don’t remember me.”
“No, they don’t. It’s very odd, but they...how do I say it? They can’t drum up the details, but you’ve always been there. Deep down. Not here,” she said, tapping her forehead. She moved her hand down to cover her chest. “Here.”
I almost couldn’t get the words out. “Do you know what I am?”
“Well, for starters, you’re my darling, precious girl, who can do something a little peculiar with her mind,” she said, her soft Southern accent stronger than ever. “You also seem to be somewhat of a media darling.”
I sat back at that, suspicion working a slow path through my mind.
Grams held up a finger, walking over to retrieve a newspaper from a purse I hadn’t noticed by the door. “It’s been a feeding frenzy outside of the hospital for days. You have two armed guards posted outside of your room at all times, a whole wing to yourself, and still a vulture tried to sneak in and take a photo of you.”
The New York Times had run with the news of the camp hit and the subsequent fallout. I spread the newspaper out over my lap, apprehension already cutting through my hard-won calm. In the time I’d been gone, Alice’s original idea for an information package had changed, blossoming into the complete story of what had happened in Los Angeles, and at the Ranch. It was pages of her photographs of us, all of us—planning, playing, working. The road code. She’d written about why the deceptions had been necessary, and what editors and media bosses had worked with us to cover up the truth until the Thurmond camp hit began. There was a long profile of Cole, his face grinning up at me in black and white.
And then there was the piece about me. While she hadn’t gone into any details about my abilities, Alice had deprived readers of pretty much nothing else. I was at the edge of many of her photos, just out of frame, face hidden by shadows or hair. The others—Cate, especially—must have filled her in on how I’d escaped Thurmond in the first place, what my life had been like on the run and with the League, and then, how I’d been willing to go back to the camp to help them. The paper had run photos of me being carried to the ambulance, but Liam’s face was out of the shot. It might as well have been a completely different person because I didn’t recognize that small, pale girl at all.
I shrank back against the pillow, feeling exposed under Grams’s watchful eye.
“There’s more, if you’d like to read it,” she said, taking the paper away.
“Not now,” I said. “Has anyone else...”
“Hmm?” Grams walked the paper back across the room and took up her tray of hospital food again, settling it over me. “Has anyone else, what?”
“Been by,” I mumbled. “To visit.”
Grams gave me a knowing smile. “A charming young woman with a mouth that could give a sailor a heart attack? A sweet little one who brought you flowers? The one who spent half a day chasing doctors and nurses around, demanding answers about your condition? Or, by any chance, are you referring to a very well-mannered Southern boy?”
“All of them,” I whispered. “Are they here?”
“Not at the moment,” Grams said. “They had to go back to the hotel—everyone’s in Charleston for this fancy press conference. But they were here, and they asked me to give you this for when you woke up, so you’d know how to find them.”
Grams handed me a folded piece of paper. Hotel stationery, as it turned out, with a telephone number scrawled across it. Call as soon as you can. Liam’s handwriting.
“I missed you very much, darling girl,” Grams said softly. “One day, I hope you’ll talk to me about what’s happened to you. I don’t want to read about it; I’d much rather hear it from you.”
“I missed you too,” I whispered. “So, so much. I wanted to find you.”
She smoothed the hair back from my face. “Do you want to see them now?”
I didn’t need any clarification about who them meant.
“Do they...” I swallowed. “Do they want to see me?”
“Oh, yes,” Grams said. “As long as it’s all right with you.”
After a moment, I nodded. When she left the room, I balanced my tray on the small table. My heart was hammering in my chest the moment I heard their footsteps.
The last time, I thought, this is the last time I’ll do this....
Grams appeared first, stepping aside to let a slight, frail woman in, followed closely by a salt-and-pepper-haired man.
It was remarkable how little I remembered about what they really looked like. Maybe the years had done damage to them the way they had to me, thinning them out, running them back and forth over life’s sharp edges. It was so odd to see the shape of my nose on another person’s face. My eyes. My mouth. The dimple on my chin. He wore a polo shirt tucked into slacks, she wore a dress, and I had the strange thought that they had dressed up to see me.
I wished it didn’t feel so painfully uncomfortable, but I could see it in their faces. They looked at me, and all they remembered was the morning I’d been taken away, when they’d forced me out of the house in their confusion. The years stood between us, empty, aching.
