The Darkest Minds (The Darkest Minds #1)(128)

“I don’t know,” he said. “We split up. He could be anywhere.”

I had wanted to get us out of the water two hours before, but we kept hearing the sound of falling trees and the crackling remnants of the terrible firestorm.

My muscles were so stiff that it took me three times as long to pull myself onto the dock than it normally would have. Chubs collapsed beside me, shaking with each cold breeze that slashed over our wet clothes. We crawled our way back up the path, staying low to the ground until we were sure, positive beyond measure, that we were the last ones left.

Most of the cabins were gone—piles of charred wood and stone. A few still stood, burned out and hollow or missing their roofs. Ash flew around us like snow, collecting on our hair and sticking to our wet clothes.

“We should go to the Office,” I said. “Get inside. We can gather up supplies and then try to go out and search for Lee.”

Chubs’s feet slowed beside me, and I saw for the first time how red his eyes were. “Ruby…”

“Don’t say it,” I warned, my voice sharp. It wasn’t an option. “Don’t.”

I didn’t want to think about Lee. I didn’t want to think about Zu or the other kids who had gotten out of camp. We had to keep moving. If I stopped now, I knew I would never be able to start again.

The front rooms were clear. The boxes and tubs had been removed. I forced Chubs to walk behind me when I slipped into the storage room, but it was empty.

“Maybe they got him,” Chubs said, rubbing his head.

I grimaced. “When have we ever been that lucky?”

Upstairs, the bedroom was perfect. Before he left, Clancy had made his bed, put away the stacks of paper and boxes, and, it appeared, dusted. I ripped the white curtain back, joining the two halves of the room while Chubs fussed with the TV, clicking the power button on and off.

“They cut the electricity,” he said. “Want to bet they cut the water, too?”

I collapsed down in Clancy’s office chair and pressed my face against the dark wood. Chubs tried to peel Liam’s wet jacket off my shoulders, but I wouldn’t let him.

“Thank you for coming to find me,” I said, closing my eyes.

“You dumbass,” said Chubs affectionately. He patted me on the back. “Always running right into trouble.”

When I didn’t move, I felt his hand still on my shoulder. “Ruby?”

“Why did he do this?” I whispered. Everything in this room reminded me of Clancy, from the smell to the way he had organized the books by color on the shelves. “He just threw them all to the wolves.”

Chubs squatted down beside me, his knees cracking like an old man’s. His hand never left my arm, but he seemed to struggle with what he wanted to say next.

“Far be it from me to even approach untangling that hellhole of a mind,” he said, carefully. “But I think he just liked being in control. In charge. It made him feel powerful to manipulate people because he knew outside of this place he was just as vulnerable as the rest of us. There are some people like that, you know? The darkest minds tend to hide behind the most unlikely faces. He put on a good leader act, but he wasn’t like…he wasn’t like Lee—or Jack. He didn’t want to help kids because he believed everyone deserved to feel strong and protect themselves. Clancy was only ever thinking of himself. He would never have jumped in front of another person and…He would never have taken a bullet.”

At that, I sat up. “I thought Jack was shot escaping?”

Chubs shook his head. “Jack was shot protecting me, and he protected me because—” He took a deep breath. “Because he thought I couldn’t protect myself. He didn’t realize how much he had taught me.”

“I’m so sorry,” I said, feeling tears prick at the back of my eyes. “For everything.”

“Me too,” he said after a minute, and I didn’t need to look back to know that he was crying, too.

The laptop was stored in the top drawer of his desk, the note taped to the top of it glaringly yellow.

Ruby,

I lied before. I would have run.

—CG

“Chubs!” I called, waving him over. The power-on chime was oddly sweet. Little bells.

“He just left it here?” Chubs asked, tapping his fingers against the desk. “Is the wireless card still there?”

It was, but Clancy had taken care to wipe everything else from the computer. Only the icon for the Internet was left, sitting in the middle of the screen.

“Why does the clock in the corner say fifteen?” Chubs asked, sitting down in the chair. I leaned over to see what he was pointing at. The battery life. We only had fifteen minutes.

“That ass**le,” I fumed.

Chubs shook his head. “It’s better than nothing. As long as the connection holds, we can use it to try to figure out a way out of here. We can even look up Jack’s father’s new address.”

“And post your message to your parents,” I said, feeling a frail wave of happiness cut through me.

“It’s okay. I’d rather use these…fourteen minutes to find Jack’s dad,” he said. “I might even be able to put a call through to him if the computer has a microphone.”

He didn’t dare try to call his own parents.