In The Afterlight (The Darkest Minds #3)(28)

And now she would.

“What do you mean, not exactly?” Cole said, looking around. “Ten of you came to open the place, right? And Conner brought her dozen—”

Dolly’s sneakers gave a faint squeak as she shifted uncomfortably. She was saved from having to answer by the sound of bare feet slapping against the tile. My heart jumped into my throat as a head of pale blond hair rounded the corner of the hall at full speed—Cate.

Vida launched herself toward her, tearing through the mass of kids that stood between them, nearly tackling them both to the ground.

“I’m sorry, I’m so sorry,” Cate was saying, “we were just outside of the attack zone and couldn’t get back in through all of the barricades that were set up—”

Cate looked past Vida’s shoulder to where I stood, a relieved smile on her face as her eyes met mine. Oh God, oh my God, she doesn’t know—I couldn’t get the words to my mouth, couldn’t move. Heat flooded beneath my skin, the sweat bringing the guilt and shame and anger and sadness up from every pore. And then she wasn’t looking at either of us, but at the empty space at my other side. She was looking at the whole hall, her eyes tearing from one person to another, all the while holding Vida to her tighter. She was looking for him.

In the end, I didn’t need to say anything at all. She had to have known, the first second she saw my face.

Liam’s hand found mine, tightening around my fingers as he pulled me away, bringing me in close to his side. I pressed my face against his good shoulder, listening to his heart pound against my ear, trying to catch my breath and stop the rising tears.

“How about...” Dolly put a hand on Tommy’s shoulder. “How about I show you guys where the bathrooms are and where you can sleep? All of the rooms are open. Just pick which one you’d like. We’ll have to figure out sheets and blankets tomorrow, I’m sorry.”

“What happened to the bedding?” Cole asked in a low voice.

“They took it.” Dolly lifted a shoulder and shot a look from him to the kids and then back to him, and finally Cole stopped asking questions.

She led us down another bright white hall, the lights overhead bleaching out everyone’s skin, making the dirt and grime that much more obvious. Pictures taped to the wall fluttered as so many bodies moved past them. The sharp smell of bleach. A large room, the size of a school’s gym, wide open and littered with sleeping bags and bedding.

Rest, I thought. I can finally stop.

“Hey, Gem,” Cole said. “Can you come with us for a bit? I want to debrief Cate so she has the full picture.”

Liam’s grip on me tightened and I almost said no—I didn’t think I could handle being around Cate until I recharged. But he and I were in this together. And I wanted to know where the other agents were.

“I’ll be there in a second,” I told Liam. “Pick us out a good room.”

“All right...” he began uncertainly, but followed the others downstairs with only one last look over his shoulder.

Cole motioned for me to follow him into the room just to the left of the tunnel’s opening, but I held my ground a second longer, trying to get a better look at the place. And I was...unimpressed.

Back in Los Angeles, HQ had had a kind of ramshackle look to it, like someone had dug a deep hole, poured in some concrete, and brought in mismatched tile, desks, and tables to decorate it. The lighting and plumbing had been exposed overhead, and we’d never had reliable hot water. But the Ranch just looked like it had been forgotten. Despite the fact that the agents had been up here for at least a week, the floor was coated with clouds of gray dust and dirt. Door handles hung limp and broken. Paint was peeling off walls and the wood on several doors was splitting. Light bulbs were either out or missing completely, leaving random patches of the hallway in darkness. The ceiling tiles were crumbling into powder; whole chunks of the ceiling had fallen to the ground and had just been kicked aside. It was like they didn’t care; a wave of anxiety went through me as I took it in. This was how you treated a place you had no intention of staying in. Owning.

“—is bullshit! This is such f**king bullshit!” Vida’s voice called me to the room the others had entered. I stepped in and shut the door firmly behind me, nearly knocking into a wall of filing cabinets. The room was just large enough for a single desk, three chairs, and a few framed maps of the United States.

This must have been Alban’s office, I thought, while he was still here. It wasn’t nearly as crammed with random junk as his office had been at HQ, but certain touches, including the limp American flag hanging on the wall, were recognizably him.

“As soon as they were out of Los Angeles, Sen contacted the Ranch and told them they were heading to Kansas,” Cole explained to me from where he was leaning against the front of the desk with Cate. She kept her face turned down, her arms crossed tightly over her chest, thoughts clearly somewhere else. Vida paced what little free space there was to move, her hands on her hips.

“And they all left,” I finished. Dammit. Cole had been sure that the agents who’d left HQ with Cate to look for transportation for us were, if nothing else, loyal enough to Cate to want to stay and help us.

“And took pretty much everything that wasn’t nailed down here with them, including most of the food,” Cole said. I was surprised at how calm he seemed. “Cate and Dolly were going to come looking for us—apparently you really sold that we were going to Kansas. We’re going to have to start from scratch in building this place up, but it’s doable.”