So I started with the sweetness. A camping trip we had taken a very, very long time ago in the Blue Ridge Mountains; the hike down through the autumn trees, just beginning to change their colors. The air had been crisp and clear, the rolling mountains only a few shades darker than the endless blue sky above. We’d slept together, the three of us, in this little pocket of warmth in our tent, fishing for our food. I’d watched, amazed,
as Dad had started the campfire.
The knotted memories released with only the slightest touch, as if they’d already begun to unravel on their own. I pulled back from each of their minds in turn, barely able to control my own feelings without the sudden flood of theirs.
“Someone please say something,” Grams said, exasperated.
But I didn’t need to say a word. I only needed to let them hold me as they cried.
I’ve heard some people say life can change in a day, completely flipping you feet over head. But they’re wrong. Life doesn’t need a day to change.
It needs three.
Three days for parachutes to start falling from the sky, bringing packages and soldiers in blue United Nations berets into the cities that needed them most.
For a small coalition of foreign leaders to step foot on American soil for the first time in seven years.
For Senator Cruz’s story to be released, and for her to be chosen to oversee the entire country’s restoration process.
For the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff to resign, shrugging off the shame and collecting his pension.
For the Armed Forces to issue new orders, and to then realize the men and women who’d left their postings were never coming back.
For the President of the United States of America to disappear off the face of the earth.
For the United Nations to divide the country up into four peacekeeping zones, each overseen by a former senator of that region and a foreign power, and send in troops to oversee the policing.
For the first of nearly a hundred water riots to occur.
For Leda Corp to issue a statement denying their involvement in Agent Ambrosia, but oh-so-generously offering to supply a chemical they claimed could neutralize it.
I read about it in the papers my parents brought in. Watched it on the news. Absorbed this new reality. And that night, when visiting hours were over and two kind-but-firm nurses led my family away, I reached over for the phone on the wall. The painkillers they’d given me were making me drowsy, but I didn’t want to sleep without hearing his voice. Without making sure they were all okay.
I dialed the number and lay back down, the phone cradled between my ear and shoulder. I spun the curling phone cord around my fingers, waiting as it rang...and rang...and rang. And rang.
They’re probably out. Doing...something. I tried not to let myself deflate as I started to reach over to hang the phone back up. I could try again in the morning.
“Hello?” The voice burst through the connection, breathless. “Hello?”
I drew the phone back and smiled as I whispered, “Hi.”
Liam let out a soft breath. “It’s so good to hear your voice. How are you feeling?”
“Better now.”
“I’m so sorry we couldn’t stay. Senator Cruz asked us to come back to the hotel—there’s been—it’s no excuse, but it’s been busy. Both Chubs and Vi said that you’d be mad at us if we didn’t go.”
“They were right.” I settled back down on my side. “What’s been going on? Grams said something about a press conference?”
“Yeah, for the plan. The big plan. It’s been a parade of faces coming in and out—oh, God, and get this. We have a representative in the deliberations.”
“Who?” I asked. If it wasn’t Liam, then...who?
“Guess who opened his big Chubsie mouth and started, in glorious detail, outlining every single thing he thought Senator Cruz should be doing the other night at dinner? It was a magnificent rant.”
I closed my eyes, laughing. “No. Really?”
“Really. She told him that he had to report to the meeting room the next morning,” Liam continued. “He was either elated or irritated by the honor. Sometimes it’s hard to tell with him.”
I listened to the sound of him breathing in the silence that followed. “Are you okay?”
“Yeah. Yeah, darlin’, everyone’s fine,” he said, but there was an obvious strain in his voice. “Mom’s getting here tomorrow. She keeps saying that word, too: fine. I’m...I just wish you were here, is all. I’m going to come first thing tomorrow.”
“No,” I said, “first thing in the morning, I’m coming to you.”
“Maybe I’ll just have to meet you halfway,” he said, a laugh tucked into the edge of his voice.
I listened as he told me about the hundred-odd kids who were still waiting to be picked up by their parents. They’d been given free rooms at the hotel, free meals too, and a veritable army of volunteers had come in with supplies and clothes. He told me about catching Vida and Chubs getting handsy with each other in the elevator. Zu’s small shrug when she was told her parents had managed to leave the country, and, until they could be contacted, she had a choice: go home and stay with her aunt, uncle, and Hina, or live with Vida, Nico, and Cate near D.C., so the latter could consult with Senator Cruz. How it hadn’t even taken her a second to settle on D.C.
I told him about my parents. The way the soldiers posted outside of my door peeked in every time it opened. The way the doctor’s hand shook, just a little, as he examined my cuts. And at some point, I felt myself begin to drift off to sleep.
