Never Fade (The Darkest Minds #2)(129)

Her gun clattered loudly against the floor, but her body was soft and silent as I pushed the image of her sitting and sinking into a deep sleep. She slumped against me, and I eased her down onto the floor.

Jude bolted past me, heading for the boys’ door. I took the handle of the girls’ door, the same I’d opened for months without a second thought, and stepped inside, pulling the door shut silently behind Clancy. I flicked on my flashlight.

“Up—” I started to say, shining it into the nearest bunk.

The room wasn’t large. It only needed to house twelve girls, though there’d always been an extra bunk bed crowding the right wall, on the off chance the League ever picked up another kid. The bunk Vida and I shared, in the back right corner, had been neatly made, the sheets stretched tightly over the mattress with Vida’s military-like precision. All of them were—Almost like…

Like there was no one left to sleep here.

Too late.

“Don’t say it,” I warned Clancy. “Not one damn word.”

He stared ahead at the empty bunks, a cold expression on his face, but he stayed silent.

My knees buckled slightly, mirroring the feeling of my heart as it dropped like a stone through my chest. Too late.

Those girls, all of them—they were—they were—

I pressed the heels of my palms against my forehead. Slamming them there, over and over, as a silent scream rippled up my throat. Oh my God. All of them.

Too late.

I ripped the door back open, letting Clancy slip out ahead of me as we moved to the boys’ room. Jude wouldn’t know—wouldn’t think to be silent—He’d wake up the entire base—

Where the girls’ room had been cold and dark, this one was filled with the light of flashlight lanterns and the natural body heat of twenty kids, all awake, fully dressed, and crammed together on the bunk beds.

My eyes flew around each of their faces before they settled on the small pile of weapons gathered at Jude’s and Nico’s feet in the center of the room.

“No, no, no!” Nico cried. “What are you doing here?”

“I told you: we came for you,” Jude said. “What the heck is going on?”

“I thought you knew about their plans,” I said, “about the bombs and camps? You didn’t think we’d come to get you out after your friend told us what happened here?”

Clancy only had that same unreadable expression on his face as he surveyed the room.

“Of course I knew!” Nico let out a low moan. “We’ve been communicating on the Chatters this whole time. You were supposed to stay away! I told him to tell you not to come back until it was safe! Until tomorrow!”

“What the hell?” I said, whirling toward Clancy. “What game are you playing?”

The faces around me looked just as confused as I felt. “Who are you talking to?” Jude asked, glancing around.

“Him!” I snapped, exasperated. I tried to grab Clancy before he slipped back out the door. “Who else?”

“Roo…” Jude began, his eyes wide, “there’s no one there.”

“Clancy’s—”

“Clancy?” Nico said. “He’s here? He came?”

“He’s right here,” I said, grabbing for his arm. My fingers passed right through it, drifting through cold air. The sight of him wavered, flickered.

Faded into nothing.

He’s… My mind was gripped with panic. I couldn’t finish the thought.

“I didn’t see him get away,” Jude said. “Did Vida take him to disable the cameras…? Roo?”

“The cameras are already down! We hacked into the program hours ago!” Nico said.

“We have to stay here,” one of the other kids added. “They told us to get into one room and stay until it was all over. You’re too early.”

“Until what’s over?” Jude was asking. I barely heard him over the roar of blood in my ears. “What’s happening at six?”

Nico let his head fall back for a second, taking a deep, frustrated breath.

“That’s when Cate and the others are coming to get us.”

TWENTY-NINE

IT WAS A TRICK.

“Okay…” I said, trying to catch one of the thoughts flying through my head long enough to put it into words. “Okay…we just…”

He was there. In the tunnel, he was there. He came in with us. If he was going to get away, why didn’t he do it before? Clancy could influence more than one person. He could have tricked all of us by never getting off the plane in the first place. But he had. I had dragged him down the steps myself, felt his pulse jump when I pushed him toward the ladder down into the tunnel. Why not escape then? It had been just as dark outside.…

“What should we do?” Jude was asking.

Because he needed me to get him in here. Before Cate and the others came back.

“You have to stay here where it’s safe,” Nico rambled. “If you go back out there—”

I let him play me again.

“Ruby—Roo!” Jude grabbed my shoulder, turning me back toward him, forcing me to break my gaze with a crack on the far wall. His hair and eyes were both wild, his freckles overlapping points on a map I’d only recently learned to read. He was anxious, but he wasn’t afraid. This was a good Jude to have.