In the Afterlight Read online

  When I finished, I felt like a rock that had survived a landslide. Steady enough to go three doors down the hall to deal with Clancy Gray.

  I nudged his side with my foot, a bit harder than I maybe needed to. “Wake up.”

  He groaned, eyes bleary as I shone the flashlight directly into his face. “If this chat doesn’t involve cutting my hands free, a mirror, either of the Stewart brothers’ messy and untimely deaths, or a clean pair of clothes, I’m not interested.”

  I hooked my heel over his arm, forcing him to roll onto his back. He glowered up at me through the dark fringe that hung over his eyes in spikes. The slime from the sewers he’d taken to escape HQ had faded from a sickly- looking black to a dry, crusty gray that flaked off him when he so much as cocked a brow.

  “No food?” He snorted. “Using deprivation as torture is so...direct.”

  “This isn’t torture,” I said, rolling my eyes. At least not in the traditional sense. I don’t know that Clancy was all that bothered that we kept him separate from the others, in a kind of solitary confinement. I think what bothered him was that he was being blocked from information, only able to catch snatches of conversation through the wall. That was Clancy Gray’s perfect hell. That, and the filthy clothes that stuck to his skin in odd places.

  I held up the sweatpants and T-shirt and dropped them onto his face. “I’m going to cut your hands and feet free, and I’m going to give you a rag and bucket of water to clean yourself up with, and then you’re going to come quietly and do exactly as I say.”

  I used the small knife Cole had given me to cut the zip tie around his ankles, ignoring the welts circling the skin there.

  “What’s going on?” he asked, sitting up. “What are you doing?”

  “We’re moving.”

  “Where?” Clancy asked, rubbing his wrists once they were free, too. “I heard there’s an old meat locker a few blocks away. That would be an upgrade.”

  I turned my back as he stripped down, throwing the rag back over my shoulder in his general direction. I kept my eyes focused on the floor, listening to him scrub himself down.

  “Of course it would be too much to ask for warm water,” he groused. “I don’t even get a blanket—”

  He stopped moving. I heard the rag slop against the tile floor and glanced back over my shoulder, keeping my gaze above his bare shoulders. His eyes were narrowed at me, clearly working a thought through. “What’s really going on?”

  “We’re moving,” I repeated, fighting back the usual swell of disgust. He didn’t get information. He didn’t get anything, other than the little he didn’t even deserve. When I didn’t elaborate, I felt the tickling sensation at the back of my skull as his mind casually tried to bump up against mine, as if knocking to get in. I shut it down, picturing a door slamming in his face. He flinched at the force of it.

  “You’re going to trade me—turn me in,” he said in a tight voice. “That’s why you’re getting me all cleaned up.”

  If it hadn’t been so close to what the agents were planning for us, I would have tried torturing him with the possibility. As it was, I didn’t have the stomach for it. “You’d like that, wouldn’t you? Bend a few of the PSFs to your will, orchestrate an escape...”

  “Wow, so you are still capable of speaking sentences that contain more than three words,” Clancy said, sliding the clean shirt over his head and dragging the sweatpants up, one leg at a time. He looked paler than I remembered—as thin and shadowed as the rest of us. “How are you still so angry? Don’t tell me this is about that stupid kid.”

  I don’t remember anything that happened after I landed the first punch on his jaw, only that when I came back to my senses, there were arms locked around my waist and I was still thrashing, trying to break free.

  “Hey—hey! Cool it!” Cole released me and shoved me away from both him and Clancy. “You’re better than that. Get a grip!”

  I pressed a fist against my chest, gasping for breath. Clancy still had his arms up over his head when Cole lifted him onto his feet, dragged his hands behind his back, and fastened a new zip tie. He jammed an old pillowcase we’d been using as a hood down over him next, knotting it to ensure it’d stay on.

  Without another word, he dragged me over to the door, anger drawing deep lines in his face. “I need you focused,” he hissed. “We’re going to be driving for hours and he’ll be in the car with us the whole time. If he tries something, you have to be the one to shut it down.”