“Hang up, go to sleep,” Liam said, sounding just as tired.
“You hang up.”
And in the end, neither of us did.
The next morning, clear on the other side of town, I sat sandwiched between my parents on a couch in the lobby of a Marriott hotel in Charleston, West Virginia. It was a testament to how packed it was that no one, not a single member of the press, seemed to notice me as we sat there. At about a quarter til, the crowds began to migrate toward the elevators to head up to the large conference room.
As we waited, Mom kept insisting I needed something—water, a snack, a book, some Tylenol—until finally, Dad reached over and placed a calming hand on her arm. I caught him watching me out of the corner of his eye, though, as if he needed to keep checking I was still there. This was how we were warming to each other: slowly, clumsily, earnestly.
Grams paced the floor in front of us, and it was only because she stopped that I knew someone was coming.
But it wasn’t Liam or Vida—it was Cate. Her pale blond hair had been smoothed back into a neat ponytail, and she was wearing makeup, a dress. She seemed shadowed somehow, face drawn in a way that made my heart clench. I flew up to my feet, my dad reaching up to steady me as I rocked forward on my walking cast. Her pace slowed somewhat as she saw me, and I was glad when I saw the smile stretch across her face. If she had started crying, I wouldn’t have trusted myself not to.
“I’m so proud of you,” she whispered. “You fill me with awe. Thank you.”
I hugged her as fiercely as she hugged me and I was filled, filled to the brim, with the warmth of her love. When I finally released her and introduced her to my family, it was clear they were already well aware of who she was.
She clasped my hands in hers. “Can we talk later? I need to run upstairs, but I didn’t want to go another minute without seeing for myself that you were okay.”
I nodded, letting her draw me into another embrace. Just as I started to pull back, she said, her voice low, “There’s someone here you won’t want to see.”
I had a feeling I knew exactly who she was talking about, and was grateful she had given me a warning ahead of time to prepare myself.
Liam, Vida, Nico, and Zu got off the elevator that she got on. I couldn’t stop the broad grin from spreading across my face. Zu was the first to reach me, a streak of pink dress cutting through the lobby to wrap her arms around my center. Nico hung back, shifting awkwardly between his feet until I urged him over. Vida had no such qualms. She gave me a hard punch to the shoulder, which I think I was supposed to read as “playful.” And Liam, well aware of my parents’ eyes on him, reintroduced himself to them, shaking their hands. He came toward me slowly, giving me time to
get a good read on him. His hair was cut and tamed, and he was clean-shaven. If he was tired, it didn’t show—but I saw a shadow of grief in his eyes. When he offered a small, shy smile, I returned it, my heart feeling like it was about to leap out of my chest.
“Hello again, ma’am,” he said, perfectly polite as he shook Grams’s hand. She planted a big one on his cheek and turned to me with a wink.
When he reached me, Liam simply took my arm and asked, “Everyone ready to go up?”
It was stupid to feel a pang of disappointment that I hadn’t gotten a proper greeting, but my hands were practically burning with the need to run my hands through his hair, smooth the lines from his face.
When the elevator doors slid open I started forward, but he held us in place, allowing my parents, Zu, Vida, Nico, and about a half-dozen others onto the elevator. “You know what?” Liam said, waving my dad off when he reached to hold the doors open. “We’ll get the next one.”
And the minute the doors slammed shut, his arm slid around my waist, his other hand wove through my hair, and I was being kissed to within an inch of my life.
“Hi,” he said when he finally came up for air.
“Hi,” I said, now both dizzy and breathless as he leaned down to rest his forehead against mine. “Do we have to go up?”
He nodded, but it was another few moments before he actually reached over and pushed the up button.
The press conference had been set up in the hotel’s ballroom space—a room that accommodated a hundred chairs, three-fourths of which were already taken by the time we got up there. When I saw that the others had saved us seats at the very back in the room, I almost cried in gratitude. Already, I was feeling eyes shift toward me, and the uncomfortable feeling would only have been compounded if we’d been in a position for the whole room to stare at the back of my head. If I couldn’t make a clean escape if I needed to. Liam seemed to sense this and guided me forward, a hand on the small of my back, to an aisle seat.
No sooner had we found our spots than two men, both in military dress uniforms, moved away from us to the other side of the room. Vida gave them a little toothy smile and wave when they glanced back at us again.
In the Afterlight Page 46
