Never Fade

TWENTY-SEVEN

IT WAS JUDE WHO FOUND HIS VOICE FIRST, weak as it was. I watched his hand fly up, pressing the compass against his chest. “What are you talking about?”

I drew the barrel of the gun closer to Clancy’s face. “Answer him.”

In that moment it became just as clear to me as it was to Clancy that he had never been in a situation like this before—one he couldn’t wriggle out of, let alone control. Reluctance and frustration burned an ugly expression on his face. “I have a source in the League who says that they’re going forward with their plans to blow those kids to hell. You kill me, and you have no idea about when or how it happens.”

I shook my head, but inwardly, my stomach clenched. “Who’s the source? You could have pulled those plans off a computer network for all we know.”

The smirk on his face was enough to make me want to pull the trigger. He drew the name out, twisting the vowels. “Our mutual acquaintance. Nico.”

“No!” Jude cried. “No! Roo, he’s lying—”

“Nico and I go way back,” Clancy interrupted, glancing over to where Liam was struggling back onto his feet, coughing.

“Do you ever tell the truth?” I asked. “You would never have had access to Nico. He was in Leda’s testing program until the League got him out, and he hasn’t left HQ since.”

Clancy looked at me like he couldn’t quite believe I hadn’t put it all together by now. “Ruby. Think. Where was he before that? Or do you all honestly not know?”

“I know I’m going to shred the skin off your face and turn it into hair ribbons,” Vida snarled from the floor, still visibly struggling to get her legs under her. She sneered at him, pulling her fury around her like armor.

“That’s the spirit,” Chubs murmured, waiting for her to finally accept his help up—which, of course, she did not.

“What?” Jude was saying, coming up behind me. “What’s he talking about?”

I felt sick—faint enough that I almost sat down again. “Nico was in Thurmond? While you were there?”

“Annnnnd she gets it. Finally.” Clancy gave me a little round of applause. “We were scalpel buddies. They liked to compare our brains—to study kids at the opposite ends of the color spectrum. They even brought us in on the same day, way back when.”

My mind was racing, trying to figure out how I couldn’t have known that until now, if Nico had ever offered up a hint of it. But I couldn’t remember if I had ever told him I was in Thurmond. Had Cate?

“Are you saying your old man had them experiment on you?” Liam’s voice was rough as he came to stand behind me.

Clancy tapped his fingers against the table. He had no proof. His father had consented only if the researchers didn’t leave scars. “After I walked out of that camp, I did wonder what happened to the others—I figured that they must have moved the experimentations to another location once they started expanding the camp to bring in kids like our friend Ruby. It took me some time to find they’d been brought to Leda Corp’s Philadelphia lab.”

My stomach turned over. I tried to say something, anything, but the picture of Nico—small, scared Nico—strapped down to one of the Infirmary’s beds was too much for my mind to take. I couldn’t process anything else.

“Even before East River,” Clancy said, folding his hands on the table in front of him, “I realized the only kids who would ever truly understand what I was trying to do were those who had been there with me. I thought they could be useful. But by the time I traced them to Leda Corp, Nicolas was the only survivor whose brain hadn’t been completely destroyed.”

“And all you had to do was wait until the League broke him out to make him useful,” I said, disgusted. “Were you planning on convincing him to break away and meet you at East River before that plan imploded?”

“I didn’t wait for anyone. Who do you think slipped the intel to the League about what they were doing in that lab? Who do you think suggested a way for them to get the kids out? I had to be patient, of course, and wait until they had him back in California before contacting him. And no—it was never the plan to bring him to East River, Ruby. He was more useful to me there, collecting every piece of intel about the League I asked for.”

“No,” Jude said, dragging his hands back through his hair. “No, he wouldn’t…”

“You’ve all misjudged him. Underestimated him. No one has ever suspected him, no matter how much digging I had him do.” Clancy‘s eyes were on the gun as he continued. “He’s the one who told me that the League is moving forward with strapping the bombs to those kids. That’s why he hacked the Chatter link for me. So we could meet. So I could do him this favor.”

“He told you about the flash drive,” I said. “That’s really why you’re here, right?”

His eyebrows rose, lips parting just that tiny bit. The eager glint was back in his eyes. “Flash drive? And what would be on this flash drive? Something I’d like?”

“You—” The word choked off. Clancy was looking at us all, like he was trying to pick which mind to invade. Which one would give him easiest access to the truth. I forced his attention back to me with the gun.

“He said you were looking for Stewart because he was in danger. My role was only to get you here, to tell you about what happened. But there’s something else involved?”

“Talk,” I said, “tell me everything and maybe—maybe—you live.”

Clancy sighed, his reluctance deflating his excitement about the potential gold he’d stumbled across. “Two days ago several agents revolted, killing Alban and seizing control of the organization. Everyone who stood against them was either locked up or killed.” He glanced at Liam, a smile tucked in the corner of his lips.

