Never Fade

TWELVE

TARGET SIGHTED OUTSIDE NASHVILLE // HOSTILE BLUE TRIBE IN NEARBY AREA // APPROACH WITH CAUTION

“The sighting isn’t listed in the skip-tracer network,” Chubs said. His finger flicked against the screen of the small tablet I had fished out of the glove box for him, scrolling down. “That’s not surprising, though. I haven’t been able to pick up an Internet signal in a few days to download an update.”

“What is that thing?” I asked. At the top of the color screen was Liam’s bruised, scowling face—the picture that had been taken, I guess, when he was brought into Caledonia. Next to the photo was a list of the same information I had been able to access in the PSF network—the only update being that his reward had gone up to $200,000 and his last reported sighting was outside of Richmond, Virginia.

“It has direct access to the skip-tracer network,” Chubs said. “You get one after you register and are approved by the government. The information on there is closely guarded—the PSFs don’t have access to it, so they can’t swoop in and steal a score.”

It was a touch screen, easy enough to flick through the various listings beneath it. A skip tracer named P. Everton had been the one to sight him in Richmond—he had posted the following on Liam’s listing: Stewart driving red Chevy truck, stolen plates. Target in jeans and black hooded sweatshirt. Lost sight of car during pursuit.

“Why would they be sharing information with one another like this?” I asked. “If only one of them gets the reward?”

“Because if a tip turns out to be good, you’re upped in the standings. Each kid, especially the big bounties, are assigned points in addition to dollar amounts—but you can also earn points by adding tips or supporting the PSFs when they are trying to locate a kid.” Chubs shrugged. “The top twenty or so skip tracers get more supplies from the government, not to mention better equipment—and easy access to the Internet. That alone makes a huge difference. I can’t even tell you how many stupid kids have been found because of the pictures and postings their families had online. I think that’s probably how the PSFs found me the first time. Mom forgot she had an album of our cabin up on some website.”

I nodded, continuing to scroll through the list. There were only about a thousand or so active listings of kids, many of them without pictures. These, I assumed, were the lucky ones who had been added to the online IAAN registry by their unsuspecting parents for updates and instructions from the government, but who had avoided being collected and brought into a camp. They had either found a great place to hide or had mastered the art of living off the grid. I kept scrolling.

Dale, Andrea. Dale, George Ryan. Daley, Jacob Marcus.

Daly, Ruby.

The picture was of a ten-year-old me, eyes wide under a ratty mess of wet, dark hair. That’s right, I thought. It had been raining the day they brought us in.

“What the hell?” I held it up for him to see. “Four hundred thousand dollars for a reward?”

“What—Oh, that.” Chubs plucked the tablet from my hands and said grimly, “Congratulations, you’re officially a big score.”

“That’s—I just—Why?”

“Do you really need me to break it down for you?” he said, sighing. “You escaped from Thurmond with the help of the League, and are, oh, by the way, an Orange.”

“What are all of the listings?” I asked. “I’ve never been in Maine or Georgia.”

He held the screen up for me to see. “Look closer.”

Sighted outside of Marietta, Georgia, moving east. J. Lister.

At least five of them were from J. Lister, otherwise known as the teenager in the driver’s seat next to me.

“I would have done more, but you get penalized for spamming the network with false tips. I try to do that for you and Lee whenever I can, to throw off the other skip tracers.”

“What about Zu?”

“Same,” he said. “But not nearly as much. It looks bad when you’re only updating for the same kids and not thinking about distances and all that. I can’t post that I saw you in Maine and, two minutes later, post I saw her in California. I have a story for her figured out, though. As far as the skip tracers know, she’s somewhere in Florida.”

“Do you think she and the others actually made it to California?” I asked. “There haven’t been any updates in the PSF network the League had access to. I checked last week again, and still nothing.”

“I…” Chubs cleared his throat. “I’d like to think she did. Once we find Lee, we’ll just have to go see for ourselves.”

The others were in our line of sight out of the front windshield. Vida was attempting to take down the tent by beating it into submission. Jude was simply stretched out on his back in a grassy patch of earth, staring up at the sky, the compass resting on his chest. It was cold, but the sunlight was out for the first time in days. He was regarding the sky with a kind of amazed wonderment.

“What do you think he’s looking at?” Chubs asked, craning his neck forward over the wheel to follow Jude’s gaze up. “Is that kid mentally…sound?”

“I would guess his brain is about ten thousand miles away from here, crafting the tale of this heroic adventure,” I said. “But yeah. He’s a sweet kid. Hyperactive, totally unwilling to accept reality, but sweet.”

