In The Afterlight

“This psychopath sleeps less than three feet away from you,” Vida reminded him, her voice all sweetness and light.

“Wow, we have such nice friends,” Liam murmured. I’d already disengaged from the conversation. Cole glanced over, his brows raised in a silent question. I nodded, and he turned to look down—to the woman standing beside him.

She was middle-aged, olive-toned skin sagging with wrinkles and obvious strain. What must have once been an expensive navy dress had torn at the skirt seam, and her hair hung loosely from a bun, whole sections of it gray with either cement dust or age. Wide, dark eyes scanned the room, catching at the sight of the kids.

“Do you know who this is?” Cole demanded.

“A civilian who can now identify all of us and report back to the military,” Sen shot back.

“My name is Anabel Cruz,” the woman said, with a surprising amount of dignity for someone limping around in broken high heels.

“Christ, you meatheads,” Cole said when he was greeted with blank looks. “One of California’s senators? The Federal Coalition’s international liaison? She worked on establishing contacts and negotiating possible support from other nations.”

Sen didn’t look impressed. She turned on Cole again, her hands on her hips. “Did you even bother trying to confirm her identity? If she was with the FC, why isn’t she in one of the detainment camps?”

“I can speak to that myself,” Senator Cruz said, eyes flashing. “When the attacks began, I was meeting with Amplify outside of our headquarters.”

“The underground news org?” Gates asked.

Liam turned to look at me, confused. I explained quietly, in as few words as I could. The group had been around for two years, maybe three. My take was that it was mostly a collection of reporters and editors who had landed on Gray’s shit list for covering “dangerous” topics like riots and protests, and then had to go into hiding.

He opened his mouth, a spark of something in his eyes.

“Which, yes—” Cole looked at the other agents. “I realize it says something about her common sense, but—”

“Excuse me?” The senator crossed her arms over her chest.

“He means Amplify doesn’t have a good track record of making their stories stick. They get seconds of glory here and there before Gray shuts them down,” Sen said, assessing the woman again. “Online, on the social media sites that haven’t been blocked yet, quick-and-dirty pamphlets. Their reach is too small. They’re getting jack shit done.”

This was clearly the one thing Cole and Sen were in agreement on.

“The reporter got trapped with her in the city,” Cole told the others. “I was out doing the usual sweeps and heard the military storming a building nearby. They were tracking him, not her. Shot him on the spot, and probably would have done the same to her if she hadn’t identified herself.”

“So you swept in, saving the day.” Sen rolled her eyes. The hatred I felt for the woman was starting to overwhelm my better judgment. I felt myself take another step forward. “And all you succeeded in doing was bringing in another mouth to feed.”

“Speaking of—” Cole slid the stuffed backpack off his shoulder and tossed it to one of the Greens. “Found one of those juice shops with some decent produce still in their refrigerators. It’s not a lot, but better than the crap we’ve been eating.”

The girl looked like he’d just handed her a birthday cake he’d personally baked and frosted. Chubs was over there and unzipping it so quickly, I think he must have teleported. The others fell in behind him, thanking Cole, trying to pass a whole apple back to him.

“I’m good. Thanks, though.” When he turned back to Sen, his smile was still there, broadening under her look of utter contempt. But I could see something dangerous in his stillness, the way he cocked his head to the right. It was like a match waiting to be struck against something just slightly rougher.

“I’m a little surprised, Sen. I would have thought you’d be ecstatic to have someone like this on the team. Once we get out of here, she’ll be incredibly useful in helping us connect what we’re doing to the rest of the world,” he said finally, his tone light. “We’re turning over a new leaf, aren’t we?”

Yeah, well. Sen had no interest in connecting us to the world. She wanted to burn it down around us. Still, there had been a question buried in his words—a challenge. The longer this went on, the more the other agents began to shuffle their feet, steal glances at one another. Some of the Greens, the fast thinkers, were clearly reading into this more deeply than the others, who seemed content to chalk the familiar tension up to the usual frustrations.

He knows. Awareness prickled at the back of my mind. Cole might not have known the full details, but he must have had a sense they’d go back on their word to help us free the camps. He was baiting her, trying to get her to admit it in front of the kids.

“I’d be happy to discuss my ideas with you,” Senator Cruz said. “Provided we have a way out of the city?”

The room’s attention swung to me. “Yes—it’s like we thought. They don’t have enough manpower to be patrolling the streets and guarding so many miles of freeway. They’ve set up a few stretches that, at night, are just empty vehicles and floodlights.”

I walked over to the driving map of Los Angeles we’d pinned to the wall after finding it in a nearby car. I pointed out the three spots I’d seen in the soldier’s mind, proud of how steady my voice was as shadowy images started creeping in at the corner of my mind. PSFs. The red-stitched Psi symbols. Zip ties. Muzzle. Money. Guns. I couldn’t look at any of the agents. Now that I knew what they really wanted, how they were going to repay me for getting their asses out of this city, a dark little voice at the back of my mind started whispering, lie. It wanted me to leave out a few key details. Let them brush close enough to danger to get bruised.