In The Afterlight (The Darkest Minds #3)(130)

“What?” My nails scraped against the tile. “No! I wouldn’t—I don’t—”

“You weren’t yourself,” Chubs said, gripping my shoulders. “You didn’t respond to anything we said—”

“I’m sorry, shit, I’m so sorry,” Vida said. “I didn’t know what to do—every time we got close, you looked like you were going to shoot!”

“Nico?” I said, pressing a hand against my eyes to stop the flow of tears. There was no way to hold them in; the pain was clouding my brain, overriding my body’s response. “Nico?”

“He just ran out—” Senator Cruz said. “He looked at the monitor and just took off—what is happening?”

Him. It was him. And through the pain, through lingering confusion clinging to my mind, I finally understood what was happening.

I clutched at Chubs’s arm. “You have to—listen to me, okay?”

“Okay, Ruby, okay,” he said, “just take a breath.”

“No, listen. Go...you and Vida go get the others. The kids. Go get them and take them, Senator Cruz, and...and Dr. Gray out through the garage. Go into one of the nearby buildings. Don’t let anyone leave. Understand?”

“Yes, but what are you—”

“Take what food and water you can carry, but wait in the building until you get the all clear.”

The gaps in my memory, began to color themselves in. If I closed my eyes, I could see myself in the middle of a conversation I didn’t remember having. Sitting down in the computer room with all the lights off. The tips of my fingers remembered each keystroke, tingled with the thought. Sleepwalking. The messages that were sent. The communications that were sent. He can move people around. Like they’re toys. Clancy’s last warning.

My thoughts spiraled, spinning together until they formed a whole, gut-wrenching realization.

He’s planned an out.

They’re coming.

Someone is coming to get him—and he used me to arrange the ride.

“There’s been a security leak,” I told them. “Me.”

“What the f**k does that mean?” Vida said, helping me up from the ground.

“Nico...he noticed someone sending messages outside of the Ranch and trying to cover them up, delete them from the server activity log, we thought it was—” I turned toward Alice. “We thought it was you, or one of the kids working with you. But it wasn’t, was it?”

“No, dammit, I told you that!” Alice said.

“I know, I’m sorry. I know that now. He’s been walking me around, using me to spy on what’s happening. He had me send messages for him. Shit!”

Escape. I let my mind work it through the way he would have. The only group that could extract him was his father’s military or some kind of contractor. He hadn’t known exactly where the Ranch was, likely, until I’d gone out to Oasis and he’d been able to watch through my eyes how to get back.

He’d only need the soldiers to unlock his cell, and then it’d be as easy as compelling them to leave him alone, to turn their attention to rounding up the other kids in the Ranch. All he’d have to do was slip away.

But why hadn’t he just compelled me to open the cell door for him? Why wait, go such a roundabout way?

“You weren’t in control of yourself?” Dr. Gray said. “Who was, then?”

I stared at her and I had my answer. Clancy wanted us to find her. To bring her here, to finish what he’d started. Only, she’d been right—he would never kill her.

He’d have me do it for him.

I looked away. She’d know soon enough that I couldn’t keep our bargain.

“Lillian, let’s go,” Senator Cruz said, “I have to get Rosa—the others—Ruby will follow us, won’t you, Ruby?”

“That’s—” I could see the need to protest this in her eyes, but the senator took her arm firmly and began walking her to the door.

I ran to the board at the front of the room, wiping it clean, tearing down the satellite image of Thurmond, folding it up, and tossing it at Vida. “Please,” I said to her and Chubs, “go get the kids, get them out—I need to take care of Clancy, but I’ll be there soon. Guys—please! Pull the server and take whatever you can out of the locker.”

The weapon stock would be low; the kids who’d gone out to the water treatment facilities had taken most of the handguns as a precaution. There were so few of us left in the compound—Oasis kids, mostly, who were still too wet behind the ears to go out into the field. We hadn’t had time to train them for something like this.

“If you think I’m leaving you, you’re out of your damn mind,” Chubs said.

I doubled down on my grip, broken nails cutting into his skin. “Go! You have to go right now—right now. The Ranch’s location has been compromised. You have to get the kids out. Take Senator Cruz and Dr. Gray. Charles! Listen to me! I’ll be right behind you, but if—if you stay, no one is getting out. Go!”

Vida’s dark eyes flashed as she took his arm and started to drag him away by force. “Right behind us?”

“Right behind you.”

I ran from the computer room, shouldered my way through the double doors and stopped dead. A shiver raced through me as the unnatural silence in the hallway was punctuated by the sound of a hysterical voice. I recognized it with a terrible, sinking feeling.