Through the Dark (A Darkest Minds Collection) (A Darkest Minds Novel)

by Alexandra Bracken

  Sam shakes her head. “Everyone is having a hard time right now, not just us.”

  “Whatever you say.” I shrug. “How long are you going to be gone?”

  I don’t love the idea of her going out by herself, but this will give me a chance to study Lucas, try to find some kind of hidden seam I can use to crack him open.

  “It might be a while,” she admits. “There’s still some canned soup left for dinner, and Lucas will probably sleep most of today—”

  “I’ll be okay,” I promise.

  She starts to rise, but reaches down at the last second, ruffling my already insane hair. My curls always spring out in every direction, like they’re trying to escape my head. “Go back to sleep.”

  I do. I crash back down into the Never Never Land of sleep with ease, and the next time I open my eyes, the sun is coming through the bedroom’s lace curtains, warming the blanket. I throw it back, straining my ears to catch Sam’s voice. Nothing. She’s still not back.

  Of course not, stupid. She said she probably wouldn’t be back until it was time for dinner.

  I’m not scared of the quiet, and I’m not scared of my brother; it’s just so strange to feel so alone when there’s someone else here with me.

  Lucas is still on the couch, turned onto his side. I can’t tell what he’s looking at as I pass him—the painting of the flowery meadow above the bricked-over fireplace, maybe? I head out through the door in the kitchen, hugging my arms against my chest, trying to firm up my armor against the cold. Sam warned me about the lack of running water—that if I needed to go, I had to find a place outside in that tiny pocket of trees—but the actual thing is even worse than I imagined it being. At least we had functioning toilets at Black Rock.

  I give up on trying to scrape the frozen mud off the bottoms of my shoes, and bring it inside with me.

  Good ol’ Sam has left the can of soup out for me, along with two water bottles. There’s a note, too, on the back of a grocery store receipt dated three years ago: If something happens, take Lucas and go. I’ll find you. xx S

  It chills something inside me, giving it real, tangible weight. What does she think is going to happen? She’d looked reluctant to go this morning, but I’d thought it was just because she didn’t want to leave me to take care of Lucas….

  I find the can opener in a nearby drawer, and a pot to heat the soup with—but there’s no gas, apparently, to light the stove. So, cold soup it is.

  My stomach feels like it’s eating itself, I’m so hungry. I don’t bother with a spoon, just tip the contents back into my mouth and drink it down before I can think about how weird it tastes without the usual warmth. I need a second to force a smile on my face before I walk back into the small living room. I don’t know what he can hear, if he can understand what’s happening, but I want him to know that I’m not scared, and that I love him no matter what.

  “Hey, Luc,” I say, making sure to keep my voice even and quiet. I claim Sam’s seat, my toe brushing against another uneaten sandwich half. “You gonna finish that?”

  He stares over my head, chest slowly rising and falling.

  “You should, you know,” I add. “Sam’s going to worry, and you have to make sure you keep your strength up.”

  Inhale, exhale.

  I don’t want to do it, but…“Eat. Eat.”

  I get nothing, even from that order. Just a flutter of the fingers on his left hand, the one half trapped under him.

  Is it possible to be too tired and hungry to find—muster—the energy to move? I lean forward slowly, carefully picking up the sandwich. Lucas might be still, but leaning in close to him actually makes his whole body go stiff, like he’s…

  Like he’s bracing for some kind of a hit.

  I bring the peanut butter sandwich up to his lips. Press it there. He turns his head into the pillowed armrest.

  It’s not what I want, but it’s something. It’s a reaction. Sam said he doesn’t have many of those, not anymore.

  “Come on, Lucas,” I say, pressing it against his lips again. His leg straightens, but his lips are pressed in a hard, tight line. My brother is doing the exact opposite thing I want him to be doing, but at least he is fighting back—in this small way, he’s pushing back against what I want him to do. I try to focus on that, not the idea that he’s willfully starving himself in the process.

