In The Afterlight (The Darkest Minds #3)(35)

Silence stretched between us. He smiled. “What they’re trying to do here isn’t about you at all. They may have told you things to get you to come along, to surrender your trust to them, but they won’t see their promises through. Not even Stewart.”

“The only person I have to worry about not trusting is you.”

“Whatever you’re trying to accomplish by being here,” he said in a low voice, “bring all the kids you can to back you up. They’re the ones that’ll follow and trust you, not any of the adults. You’ll be lucky if they ever see you as anything other than a useful weapon.”

“Because it’s so easy to find kids in hiding scattered around the country?”

“I can help you track down the tribes roaming around. You can train them, teach them to defend themselves. We’re heading toward the endgame, and if you don’t find them, they’re going to be collateral damage in the war.”

I gritted my teeth, but he was talking again before I could fire off any retort. “Forget the adults, Ruby. Make sure you’re out in front of the kids. Make them love you, and you’ll have their loyalty forever.”

“Make them love me,” I said, my anger coming back in a surge.

“Not everything at East River was fake,” he said coolly.

But everything that had been important—every memory I had of that place—was tainted by the creeping black touch of his mind. Just the thought of the way he had studied me across the camp fire...the way he’d slid right through every one of my last mental defenses...the way those kids, the Cubbies, had looked at him in total adoration. A shudder ripped down my spine. The room had grown too small and too cold for me to keep standing there and listen to every last trace of bullshit he wanted to spew.

I turned back to the door, unlocking it, and made sure I switched the lights back off. And still, Clancy’s voice floated to me through the darkness. He contaminated the air, made it sound like he was everywhere at once.

“When you’re ready to be in charge and actually do something, let me know. I’ll be here, waiting.”

And judging by the last look I’d had at his face, that was exactly where he wanted to be.

7

COLE DIDN’T SAY A WORD to me until we were back out in the hall, with several doors between us and the president’s son. Even then, he seemed distracted, pale brows furrowed, arms crossed over his chest.

“Could you hear what he was saying?” I asked.

He nodded. “Through the small grate under the observation window.”

“Before the attack, did you hear any intelligence chatter about Thurmond?” I asked. “Were there any rumors floating around HQ?”

“I was hoping you’d have some idea of what he was talking about,” Cole said as we headed down the hallway. “I’ll look into it.”

I was headed to the large former rec room just to the left of the stairwell for dinner, but he was clearly escaping into Alban’s old office. I caught his wrist as he brushed by me. “When are we going to firm up a plan for the camps?”

“Not tonight,” he said. “We’re still waiting on two more cars, and I want to try making a few calls to old supply contacts. Outfitting this place has to be priority number one. No one is going to believe we can do anything if we can’t even get the kids clean clothes and a few warm meals. I asked some of the Greens to start thinking about how they would stage a camp assault. In the meantime, take a breather. We’ll be working soon enough.”

I returned his wave as he crossed through the doors connecting the hallways, and followed the smell of spaghetti sauce into the rec room. Someone had assembled folding tables and chairs in neat lines, brought in a small radio, and propped it on the scuffed-up pool table the agents had oh-so-graciously left behind. Next to that were two large pots with serving utensils, and a dismally small stack of paper plates.

It had taken me a few hours to notice that the Ranch was reassembling itself into something that seemed kind of...clean. The silent downstairs halls were punctuated by the banging of washers and dryers, which seemed to be going at all hours of the day. I finally saw that the floor tiles were more white than yellow. And when I went to splash some water on my face in the bathroom, there were no drizzles of rust-stained water streaking across my skin. I smelled bleach. Detergent. It was almost...homey.

I passed by two sheets of paper tacked onto the door, stopping to examine them. I recognized the handwriting immediately as Liam’s, but it took me a moment to understand what the charts were, why there were stubs of pencils attached to each one with string. They were sign-up sheets, divided up by chore: laundry, cleaning, organizing, food preparation. Under each of these headers were the names of kids. Everyone had to help, but they could choose their chore. That was Liam’s style.

I spotted Liam, Chubs, Vida, and Zu sitting at their own table, heads bent close together. Vida saw me first and instantly shut up, pulling back and casually picking up her fork again. I finished spooning some pasta onto my plate and moved toward them.

“What’s going on?” I asked, taking the open seat and turning to poke Liam’s side. “I saw the chore charts—you should have told me earlier so I could have signed up for something.”

Liam glanced up from his notebook. When he moved his hand, I saw a string of numbers—equations he seemed to be untangling. “It’s all right. You’re busy with other things.”