In The Afterlight (The Darkest Minds #3)(139)

I pressed the back of my hand against my mouth, instinctively looking up at the three red vests standing near the entrance. They stoically watched as each cabin of kids filed in and accepted their assignments.

Are they the same Reds?

My fingers flexed, tightening around the shovel. I glanced sideways, to my right. Sam was only miming work, smoothing dirt away. Still, after all this time, they forced us into alphabetical order.

“How long have they been here?” I asked in a low voice. “The Reds?”

At first, I wasn’t sure she’d heard me. I pulled the next potato up and dropped into the plastic tub between us.

“Three months, maybe,” was the reply, just as quiet. “I’m not sure.”

I sagged slightly, blowing out a soft sigh. They weren’t Sawtooth Reds. But that meant more camps, more reconditioning facilities.

“Don’t you...don’t you recognize some of them?” Sam whispered, leaning over as if to help me. “A few of them used to be here.”

I couldn’t risk another glance back to confirm this; I’m not sure I would have been able to, anyway. The Reds at Thurmond had always lived in my memory with shadowed faces. All of the dangerous ones did. But I knew for certain that I didn’t recognize the Red that Sam kept searching for; every time she found him, she shuddered and oriented herself away from his gaze. But, like clockwork, she’d look up at him again.

“Do you know him?” I whispered.

She hesitated so long, I didn’t think she would answer. But finally she nodded.

“From before? Before-before?”

Sam swallowed hard, then nodded again.

Sympathy swept through me, leaving me at a loss for what to say. I couldn’t imagine. I couldn’t begin to imagine what this felt like.

A PSF passed behind us, whistling without a tune, making his way up the rows between each patch of vegetation. The Garden was enormous, at least half a mile long, and required the most supervision. The handheld White Noise machine clattered against his supply belt, swaying in time to his slow steps.

I risked another glance up, realizing why my skin had crawled the moment he came into sight. This was one of the PSFs who oversaw work in the Factory—the one who liked to press himself up against the girls, hassle them to get them flustered, and then punish them for reacting in any small way. It hadn’t made sense then what he was doing to me, to Sam, to the other girls, and we’d just stood there and taken it silently. Now, though—now I had a pretty good sense of what he’d really been doing, and it lit my fury. He strolled by us and Sam stiffened. I wondered if she could smell him, too—a salty, sharp tang of vinegar, mixed with cigarette smoke and aftershave.

I didn’t relax until he was a good ten girls away from us.

“Ruby,” Sam whispered, earning admonishing glances from the girls working the row across from us. “Something happened...after you left, I realized something was wrong. With me. My head.”

My sight narrowed to the hole in front of me. “Nothing’s wrong with you.”

“I missed you,” she said. “So much. But I barely know you...and then I get these senses, these images. They come like dreams.”

I shook my head, fighting to keep my pulse steady. Don’t you dare. You can’t. If anyone catches on...if she slips up...

“You’re different,” Sam finished. “Aren’t you? You’ve always been—”

Sam was ripped away, hauled back and away from my side. I whirled around. The PSF from before was back, his hand knotted in Sam’s long ponytail.

“You know the rules,” he snarled. “We work silently or we don’t work at all.”

For the first time, I saw what this past year had done to my friend. The old Sam, the one who had stood up for me countless times, would have spat back an insult, or tried to twist out of his grasp. Struggled, in some small way.

Now her dirt-stained hands went up to protect herself, without a beat of hesitation. A practiced movement. Her whole body sagged as he shoved her forward, sending her sprawling into the mud. Fury whipped through me. And then it wasn’t enough for me that I would kill this man, eventually. I wanted to humiliate him.

I pushed a single image into his mind, an urge that was easy enough to suggest.

The front of his black camo pants darkened, the stain spreading down his leg. I jumped back in overblown disgust, catching the attention of another PSF just across the row of vegetation. He came back to himself with a shudder—and with slow, dawning horror, looked down.

“Shit—shit—”

“Tildon,” the PSF who’d been watching called out, “Status?”

“Shit—” The man’s face burned pink as he covered himself, seemingly torn between staying as he was or excusing himself to take care of the situation. Kids were sneaking glances at him, at each other. He seemed to realize it too, and rose on unsteady feet. I had just enough of a grip left on his mind to slide my right leg out to the side, and listen as his own leg mirrored the response and sent him crashing to his knees just before he reached the gate. The PSF—Tildon—he’d think he had tripped over someone. The image was the last one I planted before gently peeling back from his mind, refusing to watch as he walked briskly in the direction of the Control Tower.

Too much, I chastised myself—next time I’d have to go for something subtler. But this one, this one I wouldn’t regret, no matter what. I rose unsteadily onto my feet to help Sam back onto hers, guiding her back over to our places. She was shaking, staring at me as if she knew what had really happened.