  “Okay, then we’ll talk instead.” I sit back down, putting his sandwich on a plate in my lap. If he’s pulling away from us, I need to find some kind of hook to lure him back out. The more I roll this plan over, tossing it around inside of my mind, the more it feels like he is the only one that can really break this spell that they cast on him. Lucas has to be his own hero.

  “After…after they took me away, they brought me to a facility in—I didn’t know it at the time, but it was in South Dakota. We’re in Iowa now, if you didn’t know. Never thought I’d ever go to Iowa, but I also never thought I’d have real powers, so…” I clear my throat. Ten seconds in, already rambling. “Because I hadn’t gone through the change yet, they couldn’t classify me. They had a whole bunch of other kids like me. A lot of them were orphans. Some said they were taken from their parents while they were out shopping or at parks—how sick is that? Anyway, it was almost like going to preschool. There weren’t soldiers watching us, just these women who used to be teachers. I’m a Blue, did you know that?”

  Lucas blinks. Keeps staring at that painting

  “Do you remember Mom and Dad? Anything about them? I wish I had pictures of them….I wish that more than anything. Sometimes it takes me longer than it should to remember what they looked like—what they sounded like. Melissa and Peter Orfeo—do you remember, Lucas?”

  He does not like those names. He does not like the words “mom” and “dad” and he lets me know the only way he knows how. Lucas manages to get his left arm free from under him and reaches out, pushing me farther back into my seat. It feels like his blood is boiling under his skin, and his right hand does this little twitch—I don’t know what it means, but I know it means something by the knife-sharp expression on his face.

  I stand up and step farther back out of his reach, waiting to see if he’ll get up and follow. I don’t care if he hurts me, I just want to know what’s driving this inner…no, instinctive need to protect himself against those particular words.

  Sam is right. Isn’t this proof? Isn’t the fact that some part of him recognizes those names proof that he’s still Lucas somewhere in there? Whoever did this to him, they turned the good things in his life to pain—agony. He doesn’t attack, he just recoils, drawing his legs up tight against his chest. He’s not a monster, not like me. He’s just…hurting.

  I realize I’m crying and have to turn around to scrub the tears away. Not that he’s even looking—not that he’d even understand.

  Would he?

  “We don’t have to talk about them yet.” My voice is strained as I take the seat again. He’s shifted his eyes down to the floor; his arms are locked around his knees.

  I feel so restless, like my bones could jump up out of my skin and start pacing the room, but I stay where I am, just breathing in and out. The only way I can deal with this Lucas is to focus on the Lucas he was. The time he cried about the bird’s nest that fell out of a tree. How he would come home with bruises from the other boys in his class and refuse to talk about it. On the nights I had nightmares about the little shadow creatures that lived under my bed, he would come into my room and sleep on the floor to protect me from them. He’d tell me stories until I fell asleep.

  Hours pass. I don’t need to look at the clock to know this. The sunlight shifts, gliding over the walls and floor.

  There’s this one thing…there’s this thing I used to do to comfort myself. One glimpse of Greenwood I let in on the days that felt too hard to get through at the facility. If it brings him even a fraction of comfort, then it’s worth trying.

  “We were in the car in the parking garage—it was a
few weeks before they separated us. You told me this story…what was happening to Greenwood while we were gone. Sir Sammy was still there to protect it, but because she didn’t have the other two keys—our keys—she couldn’t get inside. The forest, all of the trees—their branches grew together, weaving and lengthening until they made one big knot. The bushes stretched up and up, their thorns popping out like spikes. The animals trapped behind the wall drifted off into a magical enchanted sleep. Everything was just suspended. Time stopped. No one grew old, no one ever got sick, but no one was happy, either; no one got to play and have fun.”

  I lean against the chair’s winged back, closing my eyes. I like that idea—that everything will be the same when we finally go back.

