Never Fade (The Darkest Minds #2)(50)

I detangled my arm from his, taking a step back. “I can’t leave them.”

“You are not League,” he insisted. “You are not one of them. You’re one of us.”

“Don’t think about it as us and them,” I pleaded. “We can all work together on this for now. You don’t have to come back with us to California after we find Liam; you just have to stay with us now.”

Out of the corner of my eye, I caught Vida’s electric blue hair through the window screen. “Back then, you didn’t want me to stay, either, remember?”

“Yeah but that was…different,” he said, his voice low. “And you know it.”

“But at the time, you didn’t know that.”

I had read him right. I saw it in his face, in the rigid lines of his tight shoulders.

“You asked me if I trusted you,” I whispered. “Do you trust me?”

He blew out a long breath, his hands resting on his hips. “God help me,” he said finally, “I do. But I trust you, not them. I don’t even know who they are.”

I only held out my hand and waited for him to take it. I needed his long fingers to close around mine, wanted that final proof that his better sense and reasoning had given way to the belief he used to have in me. I waited for him to come with me, to accept that we were now in this together again, that time and distance and uncertainty hadn’t been enough to shake us.

And he did.

TEN

THE TAN SUV REEKED of fake evergreens. The smell of the air freshener was so overpowering, I had to roll down my windows to get fresh air circulating.

“You wouldn’t be complaining if you were there to smell the guy I bought it off of,” Chubs said, handing me a pair of sunglasses to wear. “Now. Put your seat belt on, please.”

Vida and Jude were already buckled into the backseat, though they hadn’t gone quietly. My favorite team member got one look at the metal grating that separated the front seats from the back and just about ripped my hair out at the roots trying to yank me out of the front seat.

“Are we driving this slowly because you have no idea where we’re going,” Vida asked, “or because you’re hoping we jump out of the car and put ourselves out of our misery?”

Jude sat straight up, alarmed. We both recognized that tone. Vida picked fights when she was bored, and battles when she was stressed. If it were the latter, only one of them was going to make it out of this car ride alive. We’d be washing the blood off the windows for weeks.

“That’d be doing the psychos holding your leashes a favor.”

For the first time, I was grateful for the metal grating between us. “They are not psychos, you condescending dick!” she snarled.

“I’m condescending?” Chubs asked. “Do you even know what that word means?”

“You piece of flaming—”

“So,” Jude said, his voice high. “Roo, how do you and Chubs know each other?”

“Charles,” he gritted out. “My name is Charles.”

“That’s supposed to be better?” Vida scoffed. Chubs let the car roll to a stop at a red light and turned to look at me, fire burning behind the lenses of his glasses.

“Yup,” I said. “She’s always like this.”

The tension that welled up in the car hovered among us, strung tight. One word or wrong move would snap it. Jude drummed his fingers against the armrest.

“Cut that shit out, nimrod, before I cut them off,” Vida said.

“Nimrod?” he shot back, his voice jumping an octave with outrage. “You don’t have to be so mean, you know.”

I pressed a hand to my forehead. “That gets you upset? That dumb name? She’s been calling you Judith for months.”

Chubs laughed but turned it into a cough when he saw my look.

“Yeah, well,” Jude huffed, drawing his boney knees up to his chest. “I guess I just don’t see what’s so insulting about being called a girl. The two of you seem to do okay when you’re not biting my head off or acting like I’m five years old.”

“As opposed to what?” Chubs said, flicking on the turn signal to merge onto a highway. “The ten-year-old you actually are?”

“Hey,” I warned. “None of that. He’s almost fifteen.”

“Roo,” Jude began, his eyes shining, “thank you.”

“You were that gawky when I first met you,” I continued, poking Chubs in the shoulder, “and you were eighteen.”

“Never mind,” Jude grumbled.

“You were the gawky one,” he corrected, “Lee was the reckless one, Zu was the cute one, and I was the wise one.”

There was a knock on the grate behind us. Jude’s face was floating there, his dark brown eyes peering between the two of us from behind the metal screen. “It would be nice,” he said, “if we had any idea what you guys are talking about. Like who this Zu person is?”

Chubs’s eyes slid over to meet mine. “Exactly how much did you tell them?”

“Exactly nothing,” Vida said. “And if it stays that way, I will make you regret it.”

This time I rolled my eyes. “Sure. Whatever you say.”

I felt the familiar warm tingling at the center of my chest and had just enough time to gasp as some invisible hand yanked me forward, smacking my forehead against the dashboard with enough force to stun me dumb.