In The Afterlight

She was crying, really crying, and I was so stunned by it that I just stood there. She spun away from me, anger and humiliation coming off her in waves, backing herself farther into the corner.

You just replaced him.

Like we were nothing to you.

Was that really what she thought? A deep, echoing pain ripped through me. That I’d never...that I’d never cared about them? That I wasn’t committed? I was cold to them in the beginning, I know I was, but it had only been to protect myself. Letting people in, dropping the walls from around your heart—I couldn’t risk being vulnerable like that in the League, not when I needed to survive.

It had seemed crucial to learn to bury every feeling, good or bad, at Thurmond—to fold every wild emotion back before it got away from me and someone wearing black noticed. There, if you were still, you were mostly invisible; if you couldn’t be provoked and punished, you were left alone. I’d fallen right back into that strategy at the League, functioning from moment to moment, Op to Op, lesson to lesson, numbing every stray feeling to avoid exploding with how unfair it all was, how terrifying, and how crushing. So no one, even for a second, would question my loyalty to their cause. For a long time, it had been the only way I had of protecting myself from the world and everyone in it.

But Jude...Jude had burrowed right in, either oblivious to what I was doing, or trying in spite of it.

Did she blame me for all of this? If she had been Leader, would any of this have ever happened? Would we all...I closed my eyes, trying to black out the images that stormed in my mind. Jude on the ground. Jude suffocating on his own blood. Jude’s broken back, twisted legs. The look in his eyes, like he was begging me to help him—to kill him and end the suffering.

That damn nightmare. Chubs told me again and again that it would have been instantaneous...that his...why was it so hard to say the word “death”? He’d died, not passed away. Jude hadn’t passed anywhere. He hadn’t slipped away. He’d died. His life was over. There would never be another word from him; he’d come to an end the way all stories eventually did. He wasn’t in a better place. He wasn’t with me. Jude was buried with all of his hopes under cement and dirt and ash.

“God,” Vida raged, her voice raw, “even now, you can’t even f**king deny it, can you? Just leave me alone—go away before I—”

“You think I don’t know that it was my fault? That if I had kept him close...if I hadn’t let him come at all...” I told her quietly. “I imagine how it was for him, how in the end, he must have suffocated under all that weight. I wonder how much pain he must have been in, and if Chubs is lying to my face every time he swears it would have been too quick for him to feel anything. My mind keeps circling back to it, over and over. He must have been so scared—it was so dark down there, wasn’t it? And he just fell behind. Do you think he realized it? That he was waiting for us to come back and...” I knew I was babbling, but I couldn’t stop myself. “...he shouldn’t have been out at all...he was only fifteen, he was only fifteen...”

Vida backed against the wall, sliding down it, openly sobbing, both hands pressed to her face. “It was my fault, why don’t you f**king see that? I was in the back, you weren’t even close to him! I should have heard him, I should have made him walk in front of me, but I was so damn scared I wasn’t thinking at all!”

“No—Vi, no.” I crouched down in front of her. “It was so loud down there—”

This wasn’t her fault at all. I felt a fierce surge of protectiveness go through me at the thought of anyone else walking by and seeing her so vulnerable. Later, when she pulled herself back together, it would make her mortification about this that much worse. I rearranged myself as I sat down, trying to block the view of her from anyone coming down the hall. When I reached out to her, she didn’t stop me.

“You and Cate, you won’t even say his name,” she said, “I want to talk about him, but you keep trying to box him up and put him away.”

“I know you think I don’t care.” My chest felt unbearably tight. “It’s just...if I don’t hold these things in, I feel like I’ll dissolve. But you, all of you...the only thing I’ve ever wanted was to keep us all together and safe, and I can’t ever manage to do that.”

“Them, you mean.” Vida hugged her knees to her chest. “I get it. They’re your people.”

“And you’re not?” I asked. “There’s no ranking of who I care about most. I couldn’t do it even if I tried.”

“Well if the building was on fire, who would you save first?”

“Vida!”

She rolled her eyes, wiping her face. “Oh, calm down, boo. I was just kidding. Obviously it wouldn’t be me. I can take care of my own damn business.”

“I know,” I said. “I don’t know who I’d try to save first, but if I had to pick someone to back me up on the rescue, there wouldn’t be any question.”

She shrugged and after a while said quietly, “The thought of going back into that room makes me...I know this is going to make me sound like I’m on crack, but I keep walking into rooms and I keep looking for him like he’s going to be there. It’s like a punch to the goddamn throat when I catch myself.”

“I do that, too,” I said. “I keep waiting for him to come around each corner.”