Never Fade (The Darkest Minds #2)(97)

We have to use them to keep the others in their place.

“You are—you are a monster,” Rob choked out. “All of you are going to ruin us; you’re going to ruin everything, damn you, damn you, damn you!”

An explosion of noise and movement rocked the back of the car, throwing me against the seat. Then the small explosion came, and then we were spinning—spinning—until we weren’t.

The force of the crash blew out the back windows and showered me with glass. I heard one last scream from Rob, before the impact and nothing but a grating crunch of metal as the front end of the car plowed into the thicket of trees beside the road.

I rammed against the back of the seat, my teeth clacking. The blow to my forehead blanked every thought to a blinding white. The images of the boy and girl were ripped out from behind my eyelids. They vanished, Rob’s face disappeared, and it was just me—just me and what I’d done.

Oh my God. I tried sucking in air through the muzzle, but in the last few minutes it’d tightened, and tightened, and tightened with the shrill screaming inside of my head. I banged my face against the carpet, the first sob working its way out of me like someone had reached in and ripped it out of my throat. Oh my God, oh my God, oh my God.

Clancy would have been so proud of me. The way I’d used those kids, twisting them, manipulating them, ripping into Rob’s mind until it shattered. Clancy would have looked into my face and seen his own reflection there.

We have to use them to keep the others in their place.

My stomach heaved, the bile burning its way into my mouth until I was choking on it. I wanted to be sick, I wanted to get the blackness out of me, I needed air, to get away from Rob, from this, from what he’d made me and what I’d done.

Monster, monster, monster, monster, monster. I slammed my foot against the trunk door over and over until the plastic began to crack. Where was Rob? Why wasn’t he saying anything?

There was the screech of brakes and the sound of slamming doors. I only kicked harder, a steady bang, bang, bang like the beat of an old rock ’n’ roll song, like guns firing in the night.

I was still sobbing when the back door finally burst open. I rolled out, hitting the dirt facedown with a low cry of pain. Even in the open air, the muzzle was suffocating, and it wasn’t coming off; I was never going to get it off—

“Busy day, girlfriend?”

Vida stood over me, her shadow flat against the ground near my face.

I was struggling as hard as I could to get the damn muzzle off, tasting leather and my own salty tears. I knew I was hyperventilating, but I couldn’t bottle up the swelling panic that had finally burst forward when the Jeep crashed. I didn’t want her to see me like this. I didn’t want any of them to see me like this. Please leave, please leave me alone; I can’t be around you, please, please, please just leave me here.…

“Ruby,” she said, flipping me over. “Okay, okay, Ruby—just let me take it off—”

Her knife snapped the plastic zip tie around my wrists, but I felt her fingers fumble as they tried to work the straps on the muzzle. I was screaming at her, begging, Leave me! Leave me! and it came out as nothing more than a low moan.

“Shit!” She had to use a knife on the leather. It snapped under her careful fingers, one strap, then the next, and then the air was in my mouth, cold and tasting like car exhaust.

“No,” I cried, “I can’t—You have to—you have to…”

“Vida!” Jude sounded far away. “Is she okay?”

My vision bobbed in and out of a foamy sea of gray. The cold was a snake that slithered along my limbs, wrapping tightly around my chest as I tried to catch my breath. There was a scramble of shoes against the loose asphalt on the highway’s shoulder. A new set of hands on me, a new face hovering over mine. “Check on him!” Chubs barked.

“Oh, gladly,” Vida growled, circling around the back of the Jeep.

“Can you stand?” Chubs’s face appeared right over mine, his hands pressing against my cheeks. “Are you in pain? Can you speak?”

I tried to drag myself away from him, coughing up the bitter, burning taste draining down the back of my throat.

“Ruby, Jesus.” Chubs grabbed my shoulders, holding me in place. His voice cracked. “You’re all right. You are, I promise. We’re here, okay? Take a deep breath. Look at me. Just look at me—you’re all right.”

I pressed my forehead against the asphalt, trying to get the words out, the warning. My vision flickered black at the edges, but my head felt like someone had split the back of it open. My fingernails dug into the road, like I could dig in deep enough to bury myself there. I was hearing voices, shouting nearby and far, but I was also hearing Clancy, his silky voice whispering in my ear: You’re mine now.

“Well?” Chubs asked. My eyes drifted up to Vida’s face, which had gone a shade of sickly gray. She swiped the back of her hand over her mouth.

They got me off the ground together, Vida all but lifting me over her shoulder. “Can you get the cuffs off?” she asked Chubs. The chain was still attached to the muzzle, and both dragged along the ground, marking our path.

“Not important—you can drive?”

“Like a f**king boss,” she shot back modestly, “why?”

“No…!” I bawled. I clawed at the collar of my shirt, trying to keep the fabric from tightening into a choking collar. “No, you have to… Have to leave me…”