Cole. Cate. All of the instructors. Even Alban’s weathered face, his yellowing smile, flashed through my mind.

Once the initial shock wore off, Liam began shaking—I put my hand on his arm to steady him. But it was Vida I should have been worried about. She threw her fist in the direction of Clancy’s smug face. Chubs barely caught her around the waist, and the strength it took to wheel her back around sent them both crumpling to the floor. She was howling—actually howling—as she struggled and kicked him, trying to untangle herself from his wiry arms.

Liam had met the news about his brother with shock and Vida had been swallowed up by her own fiery anger. But Jude…he was crumbling into the kind of deep grief that was marked only by silent tears.

“What’s their plan?” I demanded. “The specifics.”

“They’re moving them out of LA by six tomorrow morning.” Shock sent me back a step, and the space between us flooded with a palpable terror. I felt it licking at my skin, leaving behind a sheen of icy perspiration. So soon. I tried to calculate the drive in my mind, find the extra hours in the day we’d need to make it there in time. “The other kids have no idea what’s going on, according to Nico. It seems that your beloved Cate was only able to warn him before they took her, too.”

And somehow—somehow that was the worst part, the hardest thing to hear.

“Took her where?” Vida demanded. “Tell me, you goddamn bastard, or I’ll rip your—”

“Why six tomorrow?” Chubs asked, still struggling to pin Vida’s arms.

“Because it’s Christmas Day,” Clancy said, like it was the most obvious thing in the world. “The pathetic attempt my father is launching at a peace summit? Why wouldn’t they want to steal some of that spotlight? Undermine everything the Federal Coalition might be forced to agree to?”

No, no, no, no, I begged, like that could somehow change the situation. Like that tiny prayer could destroy the dread crawling through every part of me.

“Good luck getting back,” Clancy said, malice dripping from every word. “Do you know how long it took me to find a plane and a source of gas to get out here? Days. Almost a full week of looking, and then another day to find a pilot. Even if you could drive the distance in six hours, you’d still have to make it through the blockades my father and the Federal Coalition set up on each side of the California border without getting picked up. That’s going to go down smoothly, huh? Knowing that you could have saved those kids, if only you’d had just a few more hours.”

I was so sure my hatred of Clancy had a natural end and that I’d hit it one day—a point I could reach not when I forgave him but when I accepted what had happened and moved on. But it didn’t work that way; I saw it now. The feeling was like smoke, changing its scent and shape with the months and years that passed. I would never be rid of it. It would only grow, and grow, and grow until one day it finally smothered me.

I didn’t give the others the chance to give their opinions. I didn’t want any of them to talk me out of it, not when there were twenty other kids in California about to be sent off to their deaths and we had no time. No time. My eyes slid over to Jude, slumped against the wall, his fingers gripping the compass, his face such a perfect portrait of grief I had to fight to keep from mirroring it.

Instead, I let the anger flood through me again. I whipped the gun across Clancy’s face and caught him by the collar of the shirt. This is the only way, I told myself as I hauled him onto his feet. His nose was bleeding, and he looked like he couldn’t quite believe it.

“Let’s go,” I hissed. “You’re buying us the hours we need.”

“Is someone going to notice this is missing?”

I glanced back at Chubs as we scaled the stairs into the small charter jet. “Probably.”

A part of me had wanted to laugh—really, truly laugh—when Clancy had finally admitted there was an airport in the city and that it was how he had come in to meet us. From the look of it, the airport had been converted to cater exclusively to private planes, though there was a single large cargo plane taxiing out onto one of the runways. I’d felt a small jolt of panic at the sight, thinking our ride was about to take off without us.

But, no, of course not. Why would Clancy travel like a commoner when he could manipulate and compel anyone into giving him anything?

The jet was ridiculously beautiful. At the sight of the plush carpet and enormous beige leather seats, I did sigh, just that little bit. Each side of the private jet was lined with bright oval windows and warm, cozy lights. The paneling along the back wall and sides of the aircraft was that glossy, expensive-looking faux wood. From what I could see, there was a fully stocked drink station between the two bathrooms in the back, past the eight enormous, plush leather seats.

“Who’d you steal this from?” I asked as I shoved Clancy inside, my gun digging into the small of his back.

“Does it matter?” Clancy grunted, dropping into the nearest seat. He held up his bound hands, nodding to the plastic zip tie Chubs had been oh so happy to supply. “Can you cut this off now?”

“Is he okay to fly?” I asked, jerking my thumb in the pilot’s direction. Most people could barely remember their own name when I was in their heads, let alone operate delicate machinery.

Clancy folded his arms over his chest. “Every time he looks at us, he sees six adults on a business trip, all of whom have paid him handsomely for his services in arranging the flight details. You’re welcome.”

Liam caught my eye as he followed the others in. “When do we get to dump him?”

It was the first time he’d spoken to me since we’d left the restaurant. I hadn’t even been able to look him in the eye before now, afraid of the disappointment I knew would be there. Liam would have fought me on this if I had let him, just like I would have fought for him and Chubs to stay in Colorado, far away from the upcoming fight.

