In The Afterlight (The Darkest Minds #3)(108)

“It’s...” The words brought me up closer to the pain, the sharpness of it. This part of her mind was so dark, so unbearably dark. It must have been painful for her every time she tried to speak, to use this part of her mind. He wanted her to hurt. Hurt.

“What’s your middle name?” he repeated.

“It’s Elizabeth.” I felt my mouth form the words, but I couldn’t hear them over the rush of blood inside my own head. I have to push through this. This is glass. I have to break it. I have to get through it. Mirror minds.

“Who were you named after?” Chubs’s questions were keeping me in that part of her mind. Every time I had to stop and think about what he was asking, the pain became slightly more bearable.

“Grandmother,” I said. “Grams.”

Grams. Grams. Grams. The person who remembered me. Who I’d be able to find once this was over. I need you. We need you.

My grip on her tightened to the point where I’m sure my nails dug into her flesh. With one final, deep breath, I pushed against the wall as hard as I could, turning my mind into a bat and slamming against it until I felt it give with a deafening crack. I slid forward, forcing my way through, until it shattered and cut the connection to ribbons.

“Ruby, what was the name of our van? What did we call it?” Chubs must have been shouting the question to me. His voice was ragged.

“Black...” I mumbled, my mind in pieces—pain everywhere—agony—“Black Betty.”

I didn’t slide through, so much as fall past the remnants of the barrier. The world around me exploded into electric blue light—

When I came around, rising up from the murky pain, I was flat on my back on the floor, Chubs’s anxious face an inch above mine.

“Okay?” he asked, taking my arm to help me sit up. “How do you feel?”

“Like I took a flaming knife to the head,” I got out around gritted teeth.

“You were out for a full minute. I was starting to get worried,” he said.

“What happened?” I asked, turning toward the bed. “What—”

Lillian Gray was sitting at the edge of her bed, her face hidden behind her hands. Her shoulders shook, trembling with each gasp of breath.

She’s crying, I realized, rising up to my knees, I hurt her—

Her face was red, swollen from the force of her weeping. The air in the room had shifted, a thunderstorm of feeling had rolled back, and what was left was weightless blue sky. When she looked at me, she saw me. Her lips pulled back into a painful smile.

“Thank. You.” She treated each word like the small miracle it was.

And then, without warning, I began to cry too. The pressure that had built in my chest gave way with the next heavy breath in, and expelled fully as I released it. I did this. If I did nothing else worthwhile in my life, I helped this woman. I gave her back her voice. I hadn’t broken someone; I’d put them back together.

“Um...” Chubs began awkwardly. “Should I maybe...er...”

I stood up, swiping at my face with a laugh. “I’m going to find Cole,” I said. “Can you tell her what’s going on? Make sure everything is okay?”

I used the hem of my shirt to scrub my face once I was outside of the room, allowing myself a few steadying breaths before I looked in on the gym and office, then the big room, where kids were already sitting down with their plates of macaroni and cheese.

Right. Dinner. That meant...

I took the stairs two at a time, bounding down the hall to the kitchen. The kids serving there only shrugged and said Cole had come in and left with two plates. It would have looked too suspicious for me to wait outside of the storage room; I slipped the string I held the key on up from around my neck and glanced back and forth, making sure no one was watching as I went inside and locked it behind me. The overhead bulb swung with the movement of air, and the door behind the shelf unit groaned, not fully shut.

It was curiosity, more than anything else, that made me step into that narrow hall. It was the first time in days I’d gone to see him—Cole had simply waved me off each time I offered to do it, saying it was better for me to stay away and avoid antagonizing him when he was already furious with me. That he’d been perfectly cordial, with no evidence of trying to influence Cole’s mind.

Now that she was back, I half expected Vida to be there, watching them from the small window in the door at the other end of the hall—but no. There wasn’t anyone there, making sure Clancy wasn’t running wild inside Cole’s mind.

If you had told me that Cole and Clancy would have been sitting facing each other on the floor eating, separated by only an inch-thick wall of bulletproof glass...I would have told you to keep your delusions to yourself. But there they were. The two of them, relaxing and talking with the ease of old friends.

I leaned forward, pressing my ear against the door, catching snippets of conversation.

“—wouldn’t be any files on it, that’s how confidential it is, the only reason I know it exists still is a PSF account—”

“—worth it if it means more boots on the ground—”

“Don’t discount the propaganda they’re releasing—try to use it to get your own message out there. Recruit willing soldiers—”

Ten minutes went by; fifteen. The elation I felt deflated into something that resembled dread. Not that the two of them were talking—I trusted Cole to take everything Clancy said with the largest grain of salt known to mankind—but that I was agreeing with what I heard.