The Darkest Minds (The Darkest Minds #1)(103)

I stared at him for a long while, speechless.

How did you survive that life? I wanted to ask. How are you you, and not the monster they would have turned you into?

“After I got out that night I met Hayes, and then Olivia, and then others. We found this place and went to work, and all the while my father couldn’t put a bounty out on me, not without exposing the truth about me and his rehab program. He had to make up some lie about me attending college, to get the press off his back.” Clancy smiled then. “So, you see, I did win in the end.”

He rose from his chair, reaching out a hand. I took it without being conscious of it, feeling some calm wash over me as he squeezed my fingers. My head was silent. I felt myself lean forward.

“When I heard your story, I knew I had to meet you. I had to make sure that you knew the truth about what was going on, so you wouldn’t be caught in the dark the way I was.”

“The truth?” I looked up, startled. “What do you mean?”

Clancy didn’t release my hand; he only sat on the edge of his desk in front of me. “The woman who broke you out of Thurmond—the League agent? What did she tell you about the White Noise they used that day?”

“That the camp controllers had embedded a frequency in it that only Oranges, Reds, and Yellows could detect,” I said. He must have known about that—they used the same method to broadcast the location of the camp. “That they were trying to pick out any of the dangerous ones that were still hiding out.”

Clancy released my hand and reached back to turn his laptop so it faced us. On the screen was a snapshot of my face on the morning they had brought us into camp, but the text beside it wasn’t my history.

“Read the second paragraph aloud.”

I looked up at him, confused, but did as he asked. “‘Camp Controller Harris discovered the discrepancy in the Calm Control at 05:23 the following morning, after noticing an underlying frequency that had been added without his consent.’” I paused, licking my dry lips. “‘Upon further investigation of the recording devices in the Mess Hall, he came to the conclusion that the outbreak of violence there that resulted in the use of the Calm Control at approximately 11:42 was directly provoked by undercover operatives from the terrorist group the Children’s League. He believes these same operatives planted an identification frequency in the Calm Control. Psi subjects 3285 and 5312 who were taken from camp boundaries at approximately 03:34 by a Children’s League operative, are now believed to have been mistakenly identified as Green upon their initial classification.…’”

“Keep going,” Clancy said, when my voice trailed off.

“‘Subjects 3285 and 5312 are believed to be highly dangerous. Orders have been issued for their immediate recapture and reprocessing’—reprocessing?” My eyes flew up again. “But the way this is written…they didn’t know…they didn’t… Are you trying to tell me that they had no idea I was an Orange until after I got out?”

Clancy nodded. “It sounds that way.”

“Then I wasn’t in any danger after all? They wouldn’t have killed me?”

“Oh, you were definitely in danger,” he said. “They had all of the pieces, and it just took one curious mind to put it all together. But if you’re asking whether or not you would have been caught if the League hadn’t planted the frequency—then the answer to that is no, probably not.”

“Then why did they do it?” I demanded. “It seems like a huge risk to take to only get a few kids.”

“A few extremely valuable, rare kids,” he corrected. “Kids that would have been killed otherwise.”

Seeing my expression, he added, not unkindly, “You didn’t really think they let any of the kids like us live, did you? Not Oranges. Yellows, yes, because their threat can be contained, but not Oranges.”

I passed a hand over my face. “What about the Reds, then? They were killed, too?”

“No,” Clancy said. His voice became quiet, hesitant. “They had a much worse fate.”

I waited for him to continue, hands twisting in my lap.

“The president’s classified program.” Clancy crossed his arms over his chest, leaning back. “Project Jamboree. Dear old Dad’s been training himself a special army using all of the Reds they took from the camps. So you can see why…” He cleared his throat. “You can see why the League would be interested in finding any particularly dangerous kids for their own.”

I shook my head, dropping my face into my hands. Of all of the scenarios I had imagined—of all the things I thought had happened to those kids—this was too insane for me to have ever dreamed up.

“How could they force them into this?” I asked, my voice sounding hollow to my own ears. “Why did they agree?”

“What other choice do they have?” Clancy asked. “They were made to think that if they didn’t cooperate, something would happen to their families. They underwent a special conditioning program to make them think that they were needed and cared for absolutely. Before my father and his advisers figured out I was influencing them, I was able to supervise enough of the program to ensure that they would be cared for—better than if they had been in camps, at least.” He shook his head. “Don’t be afraid for them. They’ll get out from under my father’s control one day.”