In The Afterlight (The Darkest Minds #3)(136)

The smell of black permanent marker flooded my nose as I picked them up, working my sore jaw back and forth. If it was a muscle or a joint, it hurt, but I didn’t want to give them the satisfaction of limping as I stood up and moved to the corner of the room to begin stripping, aware of their eyes on my back the entire time. I began with my shoes, unlacing them quickly, tilting the right one back to pluck the black flash drive out of it. My hands felt swollen and clumsy as I slid it into my new shoe, pretending to adjust the cloth tongue. They were two sizes too big, at least, but it didn’t matter to anyone watching me. My face burned with hatred as I faced the wall and stripped out of my clothes. The uniform slid over my freezing skin like the dull side of a blade. When I was finished, I turned back and kept my head bowed.

The PSF who’d gone to get the uniform, Laybrook, stepped up and gripped my arm.

“Cabin twenty-seven,” O’Ryan said, the corner of his mouth twisting up in a mocking smile. “We kept your bed open for you, knowing we’d see you again. I’m sure you remember the way.”

O’Ryan gave a small signal with his hand and I was hauled, literally pulled, out of the door and into the hall. Laybrook wrenched my arm again as we turned into the nearest stairwell. God, I could almost see it—all of those little kids trailing up the other direction, not knowing what was waiting for them. I saw myself in my pajamas, Sam in her coat.

The pace was impossible to keep up with. I slipped, nearly falling onto my knees as we reached the first landing. Laybrook’s expression darkened with irritation as he gripped the back of my shirt and neck, bringing me back up onto my feet.

This is how it’s going to be, I thought, with all of them. I got out, I got out and beat their system—And now what? They had to prove to me it would never happen again? That I was just as small and powerless at seventeen as I was at ten? They wanted me to stay in that shadowy corner I’d let myself be backed into, fold myself up small, cut myself off from the others. They wanted to take everything away again, strip me down to nothing.

I snapped.

I glanced back up the steps we’d come down and shifted my gaze toward the next set, until it finally landed on the black camera watching overhead. Once we were out of its line of sight, turning the corner to start down the next flight of stairs, I bent my arm, threw my elbow up into Laybrook’s throat, and held it there. I glared up through the inches that separated his stunned face from mine, and slammed into his mind. His rifle clattered against the wall, the strap sliding from his shoulder. The man had decades on me, and at least a hundred pounds, but in the end it didn’t matter. We’d be going at my pace from this point on.

O’Ryan had been right about one thing, at least—I did remember the way back to Cabin 27. My fear remembered it, too, and I had to fight to keep myself from swaying as the camp spread open in front of me.

It was just that some things had changed in the months I’d been gone.

The lower level of the Infirmary had been little more than a hallway of beds and curtains, but all of those were gone now, replaced by stacked, unlabeled boxes. As we moved across the tile, the plastic in my shoe clicking with each stride, I saw PSFs bringing more up from the back rooms and offices. Their curious gazes followed us all the way outside into the pouring rain.

Gunmetal-gray skies always drew out the vibrant green of the grass and the trees surrounding the fence. The curtain of water falling around us in sheets didn’t dampen the effect in the slightest, nor did it drive away the earthy smell that immediately sent my senses into an overload of visceral memory. I bit my lip and shook my head. It’s different now, I reminded myself. You’re in control. You are getting out of here. I tried to reach for the old, familiar numb nothing I had lived inside while in this camp, but couldn’t find it.

The soggy ground shifted under my feet as I found the muddy path. I looked down, and my eyes caught on the sight of the white slip-ons on my feet. The number 3285 stared back, splattered with filthy water and wilted grass.

I took a steadying breath and forced myself forward. You’re here for a purpose. You are going to get out of here. This was another Op. I could be hard and certain and fight here, too. There was no falling apart now. No giving into fear. Not if I was going to save the others.

Rings of cabins curved in front of me, looking darker and smaller than I remembered. I saw holes in the roofs patched over with sheets of warped plastic. The wood paneling along the sides was warping, peeling as the remnants of the last snowstorm dripped down from the roofs. The cold ran like needles over my skin, pinching and stabbing until I finally gave in and started to shiver.

The red brick Control Tower at the center of the cabins had darkened under the rain’s touch, but there were still multiple PSFs out on the upper ledge, their guns following the paths of each line of drenched kids trudging up the paths from the Garden. Their Blue uniforms clung to their shoulders, the hollows of their stomachs.

Most of the kids kept their heads down as they diverted around us, but I caught a few curious glances, all lightning-fast, under the watchful eye of their PSF escort. No—not PSF—

I spun on my heel, watching as the soldiers at the end of the line marched on, backs straight, movements choreographed and stiff. They wore crimson vests over their black fatigues.

I guided Laybrook off the path with the slightest bit of pressure on his arm, letting the next group pass by us to reach their cabins. Again, walking alongside them at the front and back of the two straight rows were the soldiers in crimson vests. No guns. No weapons of any kind. A warning trill sounded in my mind as the last group came toward us, and terrible suspicion solidified into shock.