In The Afterlight

Cole—my mind was firing too fast, black fading into my vision. I have to tell Cole.

And I had to get away from the agent before I gave in to the terrifyingly real temptation to put a bullet in her right here and right now.

Because it wasn’t enough for her to withhold food, to levy threats about leaving us behind if we weren’t quieter, didn’t move faster, didn’t keep up with the rest of them. She wanted to be done with us once and for all—to hand our leashes off to the one group she thought could actually control us.

And she wanted the reward money we’d bring in to fund her next strike.

2

BY THE TIME I REACHED the second level of the warehouse, my chest was on fire and my head was a tangle of dark thoughts and dread. The fire escape rattled as Sen started climbing after me, and I couldn’t get through the window—away from her—fast enough. Brushing aside the dark Ops jacket they’d hung up to block the weak interior light from the street, I slid my legs over the ledge and dropped inside.

My eyes frantically jumped from one flickering puddle of candlelight to another, skipping over the dark spaces in between. Every single kid seemed to be huddled in the far corner of the room, as if Gates and Ferguson had backed them into it in exchange for food.

No Cole, I thought, raking a hand back through my hair. Dammit. I needed him. He had to know—we had to figure this out.

“A little appreciation would go a long way,” Gates sneered. It was like his words had disturbed a thick layer of dust in the silent room. Voices immediately floated up in quiet, quick thanks before the kids settled themselves back down again, eyes only on the floor or each other. I saw now what I hadn’t wanted to admit to myself before. In the end, all of the months—years—we’d spent training with the agents, and fighting alongside them...it all came to nothing the second they convinced themselves we were checks waiting to be cashed in.

I found the three faces I was looking for. Vida was back from her own scouting, a nasty cut marring her deep bronze skin, which Chubs was trying to bandage. Next to him was a black backpack. I bit my lip, trying to keep the relief I felt to myself. Inside was the research I’d rescued from Clancy’s attempt to incinerate it—the sheets of graphs and charts and medical gibberish his mother had put together in her search for a cure for IAAN.

“Grannie, I swear to God, if you don’t lay off the f**king fussing—” Vida hissed.

“Let me just disinfect it!” I heard him protest.

Liam sat with his back against the wall, knees up, arms resting on them. He was watching Gates out of the corner of his eye with the same hard expression he’d had ever since the attack. He didn’t reach for the food, but simply passed it on to Chubs when it came into his hands.

The agents would turn them in, too. What if I hadn’t seen those agents tonight—stopped and actually listened to what Sen and the others were saying? They were going to blindside us with it, set the deal up in advance over the next few days. There wouldn’t have been time for me to do anything. Why did I think I could protect all of them? I couldn’t even protect one kid, not when it mattered most. Jude—

Sen knocked against my shoulder as she swept into the room behind me. I barely felt it.

I was above ground, I knew it, but it didn’t matter—right now, I was in a tunnel, blindly squeezing my way through the collapsed walls threatening to crush us. Chased by distant screams, unseeing eyes, and the roar of cement splintering; earth pouring down, smothering everything in its path. The face floating in front of my closed eyes was freckled, his doe-brown eyes wide as he watched his own life end. I saw all of those things, and nothing stopped them. No good memory was strong enough to wipe away how I imagined it must have been. How Jude had slipped away forever in the dark.

I felt myself disconnect. Every nerve in my body lit up, every part inside of me was racing, picking up speed. The pressure inside of me built until I was sure I was going to be crushed by it, and the thought that everyone around me would witness it made everything ten times worse.

The touch at my waist was gentle enough that I didn’t register it at first, but steady enough to turn me toward the door—strong enough, even, to keep me upright when my knees buckled at that first step.

Outside of the shrinking room, the hallway was at least ten degrees cooler. Quiet and dark enough that my skin didn’t feel like it was bubbling up at the touch of fire in my veins. I only went a few steps down the hall, just enough to be out of the line of sight from the door, before I was carefully lowered down and maneuvered so my head was between my knees. Familiar hands slid the jacket off my shoulders, lifted my hair away from the sweat drenching the back of my neck.

“You’re okay, darlin’,” Liam’s voice was saying. Something cool touched my neck—a bottle of cold water, maybe. “Just take a deep breath.”

“I—I can’t,” I said between shallow gasps.

“Of course you can,” he said calmly.

“I have to—” I brought my hands up, clawing at whatever cord was wrapped around my windpipe. Liam took them in one of his own, holding them flat against his chest.

“You don’t have to do anything right now,” he said softly. “Everything is okay.”

It’s not, you have no idea, I wanted to say. A sharp ache pierced my right temple, throbbing harder and harder with each passing second.

Touching him did help. I forced myself to match my breathing with the rise and fall of his chest. The cold air worked slowly to untangle the mess of thoughts knotting into a headache at the front of my skull. The pressure eased its grip enough for me to straighten and lean back against the wall.