Senator Cruz stared at her notes, then asked casually, “Do you believe you could figure out a better system, given what we have to work with?”
“Yes,” Chubs said without a hint of arrogance. “And I think if you proceed with this option, you’ll not only be ignoring the mental and emotional health needs of the children coming out of the camps, but you’ll be condemning them to a life of fear and shame. And if it’s going to be that way, then you might as well have left them in the camps.”
“Good,” Senator Cruz said, “We’ll reconvene our discussion on this point following the conclusion of this panel. Should any other Psi-afflicted youth like to join us, please speak to me.”
In the midst of all of this, someone had disappeared from the front row of seats—a young man in a baseball cap. He’d faded to the outer edge of the room, and was moving quickly toward the exit. With his face turned down and his arms crossed over his chest, he could have been anyone.
But I knew exactly who he was.
I slipped away, waving off Liam’s and Vida’s questioning eyes, and held up a single finger. I had a feeling this was going to take far longer than a minute, but with Senator Cruz talking again, this time about future congressional and presidential elections, their attention was drawn back to her.
The hall outside was ten degrees cooler than the stuffy sweatbox the ballroom was becoming. I had a feeling he had come out here for the silence, though, more than the cool air. He’d walked nearly to the end of the long hall, and taken a seat across from a window overlooking the hotel’s parking lot.
“Come to laugh, have you?” Clancy asked, his voice hoarse. He never turned his head, only kept his eyes trained on the window. “Enjoy it.”
“I’m not here to laugh,” I said.
He snorted, but said nothing. Eventually, his hands tightened in his lap, clenching and releasing. “I keep losing feeling in my right fingers. They said they’d never seen the complication before.”
I bit back the reflexive I’m sorry. I wasn’t.
“I told you this would happen, didn’t I?” Clancy said. “That the choice all of you were stupidly chasing ended up in the hands of the people who put you away in the first place. It didn’t have to be this way.”
“No,” I said pointedly. “It didn’t have to.”
For the first time, he turned and looked directly at me. The recovery from the surgery had drained some of the meat from his bones and the color from his skin. I had a feeling that if I were to lift off the baseball cap, I’d find a newly shaved head and fresh scars hidden there. “What happened to Nico?”
Well. I hadn’t expected that. “He’s here. Didn’t you see him?”
His shoulders rose and fell with the next deep breath he took in.
“Did you want to talk to him about something?” I prompted. “Maybe about something you regret?”
“I only regret losing control of the situation. But...it doesn’t matter. I can figure a way around this, how to deactivate the device she planted there. How to get everything back. I can do it. I’m closer to the right people than ever. I can find my father, wherever he’s hiding. I can do it.”
And, somehow, I’d known that would be his answer. Because this is who Clancy was at his core: someone who’d always had everything, and still needed more. Still wanted the one thing he’d never, ever be able to achieve.
But when he looked at me, his dark eyes sunken back into his skull, it told me something else—that maybe what he really wanted, what he couldn’t admit out loud, was the exact same thing his mother had wished for all these years. Pride played a dangerous game in his heart, warring with exhaustion. I felt myself hesitate, fingers curling into fists as I thought of all of the lives he’d played with so callously, the good ones that had been lost, so that he could find ways to survive.
And there, too, at the back of my mind was the boy on the examination table, scared and alone and boiling with helpless hatred.
The one with the sweet smile that now lived only in his mother’s memory.
I knew what he would have done if our situations had been reversed, and I couldn’t deny the small voice telling me to do exactly that—walk away, let the pain and humiliation grow in him like a cancer until they devoured him. And that alone was a reason to reconsider. Because no matter how many times he’d tried, he’d never successfully molded me in his image. And now he never would.
It wasn’t to free him of his guilt.
It wasn’t to punish him.
It wasn’t anything other than an act of mercy.
There were no barriers between us, no blocks. His life spilled through my mind, whirling in colors and sounds I’d never been allowed to see, I’d never been strong enough to find. I took what I could and replaced it with something better. He had never been tested on, never been an Orange, never at East River, or in California. There were things I saw, secrets so horrible, I’d never wish to inflict on another person by sharing them. I focused on the brightness. I left him with only that—the simple story that he had been with his mother this entire time, that he had helped her all of these years, that the love he still felt for her was a good, pure thing to hold on to.
