In The Afterlight

“Sweetheart, are you all right?” Senator Cruz asked. “I don’t understand—isn’t it a good thing? From what you’ve told me about the conditions in the camp...”

“If you look at it that way, it is a blessing,” Cole said. “But razing the camp likely also means moving or shredding all of the hard-copy records on site, not to mention, the camp can’t serve as evidence of the cruelty of the rehab program. The camp is...a powerful symbol. It’s the oldest, the largest, and, I’m going to venture a guess here, really sets the bar for abuse and mistreatment.”

“Separating the kids...the cabins...” My throat was dry. Most of them had been together for almost ten years. They were each other’s families. And they wanted to take even that from them?

“All right, so that’s one camp out of contention.” Senator Cruz leaned back against her seat and folded her hands in her lap. “What are the other potential big hits?”

“There is no other big hit,” Cole said. “We’re still going after Thurmond. It’s our endgame.”

I looked up. Shock must have registered on my face, because confusion spread across Cole’s. “Really, Gem? I must have said it ten times this morning. Thurmond, no matter what. What’s with that look?”

I moved back through my day, trying to remember. It must have been after we finished training...or before Liam and the others had returned? The whole morning had a strange, glossy sheen to it, as if exhaustion was clouding my memories like steam on a mirror.

As if tracking my thoughts, Cole said, “Damn, kid. We need to get you more sleep.”

“Is five weeks enough time to pull something like this off?” Concern creased Senator Cruz’s face.

“We’ll make it work,” Cole said simply.

“You asked them to write up proposals for a mission, correct?” Senator Cruz asked. “I don’t mean to be insulting, but how in the world are these children supposed to come up with plans for a successful military operation and then execute it?”

“We received training,” I told her, “to do exactly that. At least those of us who were with the League. We need to have time to work with the other kids—bring more in, make sure they can function under pressure.”

Cole reached for the small stack of papers he’d collected from the groups and passed them to her. “I’m impressed with some of their imaginations. There’s a lot of good stuff here. The Greens really put the best of the League to shame with some of this—I definitely wasn’t expecting to get statistical probabilities of success, or...” He squinted at the page he held. “Christ, I don’t even know what that word means. In any case, before we hit Thurmond, we’ll have to do a test run on a smaller camp first, make sure the plan is viable.”

The senator sat up a little straighter. “Any camp?”

“Preferably one on this coast, but yeah, sure. We’ll try to match a smaller camp with the layout of Thurmond, get an experience as close as possible to the real deal.”

“Nevada?”

Cole leaned against the desk, his eyes lighting up with excitement. “Are you thinking of Oasis?”

Oasis? The League had kept a map of the United States posted on one of the hallways, all of the known camps, big and small, marked with thumbtacks. I closed my eyes, trying to picture the pastel spread of states, moving east to west. It was...in the northeast corner of the state. Remote.

Nico didn’t break his gaze from the laptop’s screen. “That’s the one with the children from the Federal Coalition.”

Senator Cruz nodded, swallowing hard, and brought up a hand to rub against her throat. She looked at some point past us, at the clock on the wall maybe. “My daughter Rosa is one of them. I put her in hiding with her grandmother, but...Gray was determined. He hired men specifically to find our children. To make an example of all of us. I know of at least ten other Federal Coalition officials who believe their children were taken there. Knew of. God. Is there a chance any of those people are still alive in the detainment camps? Will they ever get to see their children again?”

“Sure,” Cole said, not sounding entirely convinced himself. “There’s always a chance, right? But regardless of whether or not their parents are still alive and kicking, they’ll have a place with us. A chance to fight, if they want it. Lord knows they don’t have anything else to go back to in Los Angeles.”

Nico shoved his chair back and stood, his hands coming up to clutch at his elbows. His eyes were darting around, creating a scattered path across the room, trying to land on everything but us. “I’m going to...I’m going to go...shower...”

He couldn’t have left the room faster if it had been on fire. I wondered if he even felt the sharp stab of pain as his hip checked one of the desks and sent him stumbling forward.

I took a step to follow him out but caught myself. Cole raised his brows, his eyes sliding over to meet mine in a silent question. I shook my head. No. I wasn’t going to go after him. I could feel guilty about forcing him to relive that time in his life for a few minutes, but I wasn’t going to comfort him or try to shield him from his own horrific memories of Los Angeles. How could I, when part of me was glad that he was just as miserable over it as I was?

You didn’t drop the bombs on the city, I thought.

But neither had he. Nico hadn’t planned the attack carried out by the military; he hadn’t been responsible for the agents overthrowing Alban in a bloody midnight coup that fractured the League forever; he hadn’t—