In The Afterlight (The Darkest Minds #3)(46)

“It’s not a trade,” I said. “It’s because he’ll do the best job out of anyone here. It’s a role that needs to be filled, and fast. It’s because you’re brothers and you love each other, and should respect each other’s capabilities and focus your energy on the actual fight in front of us, not each other. Am I wrong?”

“Gem, it has never been more obvious than now that you’re an only child. The joys of siblinghood have never played well with logic.”

It was a huge job to track our supplies and bear the responsibility for figuring out how to bring new ones in; I would have stopped to second-guess the decision if I hadn’t seen with my own eyes that he could manage it.

“Cole,” I said softly, making Liam tense all over again. “He’s already been doing it.”

“It’s not a matter of whether or not he can do it, but if he deserves it,” Cole fired back. “He disobeyed a direct order not to leave the premises and he acted without permission.”

“Oh, right, I forgot, you elected yourself leader,” Liam said, and the ugliness in his voice made me actually cringe. “So glad we got a vote on that. What, were you afraid someone would question why you had any qualifications for the job? What you knew about us and our lives? Or was that another decision the two of you made and kept from the rest of us, hoping we’d all just nod and trail behind you like little mice?”

I stepped away from him, stung more by his tone than his words. Cole had the opposite response—he came closer, stepping right up into his brother’s face. To his credit, Liam didn’t flinch. Not until Cole said, “My qualifications? Try not getting a hundred and five kids killed with a naively planned and poorly executed escape attempt from a camp that wasn’t even that bad in the first place.”

“Out of line,” I warned Cole, feeling my own temper flare now. “The fact that you consider any camp to be ‘not even that bad’ shows you have no idea what you’re talking about. The two of you—”

“You want to punish me,” Liam cut me off, pushing me back from where I’d stepped between them. A wash of furious red worked its way up his neck to his face. Both he and his voice were shaking. “Fine. Name it. If you want to throw your weight around, just do it. I’m done with you wasting my time.”

I sent a sharp look of warning to Cole, but he was already saying, “Clean the bathrooms. With bleach.”

I’d seen Cole wear a smirk countless times at this point, but I’d never seen it on Liam’s face. That baiting, haughty look. “It’s already done.”

“Clear out the backup in the sewage system.”

“Already done.”

“Laundry. A month. By yourself.”

“You let them steal all of the sheets and towels,” Liam said, “in case you managed to forget.”

Cole released a loud breath through his nostrils, his eyes narrowing. Something clearly clicked, because his mouth tensed into a tight-lipped smile. “Then you can clean out and organize the garage.”

I whirled back toward him, confused. “The what?”

He didn’t say anything else, just strode to the door and held it open. I caught Liam watching my reaction out of the corner of my eye as he went first, but the only thing I saw as we followed Cole downstairs was his back. He kept two steps ahead of me the entire time and didn’t once turn to make sure I was still there. The unnerved feeling I had expanded into confusion as we moved through the kitchen; I could see my pale face reflected in the stainless steel surfaces as we passed by the sinks, stove, oven, and finally the pantry, until we hit the wall of metal shelves used to store pots, pans, and baking sheets.

The muscles in Cole’s arms flexed as he dragged the shelves away from the wall. The metal protested against the linoleum they’d used to tile the floor, but once the shelves were set aside, I had a clear view of what it had been hiding.

“Really?” I said, exasperated. “Another hidden door?”

Liam finally looked at me, brows lifting. “There are others?”

“It’s not hidden,” Cole said, stepping into the dark hall. He felt along the wall until the lights flickered on, revealing yet another damp, concrete tunnel. “We stopped using the space and just...left it alone. I’m thinking this will be our emergency exit. It’ll be important to make sure the kids know where it is.”

“What was it used for before?” I asked, more to fill the silence than anything. I was walking between them, eyes tracking Cole’s powerful, purposeful strides forward, the way his wide shoulders moved beneath his shirt. My mind was on Liam, though, the way frustration seemed to pour off him, clouding the air around us. He trailed behind me now, and I felt his eyes working over me as clearly as if he’d reached out and tugged my braid. Our shuffling steps and breathing echoed around us, and somehow were amplified by an unpleasant feeling that the two of them were one scathing word away from slamming each other up against the wall and beating one another senseless.

“We used it to run Op simulations, which is one reason it needs to be cleared out—any strike against a camp has to be worked through and choreographed,” Cole explained. “Then it became a kind of storage unit for all the crap we acquired over the years.”

“Fantastic,” Liam muttered. “I don’t suppose there’s anything actually useful in there?”