And when I turned to go, releasing his mind for the last time, he looked out the window again at the blackbirds diving and rolling around each other, fluttering across the blue sky, and he smiled.
I started back down the hall again, eyes down, thoughts a mess. I didn’t see the woman coming out of the ladies’ room until I collided with her, and ended up with a mouthful of her bright red curls.
“I’m sorry,” I said, untangling myself. “I’m sorry—I wasn’t paying attention.”
“Lucky for me,” the woman said, her voice low and smooth. “I’ve been trying to track you down for days. How’s the leg, kid?”
At that I looked up, finally realizing who this was. Alice. She’d pulled herself together today, traded the scrubby jeans and coat I’d seen her in at the meeting point for a full suit that didn’t quite fit her. Her hair was a loose, wild mane around her shoulders, held back by a pair of thick-framed glasses and a pen she’d probably stuck there and forgot about.
“It’s been better,” I said, eyeing her warily.
Seeing that I didn’t return her smile, she sighed. “Look, kid, if this is about me running your story, I’m not going to apologize. I have a duty to report the facts, the truth...and the truth here is that it’s a hell of a story. There are a few pieces of information you could fill in for me, if you have a second...”
“I don’t.”
Alice shifted uncomfortably, as if just remembering what I was and what I could do. She lowered her voice and glanced around to make sure that no one was listening. “I got a tip that Senator Cruz spoke to you and a few others about some kind of program—top-secret stuff. Ballsy of her, considering she just told that whole room that every nation is banned from using you all in any kind of military or clandestine services.”
I schooled my reaction, keeping it neutral. Not yet. But I didn’t doubt that the conversation was coming.
I stepped to the side, and she followed me, blocking the way again. If I hadn’t been in the mood for this before, I was even less so now. “I have to warn you. I really don’t respond well to being cornered.”
Alice held up her hands. “All right, all right.” Her hand disappeared into the purse looped over her arm, fishing around for something—a business card.
“If you ever want to talk,” she said, “you call me any time. I’m all ears.”
I waited until she disappeared back into the ballroom, then ripped the card in two and let the pieces flutter to the floor. I turned back to the ballroom just in time to see Zu and Vida come dashing out, holding hands as they ran toward the elevators. A moment later, Liam and a harried-looking Chubs appeared.
“Ah!” Chubs started to come toward me, his expression narrow. “You should be resting that leg—”
Liam released his shoulder and grabbed my hand. “Let’s go, let’s go—”
“What’s happening?” I asked glancing into the ballroom as we passed it. Someone was up at the podium making a speech, but the room was otherwise exactly as I’d left it.
“Jail break,” Liam said, his eyes bright as the elevator opened and he drew us inside. “Trust me.”
Fear released its grip on my throat as we rode the elevator all the way down to the underground garage, Liam bouncing on his heels the entire time. Chubs eyed him warily as we were dragged back out.
Liam freed a set of keys from his pocket and held the black plastic fob up, listening for the sound of the lock. Vida and Zu appeared from behind one of the rows of cars and ran toward the beeping, flashing, dust-splattered SUV with Arizona plates.
“You are ridiculous,” Chubs informed him as he walked toward the car, loosening his tie; but he went anyway, the smallest hint of a smile on his face.
I caught Liam’s arm, hating the way his expression fell when he saw mine. “What’s this about?”
I knew what denial looked like, and this had shades of it—the stubborn unwillingness to acknowledge that something was wrong. Something had overturned inside of him that could never be fully righted.
“It’s about...” He ran a hand back through his hair. “It’s about how everything will be different going forward. You’ll go back to Virginia with your family, and I’ll go back to North Carolina with mine. And if we want to see each other, I need permission to take the car. You’ll need to run it by your parents to get their okay. We’ll be living with a set of rules we haven’t had in years, and while there’s something a little wonderful in that, I just want this...I want to forget for a little while. Outrun the hurt. This one last time, I just want to go somewhere no one else can find us.”
I smiled, taking his arm when he offered it. He walked us slowly, carefully, around the back of the car. He opened the door and helped me up into the front passenger seat, arranging my awkwardly bulky walking cast with care. He leaned in to buckle my seat belt, using it as an excuse to kiss me again.
“Where are we going?” Chubs shouted at him as Liam ran around the back of the car to the driver’s-side door.