In The Afterlight

“Rosa,” I said. “Your mom is waiting for you.”

She flinched at the sudden attention, but after a deep breath, she stepped out of her pitch-black room like she was tearing away from the last grip of a nightmare. Rosa’s hands clenched at her sides. Her breathing came hard and fast as her eyes darted around.

“Look at me,” I told her, holding out my hand. “Just at me. This is really happening. I’ll get you out of here. Okay?”

Okay. Her trembling, cold fingers touched the tips of mine, sliding into place. The tension bunching her shoulders didn’t relax until my grip on her tightened. The other girls in her room flowed out behind her, and it was only then that the other kids lost that last bit of hesitation and followed.

“Home base,” I said, pressing my earpiece. “Initiating evac.”

“Two minutes,” Cole said, sounding a hell of a lot more stressed than I felt. This was good. They were coming with us. They trusted us. The gratitude I felt for that small fact made my eyes prick with tears.

The others followed, lining up one by one and moving quickly. Feet slapped against the tile, smearing out the puddle of wet paint that had drifted from the forgotten can. Some of them stopped to look at the two bound PSFs, but there was no laughter, no smiles, no cheers—of course not. It must have felt like they were moving through a dream.

I guided Rosa into the line, glancing at the wall where the soldiers had been writing out that message. The kids leaned against it and used it to brace themselves as they rounded the corner down into the stairwell, smearing that same red paint, tracking their hands and fingerprints through it. Alice stood frozen in front of it, lifting her camera one last time.

It was the last clear, still image I had before the night sped up, gliding into a blur that carried us down the stairs, down the main hall, and out the very same door we had come through. The blast of cold air washed away the pounding heat from my blood. I shook the fear off, and I let myself imagine it—how good it would feel when this was Thurmond we were walking out of, when I passed through that gate one last time.

Cate may have gotten me out, but until that moment, I’m not sure I’d fully recognized that I was still a prisoner of that place. And it wasn’t the cure that would give me the feeling of finally being freed from this horrible reality. It was knowing, with certainty, that I would never be forced to go back.

Zach helped Liam lift his motorbike onto the back of the truck, and gave Alice the lift she needed to get up into it. I caught his questioning look as he took her hand and nodded. She had to come back with us. She’d seen too much, was a security risk. Gonzo and Ollie were the last to climb into the truck’s trailer, having dragged the PSFs we’d left outside into the interior of the camp, along with the secured truck driver.

The kids were forced to sit on the plastic-wrapped pallets and boxes, some of them clutching yellow and orange glow sticks and flashlights we’d given them so they wouldn’t feel like they were being locked in total darkness. As I rolled the trailer door down, I saw Liam sitting with his back against the siding, his arms resting over his knees, watching me. I pulled the door firmly into place and secured it with the latch.

Zach was already up in the front seat, ripping the GPS out of the console. He rolled down the window and tossed it outside. One less way for them to track us when they figured out what was happening. I was the one to run to open the gates; the fence wasn’t electrified, but the PSFs had managed to secure it with a padlock. I turned to look at Zach and shook my head. He waved me back and I climbed into the cab with him.

“Brace yourself,” he warned, relaying the message to me and the whole team in the back. The truck lurched forward and barreled through the gate, sending pieces flying as if they’d been made of Styrofoam. A section caught on the front hubcap and sparked against the ground, but was knocked away as we veered onto the highway, and we sped away before the sun had the chance to start rising at our backs.

16

WE DROVE A FULL FOUR hours before ditching the semi-trailer truck in Reno. In an ideal world, we would have taken it straight to Lodi, only stopping once to let the kids relieve their bladders and stretch their legs, but it was marked with military insignias. Someone was bound to notice it if we kept going.

Senator Cruz had arranged for an old Greyhound bus to be brought down from Oregon and left at Reno’s city limits, warning it was the only time she’d be able to put this particular contact into play as the former state governor, her college classmate, had been careful to never entangle himself too deeply in matters of the Federal Coalition and had been rewarded by Gray with the right to keep his job.

Zach and I helped each kid down, and I couldn’t stop the small smile on my face at seeing the way they all seemed to want to spin around in the warm sunlight. Rosa was one of the last off, bypassing Zach’s hands for mine.

“Okay?” I asked her. “How are you doing?”

She stretched her arms back and forth, swinging them around. I made sure that I kept the smile on my face so she’d know it was okay to let herself believe this would work out. Something I’d learned from Cate.

I wondered what she’d think of all this as we lifted the boxes of food and medical supplies off the truck, putting them in the undercarriage of the Greyhound bus. When I saw her again, I would make sure she knew the full magnitude of what she had done for me. I wanted to believe that if I felt all of these things, if I brought her face to mind and focused on it, she’d somehow be able to tell I was thinking about her—that I hadn’t forgotten her.