“If you say so,” Chubs muttered.

Vida let out a strangled scream, uprooting one of the pikes holding the tent in place. She reached down and flipped the whole structure over onto its side and smashed her foot into it for good measure. “Why am I the only one working?” she yelled. “Helloooo?!”

Chubs was already bursting out of his door before I had a hand on mine. “Could you not destroy my tent, you incompetent, ungrateful wretch?” he bellowed.

“I’m incompetent?” Vida’s voice went hoarse. “Who’s the stupid asshole who threw away the instructions?”

With one quick glance to make sure Vida wasn’t going to impale Chubs with the pike she held in her hand, I reached for the tablet and switched it back on.

For two, three, four agonizing seconds, all I saw was the slow spin of a gray circle as the device loaded itself. It snapped to the home screen with a small beep; a tiny menu that ranged from EMERGENCY to DATABASE to UPDATES. Above that was a digital map of the United States, one that looked like it could be used for actual navigation.

That wasn’t what I needed it for.

My stomach was clenched into a tight fist of anxiety, but my fingers were steady as I typed in the name.

Gray, Clancy.

And then, the pain released with a single long breath.

No records found.

It was another four hours to Nashville, with Chubs and me splitting the driving duties. Seeing him behind the wheel instead of the seat behind me was strange enough, but his relaxed, confident posture there made him look like a different person. I was forcing myself to adapt, trying to come to terms with the fact that this Chubs was not the one who had been taken from me. How could he be, after everything?

Aside from his reaction to Vida’s baiting and insults, he was calmer—outwardly. Every now and then I would look over and see a shadow flit across the sharp lines of his face. Tell me, I would think, but the thick clouds would pass overhead, peeling back to submerge the road in brilliant sunlight, and he’d look like himself again. At least until it came time to eat.

In the past, Chubs had complained and railed against just the idea of stopping to have one of us go in and buy food from a store or restaurant. It had always been Liam who went out to buy it, with Chubs’s loud protests trailing behind him like a nagging shadow.

“Oh, come on. It’ll be fine,” he said when he insisted on parking at a rest stop with a handful of people already milling around it.

It was becoming readily apparent that he used his skip-tracer identification like it was a bulletproof shield, flashing it to anyone who gave him a second look. A part of me wondered if he was too used to playing this part or if something inside him had really shifted.

The rest of us waited, scooted as far down in our seats as possible, while Chubs took his time using the restroom, mining the vending machines, and breathing in the fresh wintry air.

“I thought you said this kid was smart,” Vida hissed.

“He is.” I watched him over the curve of the dashboard.

“Then he’s just freaking rude,” she shot back. “Or he’s trying to get us caught.”

No—it wasn’t that. Chubs was a lot of things, but he wasn’t malicious enough to try to push someone out who needed his help.

Oh really? came the small voice at the back of my mind. Isn’t that exactly what he tried to do with you?

I shook my head as he climbed back into the SUV, tossing his haul of chips and candy onto my lap. Chubs glanced at me, then looked again. “What are you doing?”

My lips parted in surprise. “What do you think? Any of these people could have reported us!”

Chubs’s brows drew together, the realization finally coming to him. He looked at the others, still crouched down in the back. Jude had his arms wrapped around his knees, burrowed down into the gully of space between the metal grate and his seat.

“Yup,” Vida said to no one in particular, “just a fucking idiot.”

“It’s okay,” Jude said with forced brightness. “They wouldn’t have called us in. They didn’t look like PSFs or skip tracers anyway.”

Skip tracers didn’t have a look—Chubs was evidence of that. He had maybe dressed the part, but he wasn’t one of them. He didn’t have that detached coldness that seemed to permeate from the others. His reaction now, the way he jammed his key into the ignition, made me wonder if he had ever noticed how irresponsible he was being until this very moment.

It didn’t become a real problem until we reached the outskirts of Nashville and the blockade the National Guard had set up and staffed with a few dozen of their finest.

“City closed,” Jude said, reading the spray-painted sign we flew past. It was a series of signs, one after another. “Flood zone. Slow. City closed. Turn back. National Guard entry only. City closed.” Jude’s voice dropped just a little bit more with each one he read, but the SUV only picked up speed. The makeshift station began as a dark, blurry line at the horizon of the snow-slick road and took shape, one barbed tangle of wires and fence at a time.

“Slow down,” I told Chubs. “Stop for a second.” He ignored both requests.

