In The Afterlight

Until that moment, I think shock and panic for news about Liam had shut off the part of myself that would have let me think through specifics of what had happened. If Cole had been alive when they brought the Red in. If he knew what was going on, if he had been afraid, if he felt the pain. But something shattered in me at delivering the news; the flimsy door keeping the pain out bowed in and then exploded into a shower of splinters that cut through every part of me. I couldn’t breathe. I had to press my hand against my mouth to keep from sobbing. My friend—Cole—how could this—why did it have to be like this? After everything, why did it have to end like this? We were going to do something—for the first time, he had a real future—

Chubs stepped forward, reaching for the phone, but I tore away from him, twisting out of his reach. I felt wild with anger and pain, like someone had thrown acid on my skin. I had to keep this connection to Liam. I had to stay with him. This would destroy him—the agony of knowing that was as sharp as the loss itself. I couldn’t lose Liam, too.

“What do you mean, proof? What did they do to him?” Any coherency was gone. Liam broke down with each word until he was sobbing. “I couldn’t get him out....”

“No,” I said, voice hoarse, “of course you couldn’t. There was no way and he wouldn’t have wanted you to try if it meant they got you, too. Liam, it doesn’t—it doesn’t feel this way now, but you did the right thing.”

The sound of him crying finally did me in, too. My grip on the phone relaxed as my hand lost feeling, allowing Chubs to finally pry the phone away from me.

“Buddy. Buddy, I know, I’m so sorry. Can you make it back here? Do you need us to come get you?” He smoothed his hand back over his hair, squeezing his eyes shut. “Okay. I want you to tell me everything, but you have to do it in person. You have to let us take care of you. Slow down, it’s okay—”

Chubs cast a helpless look my way. I held out my hand for the phone.

“I’m not coming back, I can’t—it’s—”

I interrupted him. “Liam, listen to me, I’m going to come get you, but you have to tell me where you are. Are you hurt?”

“Ruby—” He sucked in a harsh breath. I could imagine him then, exactly as he must have been. Still in his Op blacks, his left forearm braced against the pay phone’s aluminum shell, his face flushed and wild. It broke my heart all over again.

I gripped the phone so tightly I heard its cheap plastic shell creak. Spinning so I was facing the corner and not the gallery of faces looking at me, I dropped to a crouch in the far corner of the room. “It’s going to be okay—”

“It’s not okay!” he shouted. “Stop saying that! It’s not! I’m not coming back. I have to tell Harry and—and Mom, oh, God, Mom—”

“Please let me come get you,” I begged.

“I can’t come back to there, to you guys....” The feeling of nausea that had been growing, twisting my stomach, rose like a cresting wave. His voice seemed to click in and out. “The line is cutting off, I don’t have any more money....”

“Liam? Can you hear me?” Panic hit me like a swarm of wasps in my head.

“—I knew this would happen....dammit...you...sorry...Ruby...sorry...”

I don’t know when or how she’d managed to slip by so many people, or if she’d made herself so small and silent she’d been here the entire time without me noticing. Zu—she took the cell phone away, I tried to get it back, but she had it to her ear, and she was saying, over and over again, in a voice as sweet as little bells, “Don’t leave, please don’t leave, come back, please...”

I heard the dial tone. I heard that sound, saw the phone slide out of her fingers, and I knew it was over. Chubs reached for her and she clung to him, burying her face against his shoulder. “Come on, let’s get some water. Some air. Some...thing.”

“I want to go out and find him,” I said.

“I’ll go with her,” Vida added quickly. “Nico can trace the call.”

“You can’t,” Chubs told me gently. “You have a responsibility here.”

So? I wanted to shout. I felt like tearing at my hair, my shirt—but I couldn’t, I couldn’t do any of those goddamn things because Cole had wrested that stupid promise out of me. Take care of things, Boss. Take care of things. Cate and Harry wouldn’t be here for another two days. I needed to...I had to tell everyone.

He trusted you with this. He thought you could do it. You have to do this.

I had to. If Cole wasn’t here, if Liam wasn’t coming back, then I was in charge, and I had to tell the others. I had to stay here and keep it together.

“Give me a minute,” I said. I only needed one. I walked briskly toward Cate’s old quarters and shut the door behind me. I found the edge of the small bed in the darkness, the same one Liam and I had slept in the night before, and sat down hard. My hands reached along the coarse sheets until they found the soft fabric of the hooded sweater he’d left behind. I buried my face in the fabric, dragging in the scent of him, until finally I released it all in a silent, throat-burning scream.

Why did you have to go in? How am I supposed to do this? Why hadn’t I pushed back harder, knowing where the information had come from?

And there was no answer, just the terrible silence, just the darkness pressing in.

Clancy.