  I stared at Clancy, taking in the way he angled his head toward us. Who’s to say he wasn’t “trying something” right now on Cole? He’d controlled far more people in far worse circumstances—this would be nothing for him. I’d just assumed that physically separating him from the others would be enough to protect them, but what if it wasn’t?

  “So we’re going for a car ride?” he called over.

  I searched Cole’s face for a hint of Clancy’s influence, pushing down the bubble of fear in my chest. His eyes were sharp, not glassy, and there wasn’t that blank quality to him. In fact, he was smirking.

  “Isn’t there a way to knock him out?” I murmured. It would be safer. For all of us.

  “Only by force, and I’d rather not run the risk of accidentally giving him a traumatic brain injury.” Then, louder, he added, “He’ll be riding in the trunk. Tied up, gagged, helpless. Just the way I like him.”

  Clancy’s head snapped in our direction. And if I didn’t know him as well as I did, I could have sworn there was an edge of desperation to his voice. “Oh, there’s no need for any of that...”

  “You’re not riding in the backseat,” Cole said. “It’s too risky. What if someone sees you, or you try to escape?”

  Clancy scoffed. “And separate myself from the Project Snowfall research before I can get rid of it?”

  Cole shot me a look, tongue caught between his teeth as he grinned. An unexpected bonus of showing it to the Greens—Clancy had no idea we’d taken the precaution of backing the research up, so to speak.

  “Ah, now that does sound reasonable, doesn’t it, Gem?”

  I pulled him farther into the hallway, shutting the door behind us. “Maybe taking him with us is a bad idea. If he gets loose in the Ranch, he could ruin everything.” I clenched my hands at my sides, trying to work through the revulsion, the memory of how stupid I had been to ever think I’d had Clancy under my control.

  Some people came into the world and never once looked up to see the lives around them—they were so focused on what they wanted, what they needed. No one else mattered to them. They disconnected from sympathy and pity and guilt. Some people came into the world as monsters. I understood that now.

  “Hey,” Cole said quietly. “You think I don’t want to strangle the life right out of him, too?”

  “He has more faces than a pair of dice,” I warned. “If something doesn’t benefit him directly he won’t play along. And if it threatens him—”

  “He’s no match for you, Gem.”

  “I wish that were the case.” I shook my head.

  “Let’s focus on what he has to offer if we can get him in a place where he wants to work with us,” Cole said. “The intel, the insight into how his father thinks, even his value as a potential trade.”

  “He’s too unpredictable.” Even if we turned him over to his father, there was still a good chance he could escape and cause even more havoc. Was it better that he came with us, if only so we could keep an eye on him?

  “You keep forgetting that, in the end, we want the same thing he does,” Cole said, clearly fighting the urge to roll his eyes. “We all want his father out of office.”

  “No,” I said, glancing back in at the figure kneeling on the floor. “He wants his father ruined. There’s a difference. The only question is if you’re willing to risk being part of the fallout when he figures out how to do it.”
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  I realized a second too late that re-securing Clancy’s hands with a zip tie meant having to feed him myself. He glared and spat at me like a cat furious at having its claws clipped. My skin crawled. All in all, a thoroughly unpleasant experience for everyone.

  Liam greeted my return to the other room with a sympathetic look and a bag of potato chips, patting the ground next to him. Half of the room looked dazed by the excessively early hour; the other half was pacing in anxious circles. The wind had picked up outside, screaming as it whipped around the edges of the warehouse and passed through the cracks in the roof. It made for an eerily appropriate soundtrack to the morning.

  “Okay, I’ll make this quick,” Cole began. “We’ll be splitting into teams and dividing ourselves between the three exit points. If the location you’re assigned is compromised in any way—soldiers present, shady-looking folks hanging around, anything—head to the next-closest.”