Vida glanced up from where she had been typing out another message to Cate on the Chatter. “Oh. Yeah. Cate said the city’s been blocked off since the summer. Something about how a river flooded the city and some people started rioting when they didn’t get any aid.”

I sighed, pressing my face into my hands. “That information would have been useful to know twenty minutes ago.” Back when we were, you know, in the middle of a discussion about the best way into the city.

Vida shrugged.

“Uhhhh,” Jude began, a distinct note of panic in his voice. “There’s a guy coming toward us. He is coming toward us really freaking fast.”

Sure enough, a National Guardsman had pulled away from the chain-link fence and dirty yellow barrels they were using to block our path down the road. He was jogging, his gun and supplies jostling with each step. A spike of cold panic shot straight up my spine.

The National Guardsman stopped, his hand drifting to the firearm at his side.

Then Chubs asked, “Does everyone have their seat belt on?”

“You’re joking,” I began. There was no way. He would never.

Vida finally looked up from the Chatter.

Jude yelped as the car lurched forward. Chubs had floored the pedal.

I reached over and jerked the wheel, forcing the car to veer sharply to the left. Chubs tried to shove me off, but I guided the car around, narrowly missing the soldier who had come out to meet us. He eased up immediately on the gas, but we were already headed back in the right direction—away from the fence, the soldiers, and danger. Vida slammed her palm against the grate and the pedal floored under her influence, locked hard against the SUV’s dirty carpet. Chubs tried pumping the brakes, and the car seemed to shriek in protest.

When the blockade was finally a small blip in the rearview mirror, Vida lifted her hand and Chubs’s foot came down on the brake. The seat belts snapped over our chests.

“I…” I started when I’d finally caught my breath. “Why… You…”

“Dammit!” Chubs began, slapping his hand against the steering wheel. He didn’t sound like himself; he had yelled at me before, countless times, but this was…I actually felt myself shrink. “How dare you do that! How dare you!”

“If you’re going to fight, can you do it outside?” Vida said. “I already have a big enough headache without hearing Mommy and Daddy at each other’s throats.”

Fine by me. I unbuckled my seat belt, ignoring Chubs’s growl as he did the same.

“What?” he demanded, coming around to meet me at the front of the SUV. His boots slid through the snow clinging to the dark surface of the road. His breath was hot with anger. It fanned out white and sticky against my stinging cheeks.

“What was that?” I asked. “Were you really going to force your way through?”

It was how he shrugged, like it didn’t matter, like it was nothing, that made me crazy.

“I can’t believe it,” I said. “Wake up! Wake up! This isn’t like you at all!”

“I wouldn’t have had to do it if you didn’t stick me with those stupid kids—I could have flashed some papers and we would have been in!” He dragged a hand through his tuft of dark hair. “And you know what? Even if I had gone through with it, it’s not like they would have caught up to us. Honestly, weren’t you and Lee the ones who always said we had to take risks if we were going to get by?”

“Are you…” I could barely choke the word out. “Are you serious? Risks? Where is your head? You are so much smarter than this!”

Did it matter that I was yelling or that he was doing his best to try to tower over me with his height? Did it matter that the other two were watching us through the windshield?

“Sure, we would have gotten through the blockade, maybe even miles away, but what if they got your license plate number and reported that? What if up the road there was another blockade, and they were waiting for us there? What would you have done? You’re the only one with papers; you would have been fine—but if they had taken me? Or Jude or Vida? Could you have lived with that?”

“What about Liam?” he shouted. “You know, the one whose brain you decided to fry? The one who’s lost, or dead, or near to it because you decided to screw with him? Remember him?”

Every inch of my skin felt like the branches of the trees overhead, stripped bare and coated with frost. “You do blame me.”

“Who else would I blame?” he shouted. “It’s your fault, dammit! And now you’re acting like this? Like those kids are more important to you than us? Yeah, I’ve had to make a few changes. So what? I’ve been getting on just fine making my own decisions. You keep acting like I’m still bleeding out in your hands, but I’m fine! I am better than fine! You’re the one who’s wrong! You’re—”

I hadn’t even heard the door open, but Vida was suddenly standing beside me, her shoulder pressed against mine.

“Back. Off.” I felt her hand close around my wrist. “You don’t want us here, ass-clown? Fine. We’re out.”

Jude was white-faced as he scurried around the back, clutching our few possessions in his hands. “I’m ready,” he said, his voice betraying none of the fear I saw in his eyes. “Let’s go.”

I took the leather jacket that Jude passed to me, my mind trying to catch up with what was happening. Chubs’s fingers caught the pocket and held tight. “What are you doing?”

