The Darkest Minds

I reached into the pocket of Liam’s jacket and pushed the panic button. Twenty seconds clicked by, each one feeling longer than the last. It gave a little vibration, a little acknowledgment, and I released it.

Outside, Liam was banging metal against metal—growing more helpless and angry by the second. I wanted to call him back to us, to have him next to Chubs, because I was sure this was it. I was sure he was going to die right there in my arms, less than twenty-four hours after he had saved me. And I couldn’t do anything for him other than hold him.

“Do not die,” I whispered. “You cannot die. You have to take calculus and go to football games and go to prom and apply to colleges and you absolutely cannot die. You can’t—you can’t—”

I detached completely. A familiar numbness took hold of my entire body. I was vaguely aware of Liam shouting something outside. My arms tightened around Chubs’s chest. I heard feet shuffling against the loose asphalt outside; all I could smell was smoke and blood. All I could hear was my own heartbeat.

That’s when the door across from me opened, and Cate’s face appeared.

And that’s when I began to cry, really cry.

“Oh, Ruby,” she said, anguished. “Ruby.”

“Please help him,” I sobbed. “Please!”

Two pairs of hands reached in to lift me out. My arms were still wrapped around Chubs. I couldn’t move my hands. There was so much blood. I kicked and butted against whoever was trying to pull us apart.

“Ruby, sweetheart,” Cate said, suddenly next to me. “Ruby, you have to let go now.”

I had made a mistake. This was a mistake. I never should have called them. A terrible noise filled the air, and it wasn’t until Liam was there, holding me back, his arms around my shoulders, that I realized I had been screaming the entire time.

There were three cars surrounding our smoking, useless hunk of metal. All SUVs.

“If you get him help, we’ll go with you,” I heard Liam tell Cate. “We’ll go with you. We’ll do whatever you want.”

“No,” I cried. “No!”

Liam was holding me steady, but I felt the way his arms shook. We watched them load Chubs’s still form into the back of one of the SUVs, and the door had barely shut before it tore off down the highway. Chubs’s blood was still warm on my skin, cooling every second, and it made me want to crawl out of it.

“Please,” Liam said, his voice breaking. “Calm down. You have to calm down. I’ve got you. I’m right here.”

There was a pinch on the back of my neck; there and gone, faster than taking a breath. All at once, I felt my muscles relax. I was being dragged forward on limp legs, the image of the nearest white SUV swimming in and out of focus. Lee? I wanted to say, but my tongue was too heavy. Someone slid a dark hood over my face, and I was being lifted—up, up into the air, like my father used to do when I was just a kid. When I thought I could grow up and fly.

And then the real darkness came.

THIRTY-ONE

IT WAS THE COLD WATER THAT WOKE ME, more than the woman’s soft voice. “You’re all right,” she was saying. “Ruby. You’re gonna be fine.” I’m not sure who she thought she was fooling with her sweet little B.S., but it wasn’t me.

The smell of rosemary was back, filling my nose with a memory that felt both ancient and new. Which was it?

When I felt the press of her hand against mine, I forced my eyes open, blinking against the sunlight. Cate’s face swam in and out of my vision. She stood and crossed the room, drawing the gauzy curtains shut. It helped somewhat, but I was still having trouble fixing my sight on any one thing. It was glancing off bright, shiny surfaces. A white dresser, pale purple wallpaper, a flashing alarm clock, a mirror on the opposite wall, and our reflections there.

“Is this real?” I whispered.

Cate sat at the edge of my bed, the exact same way she had at Thurmond, only now she wasn’t smiling. Behind her, Martin leaned against the wall in camo pants and boots. He looked like a completely different person to me. I hadn’t fully recognized him at first glance. The roundness in his face had thinned out, sinking his eyes further into his skull. Someone had been dumb enough to give him a gun.

“We’re in a safe house outside of Maryland,” she said.

“Lee?”

“Safe here, too.”

Not safe, I thought; never safe with you.

I felt the urge to run rise up deep from my bones; it was instinct now. Exhaustion and pain had stripped every other sensation away from me. My eyes scanned the room—two windows, the only other exit aside from the door. I could break the glass. I force Cate back with a single brush of my mind, get Liam, and we could be gone before anyone noticed. It could work.

“Don’t even try,” Cate said, following my eyes. She slipped a small silver object from the back pocket of her jeans and held it out to me, the rough pattern of the speaker face up. “Even if you could get past me, every single one of the agents downstairs is carrying one of these on them. Judging by your last hit of Calm Control, you’re not going to be of much use to Liam when they take him out and shoot him for your insubordination.”

I jerked away. “They wouldn’t—” But I saw the truth of it in her eyes. They would. They risked everything to break me out of Thurmond. They fought off skip tracers to get me back. I had already seen in Rob’s mind that despite what they claimed their mission was, they didn’t have any qualms about offing a few kids if it meant getting the ones they wanted.

“How could you even think about it?” Martin hissed. “Do you know how much time she wasted looking for you?”

Cate waved him off. When she leaned toward me again, I saw there were splatters of blood across the front of her shirt. Dark. Dried.

The memory came into painfully sharp focus. “Chubs—what happened to Chubs?”

Cate looked down at her hands, and something in me clenched.

“Honestly,” she said, “I’m not sure. We haven’t been able to contact the group of agents that took him, but I know they reached the hospital.” Cate reached for my hands, but I wouldn’t let her take them. The thought turned my stomach. “He’s safe. They’ll make sure he’s taken care of.”

“You don’t know that,” I said. “You said it yourself.”