But I think we both knew they were losing battles.

“Mid-flight?” Chubs asked, his voice brimming with hope. “Over a desert?”

Vida slid into the seat to the right of mine before Liam could. “We’re not dumping him yet, are we, boo?”

She knew exactly what I was thinking. This was what the League had taught us to do when we located a valuable asset: you brought him in, bled him for intel, and then traded him for something better. I shook my head, trying not to smile at the alarm that flashed in his dark eyes. “No, we’re not.”

The look he gave me in return made my skin feel tight around my bones. But what could he do? Nothing that I couldn’t do right back to him five times over.

I could tell Chubs wanted to ask exactly what we meant by that, but the pilot’s voice interrupted, telling us he had finished his final checks and was ready for takeoff.

I didn’t relax my grip on the gun until we were up in the air, sailing high above the jagged peaks of the Rockies. For all the grumbling he’d done about how much more likely it was for this kind of jet to crash than a normal passenger plane, Chubs passed out in his seat five minutes after the plane was in the air. I glanced over my shoulder, watching as he began to slowly drift too far to the right, only to startle awake for an instant and catch himself. The others had laid their seats out flat or curled up on them, using the blankets we’d found in one of the storage compartments.

Clancy unbuckled his seat belt, pushing onto his feet.

“Going somewhere?” I asked.

“To use the bathroom in the back,” he snapped. “Why, do you need to come in and watch?”

No, but I followed him to the back regardless, shooting him a meaningful look as he slammed the door and locked it.

I leaned back against the shelves of drinks and service ware in the back. My eyes drifted from Liam to Vida to Chubs and then, finally, to Jude sitting nearby. He’d been so quiet up until then, I’d just assumed he’d fallen asleep like the others.

“Hi,” I whispered.

He had been staring out the window to the unending stretch of land below, and he stayed that way, even when I touched his shoulder. Jude, who hated silence, whose past slithered up to him like a shadow along glass, did not say a single word.

I sat down on his chair’s armrest, glancing across the way to make sure both Liam and Chubs were still asleep. I had known Worried Jude and Terrified Jude and Ecstatic Jude, but never this shade of him.

“Talk to me,” I said.

Jude burst into tears.

“Hey!” I said, taking his shoulder. “I know it doesn’t feel this way, but it’ll be okay.”

It took several minutes of coaxing for him to settle down and sit up. His skin went blotchy, and his nose refused to stop running. He swiped it against the arm of his jacket.

“I should have been there. With them. I could have…I could have helped them somehow—Cate and Alban. They needed me, and I wasn’t there.”

“And thank God for that,” I said. “Otherwise you’d be trapped there with all of the others.” Or dead. It was too horrible to even consider.

I put an arm around him, and whatever invisible string had been holding him up promptly snapped. He leaned into my shoulder, still crying.

“Oh my God,” he muttered, “this is so not cool. It’s just…I’m really scared Cate’s dead, too. All of them. It’s like Blake all over again, and I’m just as responsible. Would any of this have even happened if I hadn’t been so stupid? If Rob and Jarvin hadn’t caught us listening that day?”

I blew out the breath I didn’t realize I had been holding and rubbed his arm. “None of this is your fault,” I told him. “None of it. You aren’t responsible for what other people do, good or bad. Everyone is just making the choices they think will help them get by.”

He nodded, swiping at his eyes with the back of his hand. For a long while, the only sound between us was the moaning of engines and Chubs’s rhythmic snores.

“But I could have made a difference,” Jude whispered. “I could have fought. I—”

“No,” I interrupted. “I’m sorry. I get where you’re coming from, and they’re all good thoughts, but I just don’t think it’s worth it. It’s not worth it to weigh what you could have done or should have done when there’s no way of changing it. And it’s not worth risking your life over. Nothing is more important or valuable than your life. Got it?”

He nodded but was quiet again. A little more settled, I thought, than before.

“It’s just not fair,” Jude said. “None of this is fair.”

“Life isn’t fair,” I said. “It’s taken me a while to get that. It’s always going to disappoint you in some way or another. You’ll make plans, and it’ll push you in another direction. You will love people, and they’ll be taken away no matter how hard you fight to keep them. You’ll try for something and won’t get it. You don’t have to find meaning in it; you don’t have to try to change things. You just have to accept the things that are out of your hands and try to take care of yourself. That’s your job.”

He nodded. I waited until he had taken a deep breath and seemed a little more composed before I stood and ruffled his unruly hair. I was sure he’d groan or bat my hand away; instead, he caught it with his own.

“Ruby…” His face was drawn. Not sad exactly, just…tired, I thought. “If you can’t change anything, then what’s the point of it?”

I wrapped my fingers around his and gave his hand a steady squeeze. “I don’t know. But when I figure that out, you’ll be the first to know.”