“I think…” My whole face felt numb. “I think this was a bad idea.”

No, my brain was screaming, no, no, no!

“Ruby!” he said, shocked. “Tell me you’re not…Ruby!”

“You think we’re worthless? You want to prove that you’re so damn brave?” Vida shouted back. “Go ahead and get your stupid ass killed. We’ll see who finds Stewart first!”

Vida hooked her arm through mine and began to haul me down the slight curve of the highway’s shoulder, down into the snow-splattered forest ahead. It was deep, and dark, and lovely. I couldn’t see the beginning or end of it.

“Asshole,” she was muttering. “God damn him, I hate his stupid-ass face and his stupid-ass driving—acting like we’re as dumb as dirt. Asshole!”

Jude jogged to keep pace with us. Branches snapped around my face, clawing at my hair. The flashes of sunlight through the treetops were disorienting, blinding red one moment and orange the next, and all I could think was fire. All I could see was Chubs’s face close to mine as we clung to each other under the dock at East River while the world burned above us.

I felt a hand touch the small of my back, and I just couldn’t do it anymore. My legs buckled, and I barely managed to catch myself on a tree before I collapsed completely.

What are you doing? I thought. This is Chubs. This is still Chubs.

For several agonizing minutes, I couldn’t hear anything beyond my own harsh breathing. I felt physically ill, like I was about to heave up everything in the pit of my stomach.

This is Chubs. Who says things he constantly regrets, even if they’re the truth. Who lets his anger get the best of him—especially when he’s afraid. And you left him. You walked away. That was Chubs, and you left him.

I felt a hand tugging on mine. Jude stood beside me, his EMT jacket crinkling.

“I think you were both wrong,” he said quietly. “He doesn’t blame you for what ended up happening with Liam. He blames himself. He’s only acting like this because he’s gotten to the point where he’s willing to do anything to set it right.”

“Why would he think any of this is his fault, though?” I asked.

“He’s a loose cannon,” Vida said, glancing back over her shoulder. “He survived being shot. Some part of him thinks he’s invincible and that he can make stupid mistakes and get away with it. There are other ways he could have traveled, but he chose to run with the fucking wolves. If he’s not desperate, if he doesn’t hate himself, then he really is just a goddamn idiot.”

“You guys don’t know him,” I started.

“No,” Jude said carefully, “but we know you.”

“And if you think you haven’t been acting the same exact way he has for the past six months, then you’re a goddamn idiot, too.” Vida turned me back in the direction of the road and gave me a hard shove. “Go get him, then. If you’re not back in five minutes, we’ll head out on our own to find Stewart. You said you didn’t have a choice in joining the League? Well, congrat-u-freaking-lations. Now you do. Come back with us or don’t, but I’m more than capable of doing this Op without all of your boo-hoo issues holding me down.”

I read her meaning loud and clear. “I’ll be back,” I told them. “Right back, I swear.”

I took a lurching step forward, keeping my eyes on our staggered footprints in the snow. Keeping them focused down and ahead, because I couldn’t stand to think of the others watching me go.

I can’t leave them. Any of them. Not Vida, who was too headstrong for her own good. Not Jude, who couldn’t stand the silence or the dark. Not Chubs, not after everything.

The SUV was still there, parked crookedly on the shoulder. He was in the driver’s seat, leaning against the steering wheel. I walked around the back of the car, glancing both ways down the road to make sure there were no other eyes on us, then pulled Liam’s jacket around me tighter for support.

He didn’t see me. His shoulders were shaking, but I wasn’t sure if he was only breathing hard or actually crying. I knocked on the window. And Chubs—my Chubs—about leaped into the passenger seat in terror.

I’m sorry, I mouthed through the glass.

He had been crying. Something inside me twisted, sharp and firm as Chubs opened the door. “You scared the hell out of me!” he shouted. “Do you know how easy it is to fall and break an ankle when you’re walking without directions? Or into a frozen river? Do you know what happens when you get hypothermia?”

I leaned in and wrapped my arms around his shoulders.

“I’m—I mean…” he began. I felt his hands bunch up the back of Liam’s jacket with the effort to keep me there. “I’m not the same person. I’m not, and I know that. I’m not okay with who I am or what I had to do, but I’m also not okay with us separating again! Don’t do that! Don’t just disappear! If you’re mad at me, then hit me or something—just don’t think that I don’t want to stay with you. I’ll always want to stay with you!”

I tightened my grip on him, pressing my face against his shoulder.

