Never Fade (The Darkest Minds #2)(144)

“No.” My fingers clenched around it, hiding it from sight, denying it was there. The glass face had completely shattered, the red needle was gone, and the force of whatever had crushed it had folded it almost in half. No. It was just that one word, but it was enough to spark a blaze of furious denial. “No!”

“We traced the path back,” Liam said, holding onto my hand like an anchor. “All the way back to the entry point. As far as we could get with the debris…and…”

“Don’t,” I begged. Don’t tell me this.

“I don’t—” His voice choked off. “I don’t know what happened. I almost didn’t see him at all, but there was…I could see his shoe. We found him, but there wasn’t anything we…Chubs couldn’t do anything. He was already gone and we couldn’t get him out. He was at the back; the explosion must have just caught him—”

I threw the compass at him, and when that didn’t rock him, when that didn’t hurt him, I threw my fist after it, pounding against his shoulder. He caught it with his other hand and pinned both of mine to his chest.

He’s lying. It wasn’t possible. I had seen him outside, looking up at the sky. I had heard him, seen him, felt him.

I felt myself rock forward, the instant before my knees went. Liam had a good enough grip on me to prevent me pitching forward, but he was exhausted, too, and it was amazing he was able to keep us upright at all.

“We have to go get him,” I said. “We can’t just… He can’t stay down there; he doesn’t like the dark; he can’t handle silence; he shouldn’t have to be alone—”

“Ruby,” Liam said gently. “There’s not going to be anything to get. And I think you know that.” I recoiled violently, trying to push back against him, against the reality. But that burst of energy was as quick to pass as it had been to come. The tears were hot on my cheeks; they mixed with the dirt, rolling over my lips, dripping off my chin. His hands came up to either side of my face, wiping them away, even as I felt his own drip against my hair.

“I c-cant,” I said, “I can’t—”

For the first time, I wondered if the reason he hadn’t wanted me to go wasn’t because he thought they wouldn’t find Jude but because he thought they would.

“He was alone,” I cried. “He didn’t have anyone with him—he must have been so scared. I told him we would stay together.”

My mind was fixed on Jude’s face, the way his ears stuck out from the sides of his head like they’d been mismatched with the rest of his body. What was the last thing I said to him? Stay close? Keep going? And what had he said back? All I could remember was his pale face in the faint light of Cole’s yellow glow stick.

Follow Leader. He had followed me out and I had led him to this. I had done this to him.

“Lee!” Chubs called, and again, louder, when neither of us moved. There was a plane flying low overhead, dropping a cloud of something that looked like red gas. Liam raised his arms, covering our heads as the wind blew it toward us and dropped thousands of fluttering sheets of paper.

The kids and agents left the safe cover of the bridge to try to catch one. I snatched a stray sheet as it winged past us. Liam leaned over my shoulder and I held it up for us to read it together.

Centered at the top of the page were the presidential seal, an American flag, and the insignia for the Department of Defense.

Following the assassination attempt by the disturbed Psi youth, President Gray was taken to an area hospital where doctors examined him. As he was wearing a Kevlar vest during the attack, he sustained only abdominal bruising and two fractured ribs. Once he was discharged from their care, he released the following statement:

“Today we received confirmation on two disturbing intelligence reports I had prayed were only hearsay. First, that the Federal Coalition and its supporters are in the pocket of the terrorist organization, the Children’s League, and, together, they have established a program that conditions your children—the same ones they have stolen away from the life-saving rehabilitation camps—to be soldiers. To fight and kill with a ferocity that is as inhuman as the abilities they possess. Seeing no other alternative, I immediately launched an airstrike against the seat of these organizations, Los Angeles.

“These were targeted attacks, designed to minimize the damage to civilians. Do not mourn the loss of these reprehensible human beings. There have been times, in the course of human history, that fire has been needed to burn out an insidious infection. These are such times. This is the only way for us to build our nation again, stronger than before.”

“He forgot the God Bless America part,” Liam muttered, crumpling the paper.

A gunshot fired behind us. I wheeled around, gripping Liam’s arm to force him behind me. The agents had formed a circle around something—someone—on the other embankment. The men and women who were armed had their weapons out. Aimed.

“Are you kidding me?” Liam breathed out behind me. Vida practically screamed in rage, running toward the cluster of agents faster than any of us could catch her.

Some of them knew to move out of the way as the Blue girl tore through their circle, but only Cole was dumb enough to try to keep her from tearing out Clancy Gray’s throat.

“How?” she howled as we wedged ourselves through the kids and agents, pushing our way to the front. “How?”