  Just to the side of him, Sen wore a smug little smile as she surveyed the kids sitting on the floor. I almost smiled myself, a small thrill of control trickling through me. Good riddance, I thought.

  “Once you have your assignment,” Cole continued, “check it against the map for your car locations and the routes listed next to them. Team A is me, Ruby, Liam, Vida, Nico, our guest, and what’s-his-face—the one in the prissy button-down.”

  Liam threw his hands up in exasperation.

  Chubs only shrugged. “Better than Grannie. And, for the record, Chubs.”

  “Not Nico,” I cut in. He couldn’t be trusted to use his judgment around Clancy, and I couldn’t be trusted not to make him pay if he slipped again.

  I saw Nico disappear from the edge of my vision, fading to the back of the group. Liam’s hand tightened around mine, but I refused to glance up and meet what I knew was a look of disappointment. He didn’t understand.

  “Fine,” Cole said, “Nico, you’ll go with Team D.”

  “Am I the guest?” I hadn’t realized Senator Cruz was in the room until she spoke up.

  “You’re with Team C. Team A has our less-welcome guest.”

  He must have informed her of Clancy’s presence, because her only response to that was a soft “Oh. I see.”

  He ran through the details of each route the teams would be taking upstate. All involved sticking to surface streets, which added on hours and wasted gas, but ensured a safer trip. There was a single moment of silence after he finished speaking, as if everyone needed a moment to absorb his words.

  Cole pointed at me. “Go grab him.”

  “Once you have your group,” he continued as I exited the room, “go, get the hell out of here. Good luck and take care of each other. We’ll see you up north.”

  Clancy struggled to his feet as I entered the room, his hands bound, his head still tucked inside the pillowcase. “We’re going now? What time is it?”

  I pulled it off him for the moment. “Any sign of you messing with anyone—”

  “—and I’m dead. God, you’re as annoying as my old nanny. I understand,” Clancy snapped. He turned around and nudged me with his bound hands. “This is going to be just as suspicious as the hood. If something happens, I might need to use my hands—”

  “Nothing is going to happen,” I said, hooking my hand around his arm and drawing him out into the hallway, then back into the room to avoid being trampled, as the different teams ran to the building’s different exits.

  “Ready?” Cole called to me from the window as I pulled Clancy into the room. Anabel Cruz was still standing there, huddled between the two agents that were responsible for her. At the sight of Clancy she froze. He smirked, taking her in from head to toe.

  “Enough,” I said. “Leave her alone or I’ll push you out of the window.”

  “I’d like to request that honor,” Liam said as he helped me up next. He glanced back toward Sen, and shot me a questioning look as the woman adjusted the straps of the backpack containing the cure research.

  I put a reassuring hand on his arm, then turned back, gripping Clancy’s shoulder to steady him as he swung his leg up over the frame. His shoe caught on something and he went tumbling out of my hands, landing headfirst on the fire escape in a disgruntled heap.

  “I see I’ll be afforded no dignity in this,” he growled as he straightened up, awkwardly trying to adjust his shirt with his hands bound.

  I leaned over the steps, tracking Cole’s progress. He was already back on solid ground, a gun in his hands, surveying the nearby windows with a look of focused intensity I’d seen on Liam’s face so many times. The wind was tearing at his hair, making his jacket billow out around him. It blew me forward a step.

  “As far as Stewarts are concerned, he’s probably the better choice. Handsome. The bad boy. Seems more your taste,” Clancy reasoned, following my gaze.

  Clearly he didn’t understand my taste at all.

  I didn’t let myself look back to check on Vida, Chubs, and Liam until we were down on the street too, our backs pressed to the building.

  “Anything?” I asked Cole.

  He shook his head. “All clear.”

  We headed one block east to walk along the railroad tracks lining the Los Angeles River. Our exit was approximately thirteen blocks north, but those would be thirteen dark, silent, and tense blocks. Already, I felt a shiver of anxiety run down my spine as I looked back, but it was too dark to see the group of kids trailing behind us. Cole had warned them to wait ten minutes before following us through the exit, just on the off chance that something went wrong and they’d need the buffer of distance to run.

