In The Afterlight (The Darkest Minds #3)(50)

I kept my expression neutral, my breathing even. You’ve done it before, Ruby. It was always easier to slide into someone’s mind after I’d already created a path there. But both times, I’d had to catch him by surprise to do it—I’d been so damn furious in each case that if my hit had been physical and not mental, I was half-convinced I could have taken out a cement wall.

He blinked and I let the invisible hands unfurl at the back of my mind; by the time his dark, thick lashes were rising again and his gaze met mine, their nails had turned to hooks, waiting to latch on—

The block from Clancy felt like I’d slammed face-first into the glass wall between us. I cringed, fighting with everything I had not to bring a hand up to rub at the center of the pain right between my eyes. A dull headache flared to an outright, piercing throb.

“You’re rusty,” he said, surprised. “That was borderline pathetic. When was the last time you tried this?”

Shut up, I thought, trying to keep my pride in check.

Would you rather we talked like this? His voice bled through my mind, his lips never so much as twitching. He’d done this to me once before, at East River, as a friendly challenge—the sensation of it was exactly the same. It felt like there were a thousand moths trapped beneath my skin, their wings brushing and beating until I had the urge to scratch them out by force.

I was rusty, but there was a difference between being down and being out. Clancy had to constantly feed his confidence with moments like this in order to support the weight of his ego. I’d been counting on that trademark smugness, his unwillingness to accept that he was anything less than the most powerful person in the room. Come on, ass**le....

I wanted him to really believe, even for a moment, that my abilities weren’t just like a muscle I hadn’t flexed in weeks—I wanted him to think I was hopeless.

I shook my head, forcing what I hoped was a frustrated, upset expression onto my face. I had the advantage of him already assuming that his blow would be lethal to my own pride. I could see it in his face: he thought he was torturing me by forcing me to use my abilities, and he was enjoying the struggle, relishing the sight of me trying and failing.

That was one way to feel powerful while locked up behind three inches of bulletproof glass, I guess.

My abilities were practically purring inside my skull in anticipation. It took strength I didn’t know I had not to laugh, to hold that look of fury and annoyance. I just needed a single moment of him being thrown off balance. Just one, but it was like finding a way to land a hit on a guy standing behind a cinder-block wall. As with any fistfight, though, however unfairly stacked it was in one corner, there were tricks. Dirty cheats.

I wasn’t above it. Not by a long shot.

“Sorry, couldn’t resist. Ready to go again?” Clancy crossed his arms over his chest, glaring at me from behind the glass. “My only request is that you actually pretend to try.”

When he smiled again, I smiled right back.

This time I threw my abilities at him like a fist, aiming for the blank white curtain he threw up again to guard his thoughts. I slowed my assault, letting him sweep that same curtain forward to maneuver me right back out of his headspace. His own power brushed against mine like the soft stroke of knuckles against a cheek.

I reached over and unlocked the door to his cell, propping it open with my foot. Clancy jerked back, startled, and that great white nothing that had masked everything working behind his eyes lifted, just enough for me to slide into the twisting hallways of his mind. The colors were suddenly vivid as jewels—pristine emerald lawns, a home perched next to a sapphire sea, a flowing amethyst evening gown, camera flashes like the sun striking the surface of a diamond, dissolving the world in flashes of pure light.

I worked faster than I ever thought I’d be able to, flipping through each memory as I stepped back and shut the door to his cell again, flipping the heavy lock. The win was short-lived. Clancy’s memories and thoughts had always passed through my mind like thunderclouds—expansive, brimming with darkness, and always on the edge of bursting. Now they were overly bright and crisp—still, too, like I was flipping through a stack of photographs, not trying to navigate the winding, endless paths that each memory sent me on. I felt myself coasting, carried along by a firm grip. Someone else was at the wheel.

The cell, detention hall—they were ripped back from the edge of my vision in one sharp tug. A layer of reality gone, just like that. And in its place was an old, familiar scene.

Clancy’s back was to me as I stepped toward him, letting the room solidify around us. Dark wood, everywhere. Shelves that blossomed with books and files. A TV appeared in the corner and burst to life with a flash of silent color. A desk appeared in front of where Clancy sat, his hands poised in the air until the laptop appeared beneath his moving fingers, papers growing up from the surface of his desk in neat white stacks.

He must have left the window open. The white curtain he used to separate his bed from the rest of the office fluttered at my back, and the memory was clear enough for the sound of the kids at the fire pit below to drift up to my ears. A soft breeze brought in the damp, earthy scent of the nearby trees.

I shuddered. We were at East River.

The memory was moving now, throwing me forward with a lurch, but it was only at half speed. I stepped up behind where Clancy was working, dividing his attention between his father’s face on the TV set and the laptop in front of him.