In The Afterlight (The Darkest Minds #3)(98)

“Dr. Gray,” I said sharply, trying to drag her attention back to me. “Can you tell me what your first name is?”

“Naahhmmeee,” she muttered, hands cupping the rim of the baseball cap. “Don’t...good...pale...shade...”

“God,” Senator Cruz said, covering her face with her hands. “How can the two of you stand it? This poor woman...”

Cole pushed himself off of where he’d been leaning against the opposite wall. “I think that’s enough for the day, Gem.”

“But I haven’t made any progress.”

“Maybe there just isn’t any progress to make,” Senator Cruz offered, a hand on my back. The former First Lady had been the only thing important enough to drag her out of the senior agent quarters she’d been given, away from Rosa. I almost wished she hadn’t come, because it was bad enough feeling disappointed in myself—it was gutting to think I was disappointing her, after all she’d done for us.

“I haven’t even been trying for two full days,” I insisted. “At least give me another afternoon.”

Lillian Gray repositioned herself so she was lying down on the small bed, her face turned into the pillow. I could feel the frustration pouring off her, and didn’t try to catch her hand as she slammed it into the plastic-covered mattress over and over.

I sighed, rubbing my forehead. “All right. We’ll take a break.”

“How much should we tell the others about her condition?” Senator Cruz asked.

Vida and Chubs had promised to be tight-lipped, to claim the woman was exhausted and needed rest, if pressed by any of the kids. It only bought me a little time to figure out how to help her.

Being up-front with the others wasn’t an option that was in the cards for me. If they saw that Lillian Gray, their one shot at deciphering all the research and data we had about the cure, was like...this...it wasn’t going to do anything other than swing them more firmly to Liam’s side. The side that seemed like it was actually doing something.

From the moment we’d left Los Angeles, Cole and I had banked on having information about the cause and cure of IAAN to prove ourselves to the kids. But three weeks later, we had nothing to show that we’d delivered on our promises. Even the kids we’d pulled from Oasis spent more time in the garage than they did in the Ranch proper. The only time I saw them was when they came to the kitchen to pick up their meals, and even then they brought their food back into the garage to eat.

“I’m going to turn the door handle around so it locks from the outside,” Cole said. “If we tell the kids to leave her alone, they will.”

If they ever bother leaving the garage.

“I’m worried about the agents—Cate,” I said. “What’s the reaction going to be when they realize that the League doesn’t have her to barter with anymore?”

“The League will keep up appearances as long as humanly possible,” Cole assured me. “And I told you what Harry said. He and a few others from his old Special Forces unit are going to investigate the reports of a black site prison near Tucson. Dustin’ off the green berets, apparently.”

How Harry had managed to find out about a black site—which by its definition didn’t exist in any formal records—was beyond me. I didn’t want to press Cole on it in front of Senator Cruz.

“That’s promising,” she said, giving me a faint smile. I shook my head. It was barely anything at all.

I removed Lillian’s hat and dirty tennis shoes and tried to ease her under the blankets. Her face was gaunt as she looked up at me, but there were still traces of the rare beauty she had been.

Her eyes narrowed, and suddenly I wasn’t seeing her, but her son.

“Alban would want you here with us,” Cole told the woman gently. “You have friends here. Friends. Safe.”

“Alban?” Lillian sat straight up, her legs tangling in the blankets I’d carefully arranged for her. “John?”

Cole and I exchanged a sharp look, but, just as quickly, she fell back into muttering nonsense beneath her breath. “Hap...the...ang...moh...”

He moved to the small desk just to the right of the entrance, opening the drawer. “Dr. Gray, we have some things for you to look at after you get some rest. I’m just going to leave them here. They might be a little, uh, difficult. There’s a chart—”

“Chaaaahrts.” He held them up so she could see and the woman—the reaction was instant. She sat straight up and reached for them. “Cerebellum, pineal body, thalamus, interventricular foramen—”

The quality of her voice completely changed—it was sharp, almost aware. There was a refined edge to it, too, as if she molded each word on her tongue before she said it.

“Okaaay,” Cole said, stretching the word out. “That was...unexpected.”

And then the woman turned over on her other side, and promptly passed out.

Cole started to move toward the door, but I stayed exactly where I was, staring at her prone form. I’m not sure what made me want to try, only that I’d had enough of a chance to process what I’d seen in her head to suddenly be curious about it.

“What?” Cole asked, sounding further and further away as I slipped into her mind. The touch was as gentle as I could manage, and instead of trying to navigating the gleaming scenes that popped up behind my eyelids, I let myself be taken along their flow. I saw textbooks stacked high on a desk, young people in clothing decades out of fashion, movies flickering on screens in the dark, test grades; a bouquet of white roses that matched the dress she wore—that I wore—a younger, handsome version of the president waiting for her at the end of a long aisle strung with ropes of flowers; hospitals, machines; playgrounds, baby clothes, a child with black hair sitting at a kitchen table, his back toward me—all of these small moments of memory were cohesive, flowing as smoothly as if I had been guiding them with my own hand. It shifted, then, all of these glimpses into her life—splotches of rainbow color exploded over the scenes, and I was falling backward through white mist, nothing above or below me.