In The Afterlight

Cole had become so good at slipping into the armor of charm he always wore that I’d let myself be distracted enough to miss the signs of real turmoil beneath. He didn’t trust anyone with the truth of exactly how deep the pain cut, did he? Maybe in time, he could confide in me, and I could be for him what Liam and the others had been to me. They hadn’t let the grip of Thurmond, of what I was, drag me back into a small, lonely existence.

“All right,” I said, taking the paper back from him and pushing him into the room. “Come on.”

Nico had to look up and then look again for his mind to accept that I was the one standing in front of him.

“Can you download the files from this server?” I asked.

He stared at me long enough that I felt an itch to fidget.

“Yeah, sure, no problem,” Nico mumbled, taking the paper.

The Greens had backed away from his chair to make room for us, but edged closer in curiosity as Nico brought up a series of screens. The strange code that formed the computer’s language began to scroll by.

“Hey, guys,” Cole said, in his best buddy-buddy voice. “Can one of you go grab the senator from her quarters and send her our way? The rest of you would absolutely be my heroes if you went and helped poor Lucy scrape together dinner.”

They were too smart not to figure out they were being dismissed, but none of them seemed to care. On the screen, a window popped up, and a half dozen folders appeared.

“What was that for?” I asked when the last Green had slipped out and shut the door behind him. Cole silently pointed down at Nico, who’d gone so still in his chair, it wasn’t clear if he was breathing. His shoulders sank, rolled down and forward, like he wanted nothing more than to curl his ends together like an old piece of paper and disappear.

“Nico, my man,” Cole said, with that same casual voice. “Do you think you could go—”

“I’m not going to go.” I had to strain my ears to hear him.

“Maybe you could—”

“I’m not going to go,” Nico said, firmly, and clicked on the first of the file folders. It was only when the bigger folder opened that I saw the label: THURMOND.

There were maybe fifty files total inside of it—a mixture of videos, photos, and scanned documents. Nico navigated across the screen, releasing his breath harshly. The cursor hovered over one of the images.

Somehow, even before he opened it, a part of me knew what face would appear on the screen. He had always seemed younger than he actually was, but the image of Nico as a boy, an actual young child, drove into me with all the gentleness of a spike. His dark hair had been shaved down to black fuzz, and his normally rich, tan skin was the color of cement powder. It contrasted sharply with his dark, expressionless eyes, and the scars still healing along his scalp.

Oh God, I thought, a sick feeling slamming into me. Oh God...

Nico at seventeen stared at the child like he was a stranger. This was the hell he’d had to climb out of, and he wasn’t running from it. He wasn’t even turning his back on it. A slow, grudging respect pooled inside of me as I watched him hold it together when I felt like I was one wrong image away from shattering.

Thurmond. This was Nico at Thurmond. The camp’s early years had been dedicated to researching the cause of IAAN, but had expanded as the years went on. Before I ever set foot there, Leda Corp had taken over that branch of research and moved those original test subjects—kids—to their facility in Philadelphia. Cole had been in deep cover at Leda, trying to turn up valuable intel on the research they’d done on the kids, and it had been Cole who had managed to ultimately extract Nico by secretly supplying the method of doing so to Alban. After Clancy had gotten himself out of Thurmond and left all of the other kids behind.

“You okay?” Cole dragged one of the nearby chairs over so he was right beside him. After a moment, I did the same from the other side. “You don’t have to see this,” Cole added. “Ruby and I can go through the files.”

“These are...his, aren’t they?”

Cole and I exchanged a look. He nodded.

“If he has the files on the Thurmond testing program,” Nico said, “he might have some information on here about the cause of IAAN. Or, at least, what they ruled out. This is...” Nico took a shuddering breath in and released it before closing the photo and moving out of that folder entirely, back to the full list. “It’s good. If we get something out of it, it’s good.”

Senator Cruz stuck her head in, and Cole waved her over, giving up his seat as he quickly explained what we were looking at.

“My God,” she breathed out, leaning closer as Nico opened the folder labeled FEDERAL COALITION. Her discomfort grew exponentially when he pulled open the document with her name. There were hundreds, literally hundreds, of profiles spread out among the folders: PSFs, men and women in President Gray’s inner circle, Children’s League agents, Alban, and kids—including myself, Liam, and Chubs. In the latter case, he’d clearly pulled the original files from the PSF and skip tracer networks and expanded on them with his own new section: observations.

His observations of me: Indecisive when making a decision that affects only her. More confident in dealing with others close to her to the point of being overly protective. No real vices—doesn’t enjoy sweet foods, enjoys older music (related to memories of father). Allows herself one unrealistic hope of finding her grandmother. Desperation for closeness and intimacy means response to overtures of friendship. Tease out thread of physical attraction. Gullible, not vindictive, forgives too easily...