The Darkest Minds

“Yeah,” Chubs said, as the fire pit came into view. It looked like they were handing out sandwiches and apples. “He said no. Apparently it’s a ‘security risk’ if someone other than him touches it.”

I shook my head. “I’ll ask tomorrow. Maybe I can convince him.”

“Could you?” Chubs grabbed my arm, his face lightening considerably. “Will you tell him that we have a very important letter to deliver, but we need to be able to look up Jack’s father’s new address? Tell him we’ll do anything—no, tell him that I will personally lick every single pair of shoes he owns clean.”

“How about I just tell him that it’s the whole reason we came here in the first place,” I said, “and leave your tongue out of it?”

Chubs waited until I had taken my sandwich from the table before pulling me away. I thought he might want to eat back at the cabin or even the dock, but we wandered until we found Liam.

He and a few of the other guys on the security team were on a break from their rounds and had found themselves a nice clearing in the trees. It was just wide enough to square off into two small teams for a quick game of hover ball, otherwise known as football with no hands. Chubs and I found an old tree trunk to share, ignoring the small group of female spectators who had gathered to cheer the teams on.

A tall redhead with an explosion of freckles on his face levitated the old football at the start of a play. He ran alongside it, trying to keep both it and himself out of the reach of the others. Liam, at one point, had the football an inch in front of him, but his hands were too slow and his footwork too bad to catch it when it was tossed to him.

“Keep your eye on the ball, butterfingers!” I called. Liam’s head whipped around in our direction. Just as his gaze locked on mine, Mike, who had the football at that point, mowed him over to get to the makeshift end zone.

Chubs and I cringed as Liam hit the ground and knocked his head against one of the old trees’ roots.

“Wow,” I said. “He wasn’t kidding about sucking at sports.”

“It’d be funny if it weren’t so damn sad.”

The other boys were too busy laughing to keep the ball in the air. Liam stayed on the ground, his face flushed red, but his entire body shaking with laughter. He lifted his shirt to wipe the sweat off his face, giving me, along with every other girl present, a glimpse of skin.

This time, I was the one blushing.

One of the guys I didn’t recognize jogged over to Liam and helped him up, patting him on the shoulder. They laughed together like they had known each other since preschool.

But that was Liam for you—he joked about Zu making friends at the drop of a hat, but he was the same way. But Chubs and I were perfectly content to sit by ourselves, watching, waiting, but not dipping our toes into the ocean. Maybe we had just gotten too used to being alone—and maybe that needed to change.

The next morning, at exactly 9:21, I found myself standing outside of Clancy Gray’s office, my hand raised and ready to knock. The only thing preventing me, besides the nerves hula-hooping my guts, was the conversation happening on the other side of the door.

“—sure we have the kind of numbers to do that. If I sent the amount of kids we’d need, there wouldn’t be enough left here to maintain watch.” It was a girl’s voice, soft but not sweet. Olivia, most likely, if they were talking about security.

“I get what you’re saying, Liv, but it would be a waste to miss this opportunity,” Clancy was saying. “We’re getting low on medical supplies, and Leda Corp has stopped running as many trucks up through our area.”

“Are you going on another one of your trips?” she pressed. “Isn’t that when you usually pick up tips about shipments?”

“Why do you ask?”

“It’s just…you haven’t gone on one in almost a year,” Olivia said. “And you used to go all the time. I know we haven’t been hurting for supplies, but maybe if you met with your source…”

“No,” Clancy said, with finality. “I can’t leave the camp anymore. It’s not safe.”

The floorboards creaked. “Did something come up on the PSF scanner?” came Hayes’s gruff voice.

“They heard about the fruit stunt, obviously,” Clancy said. “It would have been hard to miss, considering you mutilated that driver.”

“Why d’ya have to say it like that?”

“Because you should have just left him there like I told you to. I appreciate you wanting to spread the symbol, but couldn’t you have spray-painted it on the truck?”

“Are you worried this’ll be bad for our image?” Olivia’s voice dripped annoyance.

“Most people are going to have a hard enough time accepting that we’re not monsters, without reports about us maiming innocent people,” Clancy said. “So, please, keep spreading the black. Keep using the symbol. Just…try for some subtlety.”

“Some what tea?” Hayes asked.

“I’m sorry to cut our meeting short, but it seems like you both have things under control and I have someone waiting for me,” Clancy said. I pulled myself away from the door. “Liv, plan the hit. I’ll worry about our numbers.”

I took a few steps back down the staircase, but it was pointless to pretend that I hadn’t been listening. The door opened, and the girl—Olivia—was the first to appear. She was tall and willowy, with legs for days and a tan that made her skin glow.

I shook my head and turned to allow her and Hayes to squeeze by. Olivia was probably about my age, but she looked so much older. She looked like what I imagined twenty would feel like. When I looked up again, Clancy was leaning against the doorframe, grinning.

“You came.” He waved me inside and guided me toward his desk. Sitting down in one of the chairs, I had a fleeting look at the other side of his room, where the curtain had been restrung.

Clancy took his usual seat behind his desk, rocking the chair back as he smiled. “What made you change your mind?”

“It’s…like you said,” I mumbled. “There are so few of us left.” And I want to know how I can be around the people I love and not be terrified of erasing myself.

“I read on the League’s network that they weren’t able to find any other Oranges aside from you and Martin,” Clancy said. “Most of the Reds were killed, apparently. That puts us at the head of the pack.”