In The Afterlight

This wasn’t a memory about the cure research—that had been under his mother’s control, far away from him. This was what they had done at Thurmond, before he’d been able to get himself out. They were studying him like a specimen, the way they had studied that Red. Nico.

A plastic mask was lowered onto my face, and sickly sweet air came flooding into my lungs. The overload of sensation dampened at the first touch of drugs to my system.

He’d told me once that they kept the kids sedated but awake during procedures, so the machines could better monitor their normal brain functions and map the way the Psi abilities rippled through them. Thurmond’s blue tiles echoed the machines’ screeching, making it sound like they were everywhere, all of them drawing in closer, waiting for their turn. I couldn’t swallow around my dry, heavy tongue; saliva dripped past cracked, swollen lips into the muzzle they’d secured over my head.

The jolt of fire came without warning, zigzagging down my spinal column, a ripping sensation that left me breathless with pain. It was—it was like a static shock had been cranked up to a thousand levels higher. I couldn’t control myself as my body seized up, relaxed; seized; relaxed.

“Try it again, this time—” A stocky researcher let out a cry of disgust, jumping back from the table. The stench of bleach was replaced by piss and blood and burnt flesh. I would have emptied my stomach, too, if there’d been anything in it. In that moment, I would have given anything to have choked on my own vomit and died. Humiliation seared through me as one of the researchers waved a nurse over to clean me up so they could start again.

I’m going to kill you—I’m going to kill you, all of you—The words were lost as my brain was overloaded with a crackling sheet of pure, burning white.

My gaze dropped from the U-shaped fluorescent light over me before its glow overtook the room and blinded me completely. I was surrounded by white coats and clipboards again, the clatter of metal instruments against metal trays, the goddamn beep, beep, beep of a heartbeat that wouldn’t give out. The woman in front of me stepped to the side, flicking something on—music, the Beatles, singing, I want to hold your hand, I want to hold your hand, their bright voices perfectly in sync with the cheerful music. One researcher began to sing along, off-key, as another bolt of white-hot lightning tore through my skull.

When my vision cleared, the black at the edges retreating, my body was still throbbing, but it was dark around me, sweetly dark, and the surface under me was cloth, not steel. Done.

“—will give a good report of progress—”

“—carefully adjusting treatment—in good hands—treatment—working—”

The stocky, balding doctor shook hands with a man in a jacket...what color was that? Not-blue...not-blue...Panic rose up, gripping my brain as it grasped for the word. The man in the jacket pulled his mask away. I see beard. I see nose. All familiar. Head hurts—no name, only face. Face next to Father. Phone. Report. Report me to him. Help. Help. Help.

Lift hand—lift hand—trying. No go, not without—without me. Words broke and crumbled in my mind, leaving sounds. Letters. Tongue stuck. Arms stuck. Pain—burning, everything burning—

A small shape appeared, the cot next to mine groaned. He came forward now. It was safe. Nico. Nico, help.

A cold cloth on my face, cleaning. My hands. Neck. Careful. Careful, Nico. Aching head, soft touches, soft fingertips. Nice. I was lifted, arms put into sleeves, shirt down over my head. Held. Warm heart. Dark eyes burning. Safe. “It’s okay. I’m here.” Cup to lips. Water. Metal to lips—not-fork...not-fork...what is...spoon. Spoon. Sweet. Meal.

Nico. Ni-co-las.

Crying.

Warm Nico.

Crying—

12

I RIPPED MYSELF OUT OF THE MEMORY, shoving against it. The exit was worse than the entry. I couldn’t tell which direction I was going, couldn’t navigate. Forward meant seeing that horrible moment again, Nico’s shaved head and gaunt body, the heart-wrenching expression I recognized on his face. I didn’t want to see it again, but I couldn’t escape it, the simple truth. So I went the other way, only to find it was like passing through a field of barbed wire backward. No matter which way I tried to pull out of the memory, I was cut up, I was in pain.

When I came to, safely back inside of my own mind, I was on my knees, my forehead resting against the glass. I gulped down one breath after another.

“Was that enough for you?” Clancy snarled. His skin had taken on a clammy quality, and he was trembling, shaking almost. “Are you satisfied?”

I don’t know how I did it. I don’t. I just disconnected my mind from everything I’d seen, scrubbed every ounce of feeling from my voice. “No.”

He wheeled back around.

“I already knew what the Thurmond testing was like.” Oh God—oh my God. I felt like I was going to throw up all over again. What they’d done to his mind, even temporarily...“You’re supposed to be proving to me the cure itself is cruel.”

“She adapted the cure from that research! From the shocks. You think I don’t know what you’re really trying to do?” he said. “That I’d be stupid enough to show you the actual cure procedure or where my mother is—”

He knows. He knows where she is.

He stalked over to his cot. There was enough of a link still left between our minds for me to be momentarily stunned by the resentment billowing through him. He needed to stop, I wanted him to stop—I stilled completely and reached deep into his mind, letting the intention steer me past his memories altogether into the part of his mind that was sparking with heat and drive.