In The Afterlight (The Darkest Minds #3)(34)

“I’ll be here,” he said quietly. “Signal if you need me.”

Another part of the deal—he wanted someone to watch my back from behind the door when I came to bring the little pest food. My choices were him, Cate, or Vida, but I’d added Chubs to the list since he had always been resistant to Clancy’s influence.

I stepped inside the second hall, letting Cole shut and lock the door behind me.

There were two holding cells in the hall, both of them about ten feet wide and four feet deep. Each had been outfitted with a cot, a plastic toilet, and a bucket of water for washing and brushing teeth. As cells went, these were certainly an upgrade from the damp, musty spaces that had been carved out for the interrogation block at HQ. Better lit, too—almost blinding with all the ultra-bright-white walls and the exposed fluorescent light bulbs overhead. Hardly up to Clancy Gray’s usual standard of living, though he seemed comfortable enough sprawled out on the cot, his arm thrown over his eyes. Cole must have hosed him down before bringing him inside, changed him into clean sweats. It was more than he deserved.

He didn’t stir as I moved toward the door. The metal flap built into it had another lock; I assumed my key would work on it, and was right. It squealed as it opened, but still, no response from our prisoner. I dropped the bag of food inside, set the glass of water on the small ledge on the other side, and took extra care in relocking it. Clancy waited until I had already turned to go to speak.

“Move-in going badly?” His voice was unsettlingly curious as he turned around to face me. “Your thoughts are so loud I can hear them through the glass.”

It was irrational, but for a moment I was worried he meant that literally. But I could feel him when he was trying to poke around inside of my head. There was always a tingling rush that raced down the back of my skull and neck.

Clancy dragged his food over to his cot with his foot. He made a face as he pulled his sandwich apart. “What, there’s no steak anywhere west of Texas? What is this meat?”

I started to roll my eyes, only to realize he was actually serious. “It’s bologna.”

He sniffed at it, his lip curled in disgust, then rewrapped it in the plastic it’d come in. “I think I’d rather starve.”

“Be my guest.”

“In any case,” Clancy said, ignoring this, “I’m disappointed by your lack of smugness. I would have thought you’d be in here first thing, gloating about being reunited with your little flash drive again. What’s got your mood so sour?”

“I’m looking at him.”

He let out a light laugh. “I overestimated how much you’d be able to figure out in these first few hours. Does the flash drive even work, or was it erased by the EMP? How are those crispy research pages you rescued from the fire? You probably haven’t even found out what they’re doing to Thurmond yet, have you?”

An invisible hand seemed to wrap around my throat, forcing me to lean forward. Thurmond? What was happening at Thurmond that would have him looking so damn gleeful at my blank look?

Don’t say it, I commanded myself, fighting against the panic that spiraled up inside me at that one word. Don’t react.

Clancy tore off a piece of the sandwich’s bread and popped it into his mouth. When I didn’t demand answers, the corner of his mouth lifted into a smirk.

“If you want to know, you’ll have to look and see for yourself.” He tapped his temple—a challenge or an invitation?

“I know you’re angry,” he began, “about the way it all went down in Los Angeles—”

Thurmond, I kept thinking. That word was an infection—exactly as he’d hoped, if I had to guess. He’s been trapped with us for weeks, there’s no way he could have new information—unless it wasn’t new information at all, just a card he’d been holding on to, waiting for the exact right moment to play it.

It took me a few seconds too long to answer. “Angry doesn’t begin to cover it.”

He nodded. “One day, though...one day months or even years from now, maybe you’ll see that destroying that research was a selfless act, not a selfish one.”

“Selfless?” I whirled back toward the glass wall, cutting off my own retreat to the door. “Taking away the chance for kids to survive and never face the change? Robbing them of their only real chance to be reunited with their families and returned home is selfless?”

“Is that what you want? I thought liberating Thurmond in time would take precedence,” Clancy said, inspecting one of the grapes. “Are these organic?”

I spun on my heel, crossing the distance between his cell and the door as quickly as I could without running.

“Ruby—listen to me. The cure is another way to control us, take decisions out of our hands. What happened when you brought the research here? Have they even let you see it? Do you know where it is right now?”

My fingers curled into fists at my side.

“It’s not some magic bandage that’s going to heal all wounds. It’s not going to erase the stigma of what we are in their minds. If there aren’t side effects, they’ll always be waiting, watching, praying that we don’t relapse. Tell me,” he said, drawing his legs up, crossing them on his cot. I watched, silently, as his fingers drummed against his knees. “Does knowing there’s a cure change the way the agents here treat you?”