The Darkest Minds (The Darkest Minds #1)(125)

“It’s okay,” I told her, putting an awkward hand on her back. We ran through the garden and up the office’s back steps. She fumbled to put her key in the lock, only to have it jam. I had to kick it in; Lizzie was too far gone to do anything but sprint inside. The hall and kitchen were empty. The whole building smelled like garlic and tomato sauce. Everyone must have been out setting up for dinner.

Everyone except Clancy, who stood in the middle of the storage room, leaning against a shelf of macaroni boxes.

Lizzie ran to the back right corner of the room and dropped to her knees. She pawed at the ground, her trembling hands clutching only air. “Clancy,” she cried. “Clancy, can you hear me? Ruby is here now—Ruby, come here!”

My stomach turned violently, and I was surprised by how sad it made me feel to have my worst suspicions confirmed.

Why does it have to be like this? I thought, looking at him. Why?

“You came, you really came,” Clancy said in a bored, flat voice. He sounded like he was reciting the words from a script. “Thank you, Ruby. I appreciate your help in my hour of need.”

“Why are you just standing there?” Lizzie wailed. “Help him!”

“You’re sick,” I said, shaking my head. Clancy came toward me, but I moved to the opposite end of the room, where Lizzie had her face buried in the ground. “Stop it, I’m here. There’s no reason to keep torturing her.”

“I’m not torturing her,” Clancy said. “I’m just playing around.” And then, as if to prove his point, he barked, “Liz, shut up!”

She stopped mid-gasp. A trickle of blood escaped her lip from where she had bitten it. I took her hands, turning them over. The blood was coming from her, from two neat cuts across her palms.

“What do you even want?” I asked, whirling around. “I’ve told you everything, and what I didn’t say, you went ahead and saw!”

It was only then that I noticed what Clancy was wearing. Nice, pressed black slacks, a white button-down shirt without so much as a speck of dust on it, and a red tie, trailing down over his stomach in the exact same way the blood was dripping down Lizzie’s chin.

“I’m just keeping you in here for a little while,” he said, “then we can go.”

“And where, exactly, are we going?” My eyes fixed on the shelf behind his head, the one full of metal spoons and mixing bowls.

“Anywhere you want,” he said. “Isn’t that what that Blue promised you?”

I tried to stay calm, but the way he spat the word out—Blue—rankled my already frayed nerves. I don’t know if Lizzie sensed the sharp change in my mood, but Clancy did. He was smiling, that perfect Gray smile, the same one that had followed me across Thurmond’s grounds.

Good, I thought. Let him think I’m helpless. Let him think that there was no real threat from me, not until he was flat down on the ground, unable to even remember his own name.

“Do you have a better offer?” I asked.

“What if I did?”

“I’d find that hard to believe,” I said, inching closer, trying to distract him, “considering you care so little about me. If this situation had been reversed, you wouldn’t have come running, would you have?”

He shrugged. “I would have come. I just would have walked.”

“Please let Lizzie go,” I said. It scared me the way she was acting, like a little kid. What was it about being Orange that turned people into such monsters?

“Why? If she stays you won’t think about trying anything, because it might mean her getting hurt, or worse.” He said it so casually that I actually thought he was kidding.

“How can you be sure?” I hoped my voice sounded stronger than it felt in my throat. “I don’t know her that well.”

“I’ve seen your memories. You’re what shrinks call ‘overly empathetic.’ You won’t do anything if it means hurting others—not intentionally at least.”

He said it with the utmost confidence, which made the shock on his face when I lunged at him that much sweeter. For once, he hadn’t predicted my response, hadn’t pulled me under his sway. I slashed across his face, heard him grunt as my nails bit into his cheek.

The connection was instant and powerful. It seemed that some part of what he had said was true, after all. I needed to want to use my abilities. I had to want to have control over them. And God, did I want to. I wanted to tear his brain to shreds.

The images that churned up from the dark waters of his head were so unlike what I had seen before. Instead of the bright glare and the sharp, controlled edges, they were sketched in a kind of watery charcoal. Unfocused, fuzzy. I saw faces, bloated and distorted, rise up from the murky surface. His mind had gone limp; I felt like I could reach both hands up and reshape him.

“Let her go,” I said, my grip on his throat tightening. I threw the image of him sending Lizzie away, and a moment later he was mumbling the words, “Lizzie, go…outside.”

She bolted for the door, and I felt a thrill run through me. He was shaking under my hands, his eyes blinking, but I held on to him.

“Now,” I said. “Now you’re going to let us go, too.”

But even as the words left my mouth, I felt the unraveling. I gripped harder, my fingers digging into his skin. Not yet, I begged, not yet, I need—I need to—