“You’re different, too,” he said. “It’s all different now. I just want it to go back to the way it was, when we were in that stupid minivan—Jesus, will you say something?”

“Don’t,” I said, “call Black Betty stupid.”

I don’t know if he was laughing or just crying again, but both of us shook with the force of it. “I miss him,” he was saying. “I miss him so much—I know it’s stupid. I’m just, I’m scared—”

“He’s not dead,” I cut in. “He’s not. He can’t be.”

Chubs pulled back slowly, lifting his glasses to swipe his arm over his eyes. “That’s not what I mean. I’m scared of what he’ll say when he finds out about…this.” His hands settled again on the wheel. “All of this.”

“He’ll probably make some stupid joke at your expense,” I said, “and give you another dumb nickname.”

“No,” he said, clearly struggling, “he’ll know…”

I suddenly felt very still. There was no other way to describe the dread that crept over me when Chubs turned away from me.

“I told you before about all the paperwork that you need to fill out to register as a skip tracer,” he said, “but…that’s only half of it.”

“Half?” I repeated.

He nodded, looking miserable. “In order to establish yourself, you have to turn in a kid. There’s no other way to put your name in the rankings. You can’t cheat the system. Believe me. I tried.”

It took an immeasurable amount of time for what he was saying to sink in. With each second that passed, his face became more and more transparent. His thoughts and fears flashed by, unchecked.

“Who?” I asked finally.

“Some Green kid I found in New York.” Chubs swallowed hard. “He was… He had been living rough for a few years. I could tell by the look of him. Haunted, you know? Hungry. He was practically gaunt. I only saw him because he was trying to break a vending machine at one of those outdoor malls. It was in the middle of the day. There was a whole crowd of people watching him, not getting close to him.”

“What happened?”

“He…I don’t know, he didn’t even put up much of a fight,” Chubs said, his voice hoarse with emotion. “He just looked at me, and I could see that he had given up. And at the time, I was thinking, you know, that he would at least have food in a camp. He would have a bed. He was only a Green. They would treat him okay if he kept his head down.”

“You had to.” What else could I say to that? “It was the only way.”

“Is that how I’m supposed to explain myself to Lee? Oh, sorry. Your life was more important than his? He’s not going to understand.” Chubs cleared his throat. “The fact of the matter is, I would have done a lot worse. I would have done anything to find you guys. It scares me. I feel like if there’s not someone there to stop me, I’m not sure what I would do.”

That was a feeling I knew well—the sensation of freefalling into a dark pit, not knowing how soon you’ll hit the bottom of it or if there even is one.

“It won’t matter,” I said. “In the end, it won’t. After we find Liam and get the intel, you better believe I’m going to burn every single one of those camps to the ground.”

He looked so uncertain about it, it broke my heart.

“I have to. Will you stay with me on this?” I whispered.

After a moment, Chubs nodded. “All right.” He cleared his throat again, trying to force it back to its usual gruff tone. “Where did the others go?”

“They’re waiting for us.”

“Are we walking, then?” he asked. “I’ll have to try to hide the car.”

I stared at him a moment, confused. Then, I understood. He’s letting you lead.

“Yeah,” I said. “I think we should try to get into the city on foot.”

Chubs nodded, and there wasn’t any discussion after that. We took the car a ways down the highway until we found a smaller access road. With the SUV properly masked in the trees and under whatever foliage we could find, we set off into the woods.

“I haven’t done this in a while,” Chubs said, shifting the pack we had put together of supplies and one of the twenty-five zillion first-aid kits he had insisted on packing. He was smiling, just a faint touch, but it was still there.

“Wish I could say the same,” I said, putting a hand on his shoulder to help steady myself as I hauled my legs over a fallen tree.

“Where did you say they were?”

I hadn’t even realized we were back in the same small clearing as before until I saw the dizzy array of footsteps pounded out in the mud and mulch. They’d been good on their word, then. They had split, and we’d have to catch up to them.

I looked over at Chubs to tell him as much, but his eyes were focused down on the snow, his eyebrows knit together.

There were more than three sets of tracks here. My brain had taken one look and assumed that Jude had been pacing in his usual way or that Vida had been circling the clearing impatiently. But there were way too many footprints for that.

I saw it then, the way it must have happened. A spiraling circle of steps where Vida had tried to fight, ending in the exposed patch of earth where she had fallen. Across the way, branches broken and littered on the ground—I took another step forward, following the trail until my feet met with a small spray of blazing-bright blood on a melting patch of snow.

No. The wind took on a low menacing growl in my ears. They hadn’t gone on ahead.

They had been taken.