  Nice for them.

  I kept my gaze ahead and my grip on Clancy’s arm firm. His skin felt unbearably warm against my hand. The morning had the city in a chilly grip without the sun there to burn it away, but it was like none of it touched him. Like nothing could.

  Cole’s hand shot up as he halted us in place with a sharp intake of breath. Clancy, curious, leaned in over my shoulder to see what the issue was.

  “Ah,” he said, moving away. “Good luck with this one.”

  Our route took us under the 101 freeway, where it formed a bridge over the Los Angeles River and nearby rail tracks. From what I’d seen in the soldier’s memories, the army had blocked off the tracks below with overturned train cargo cars and floodlights. On the freeway, there’d been two Humvees and more lights, pointing in toward us. And there they were—I counted them as we made our careful, silent approach. I didn’t see the problem at all. Not until the first of three shadowy figures appeared on the ledge of the freeway’s elevated road. Their arms were raised in a way that made me think they must have been peering through binoculars.

  Cole dropped to his stomach on the tracks. I forced Clancy down with me. Chubs began to ask, “What’s going on—?” but someone—Vida—muffled him.

  Dammit, dammit, dammit, dammit. Fear rippled through me. How did I get this so wrong?

  It was still pitch black outside, but we had already passed into the faint edge of the floodlights’ glow. There was a low curse from Cole as he turned and motioned us back with his hands. Vida pulled out a handgun and shuffled back on her belly, dragging Chubs with her, a hand knotted in his shirt.

  The wind kicked up the back of my jacket, exposing my bare skin to the chilling air. To our left, the tin-like sheets of metal lining the tracks were rattling as if they were on the verge of exploding. Go slow, I coached myself. Don’t panic. Go slow. Sudden movements or loud noises would only draw the soldiers’ attention—

  There was a crack, like broken bone as a whole section of the wall’s metal siding flew off, catching a burst of wind and flinging itself straight toward us. I ducked down, covering my free hand with my head, my brain already calculating how fast we’d have to get up and run once the sheet slammed into the tracks and started banging around.

  But one pounding heartbeat...two...t
hree...with the exception of the wind and my own heavy breathing, there was nothing but quiet. I lifted my head, catching Cole’s shocked expression as it morphed into relief, and twisted around to see why.

  Liam had a hand outstretched in the direction of the huge piece of siding. It was frozen in place where it had struck the ground on its first, dangerous bounce, and was still angled toward us. The rusted metal stood upright, shaking like a strained muscle, but otherwise still. His face was a stony mask of concentration. I’d seen him lift and throw things much heavier with his abilities, but the force of the wind, and our exposure to it, was warring with his control.

  Chubs shifted, but Liam said, quietly, “I have it.”

  Cole snapped once to get my attention, pointing up at the freeway. The figures we had seen there, the soldiers, were moving again. The floodlights that were trained on us switched off, just as another military truck drove up alongside the two vehicles already posted there. It took me a moment to understand what was actually happening.

  They’re there to swap out the cars and lights. Not to patrol; not as lookouts.

  One of the Humvees rumbled to life, made a wide turn across the empty freeway lanes, and sped west. I kept my eyes on the shrinking taillights before squinting up toward the floodlights again. No movement. Gone.

  Cole had come to the same conclusion. He rose slowly onto his knees, then his feet, waving for us to do the same. Liam let out one last grunt, using his abilities to lift the metal siding up in an arc over us and throw it in the direction of the Los Angeles River’s dry cement bed. He let his brother haul him to his feet, but pushed him away.

  “For someone who sucks so bad at sports, those were some surprisingly decent reflexes.”

  “That must be thank you in a language I don’t speak,” Liam said, his jaw set as he turned to look ahead. “Can we get moving?”

  Cole stared at him a moment longer, his face unreadable. “All right. Let’s roll.”