  “Then one day, Sir Sammy came to find us. She set out on a quest across roads, through forests, even over rivers and swamps. She brought just enough gold to trade with the trolls who guarded the bridges. She tricked the ghosts into turning her invisible to pass the roadblocks and checkpoints….I think you said she even had to run through a burning castle? But she found us eventually, and we all went home together.”

  I don’t know if I’ve ever studied anyone as closely as I’m watching Lucas now. It’s the only reason I notice that his legs aren’t tucked as tightly against his chest as they were before, that he’s starting to stretch out again. His breathing is slow, easy.

  Better, I think. That’s better than before. He’s calm enough that sleep is at least a possibility. The story didn’t upset him—interesting.

  I keep going. I tell him the story of how Greenwood came to be—the same story that he wrote in that ratty green notebook with the dirt-stained cover. He had hundreds of these little tales, and we must have acted all of them out at some point, but it’s so hard to reach back through the years and retrieve the memories when I fought so hard to get them out in the first place. When you have nothing, you don’t exactly want to be reminded of the time you had everything.

  It gets easier, though. The words start to roll into sentences, and sentences into scenes, until it doesn’t matter that I don’t remember exactly what he wrote for us because I have enough blooming inside my head to fill in the cracks and blanks. Greenwood is a garden where everything grows, even ideas, even us.

  I talk until my throat hurts, closing my eyes to picture the stories that much better. The clock tick-tick-ticks, matching my pace. I don’t stop, though, not when I go to get the last water bottle, not when it starts getting so dark that I have to turn on the flashlight lantern. My stomach rumbles, and I laugh, turning it into sound effects for the story of a huge storm that swept in one day and nearly washed the three of us away.

  But I do run out of steam eventually; the tickle in my throat turns into scratchiness, and I can’t ignore the way my stomach is tight with hunger. It’s getting late—where’s Sam?

  “You must think I’m crazy—”

  I look over at Lucas and the words catch in my throat.

  He’s looking back.

  He is looking right at me.

  His throat is moving, like he’s working himself up to speak.

  “Luc?” I say. “Lucas?”

  There’s something in his eyes—something bright that flickers there and is gone. But I saw it, I know it was there, I know he is there—

  I can’t help it, my hands reach out for him before I can stop myself. And, just like that, whatever spell I managed to cast is shattered. He pulls away, pressing himself against the firm back of the couch, and looks ready to snap at me if I bring my fingers too close. Message received.

  I step back from the couch, showing him I won’t follow through, no matter how much I want to. It’s such a small thing, that one look, but I swear, he saw me. He recognized me.

  Recognized what I was saying?

  If these people, the ones who trained him to hate and dread Mom and Dad so much—even the idea of them—who did their best to stain his old life, turn it so ugly he can’t even stand to think about it…My mind races, trying to assemble the pieces before I drop them again. They would have had access to information about our family. The house where we lived, the names of families, even pictures, the schools he went to…but they wouldn’t ever know about Greenwood, would they? They wouldn’t know to turn that place into a kingdom of thorns.

  This is our way in, I think, letting my feet carry me back and forth across the floor, behind the couch. I look at the kitchen door again; I’m waiting to pounce on Sam when she comes through, waiting to tell her what I discovered. We can try it again together, see if we can draw Lucas out and get him to say whatever it was he was trying to before. I feel as light as dust, like I’m about to scatter and float to the ceiling.

  I know where we have to go.

  But Sam still isn’t home.

  I listen for the car engine, wait for the lights to flash through lace curtains in the front windows. The hours stretch on into the night and my patience is about to stretch into fear when I hear the jangle and scratch of keys in the door.

  Sam is barely inside, locking the door behind her, when I launch myself at her.

  “You said you’d be home by dinnertime!” I hate the way my words come out like a whine. Sam startles violently; the plastic bag bursts as it hits the floor, and cans go rolling in every direction. She actually clutches at her chest, like she has to catch her heart before it goes leaping out of her.

  “I know, I’m sorry,” she breathes out. We both bend to scoop up the food. She’s found soup, mostly, and beans, and a jar of peanut butter. All of which sound a thousand times better than the nothing I’ve had to eat since this morning.

  Sam cringes as she steps forward to put everything down on the counter.

  “Are you okay? What happened?” I ask. Her limp is worse—it looks like it hurts her just to stand.

  “I told you I might be late,” she says, with an edge to her voice. “I had to drive halfway across the state to find a filling station.”

  “Sorry, I didn’t mean it like that—I was just worried,” I say. “I’ve been waiting for you. Something really incredible happened!”

  Sam looks like she’s physically bracing herself for whatever is about to come out of my mouth. It pricks at my nerves, but I don’t let it deflate the flutter of excitement that’s still trapped under my skin.

  “I know where we have to go,” I say, grinning. “We have to go back to Bedford. To the old house.”

  “Bedford,” she repeats slowly, carefully, like she hasn’t said the word for years. “Why?”

  “Because earlier, I was talking to Lucas—trying to see if there was anything he remembered, or if I could just…find him, you know? And he reacted. I told him one of his old stories and it calmed him down. And I kept going and going and by the time I was finished, he was looking at me, Sam. He was watching me.”

  I don’t understand why she isn’t smiling, too. Why she isn’t running over to test this out for herself. This is so simple: we just need to take him back to the place that meant so much to him, one that doesn’t bring him any pain.

  “By Bedford, what you really mean is Greenwood, right?” Sam leans back against the counter, crossing her arms over her chest.

  “Well, yeah.”

  Her brows draw together sharply. “So your solution for helping him is to bring him back to a place where we played as kids and, what, expect him to be magically fixed? He’ll suddenly remember everything?”

  “Why are you acting like this?” I demand, getting angry myself now. “It’s not a stupid idea!” It isn’t! And even if it is, it’s not like she’s offering any other solutions.

  “Because this isn’t some fairy tale, Mia!” she says, throwing her hands up. “This isn’t make-believe. He can’t even hear your parents’ names without lashing out—how is he going to handle seeing your house?”

  “I don’t know! And neither do you!” I say, my voice cracking. “That’s the whole point! We have to at least try. Maybe they haven’t ruined that place for him. Why ar
e you shaking your head? Why are you acting like this?”

  Sam sucks in a few deep breaths, rubbing at her forehead. When she finally speaks again, the words are strained to the point of breaking. “Because I have thought about it…all day, every day, for weeks. It’s all I think about! I’ve had to watch him get worse and worse, and then, yesterday…I thought maybe you would be the thing to bring him around. He didn’t react to your name the way he did to your parents’, so I hoped that seeing you would be enough. I really did. But it did nothing.”

  That stings, more than I can put into words.

  “What are you saying, then?” I demand. “You…what? You want to just let him go?” No—it hits me then. Her words add up to a horrifying truth. “You want to give him back to the people who made him this way?”

  “No!” She presses her hands to her face. “I don’t know! I don’t…he wouldn’t want to be like this.”

  “They’re going to kill him!” I yell. “You’re sending him back to be killed! You’re giving up on him!”

  “You don’t know that!” Sam shouts. “What if the only people who can fix him are the ones who made him like this? There’s no need for the program anymore, right? Maybe they…”

  “I will take him and run if you even think about it,” I warn her. “If you want out of this, then just go. We don’t need you. We never have.”

  I’m aiming to hurt with that one, to make her feel that same jagged pain that’s got me in its grip. But instead of responding, she tilts her head back toward the kitchen door, brows drawn together. Not listening to me.

  I hear it a second later—a car engine. It clatters and moans and only gets louder before it cuts off completely.

  Doors open.

  Slam shut.

  “No—” Sam’s whole body tenses as she closes her eyes. “Get in the bedroom. Lock the door.”