Through the Dark (A Darkest Minds Collection) (A Darkest Minds Novel) (34 page)

I stand up and step farther back out of his reach, waiting to see if he’ll get up and follow. I don’t care if he hurts me, I just want to know what’s driving this inner…no,
instinctive
need to protect himself against those particular words.

Sam is right. Isn’t this proof? Isn’t the fact that some part of him
recognizes
those names proof that he’s still Lucas somewhere in there? Whoever did this to him, they turned the good things in his life to pain—
agony
. He doesn’t attack, he just recoils, drawing his legs up tight against his chest. He’s not a monster, not like me. He’s just…hurting.

I realize I’m crying and have to turn around to scrub the tears away. Not that he’s even looking—not that he’d even understand.

Would he?

“We don’t have to talk about them yet.” My voice is strained as I take the seat again. He’s shifted his eyes down to the floor; his arms are locked around his knees.

I feel so restless, like my bones could jump up out of my skin and start pacing the room, but I stay where I am, just breathing in and out. The only way I can deal with this Lucas is to focus on the Lucas he was. The time he cried about the bird’s nest that fell out of a tree. How he would come home with bruises from the other boys in his class and refuse to talk about it. On the nights I had nightmares about the little shadow creatures that lived under my bed, he would come into my room and sleep on the floor to protect me from them. He’d tell me stories until I fell asleep.

Hours pass. I don’t need to look at the clock to know this. The sunlight shifts, gliding over the walls and floor.

There’s this one thing…there’s this thing I used to do to comfort myself. One glimpse of Greenwood I let in on the days that felt too hard to get through at the facility. If it brings him even a fraction of comfort, then it’s worth trying.

“We were in the car in the parking garage—it was a few weeks before they separated us. You told me this story…what was happening to Greenwood while we were gone. Sir Sammy was still there to protect it, but because she didn’t have the other two keys—
our
keys—she couldn’t get inside. The forest, all of the trees—their branches grew together, weaving and lengthening until they made one big knot. The bushes stretched up and up, their thorns popping out like spikes. The animals trapped behind the wall drifted off into a magical enchanted sleep. Everything was just suspended. Time stopped. No one grew old, no one ever got sick, but no one was happy, either; no one got to play and have fun.”

I lean against the chair’s winged back, closing my eyes. I like that idea—that everything will be the same when we finally go back.

“Then one day, Sir Sammy came to find us. She set out on a quest across roads, through forests, even over rivers and swamps. She brought just enough gold to trade with the trolls who guarded the bridges. She tricked the ghosts into turning her invisible to pass the roadblocks and checkpoints….I think you said she even had to run through a burning castle? But she found us eventually, and we all went home together.”

I don’t know if I’ve ever studied anyone as closely as I’m watching Lucas now. It’s the only reason I notice that his legs aren’t tucked as tightly against his chest as they were before, that he’s starting to stretch out again. His breathing is slow, easy.

Better,
I think. That’s better than before. He’s calm enough that sleep is at least a possibility. The story didn’t upset him—interesting.

I keep going. I tell him the story of how Greenwood came to be—the same story that
he
wrote in that ratty green notebook with the dirt-stained cover. He had hundreds of these little tales, and we must have acted all of them out at some point, but it’s so hard to reach back through the years and retrieve the memories when I fought so hard to get them out in the first place. When you have nothing, you don’t exactly want to be reminded of the time you had everything.

It gets easier, though. The words start to roll into sentences, and sentences into scenes, until it doesn’t matter that I don’t remember exactly what he wrote for us because I have enough blooming inside my head to fill in the cracks and blanks. Greenwood is a garden where everything grows, even ideas, even us.

I talk until my throat hurts, closing my eyes to picture the stories that much better. The clock
tick-tick-tick
s, matching my pace. I don’t stop, though, not when I go to get the last water bottle, not when it starts getting so dark that I have to turn on the flashlight lantern. My stomach rumbles, and I laugh, turning it into sound effects for the story of a huge storm that swept in one day and nearly washed the three of us away.

But I do run out of steam eventually; the tickle in my throat turns into scratchiness, and I can’t ignore the way my stomach is tight with hunger. It’s getting late—where’s Sam?

“You must think I’m crazy—”

I look over at Lucas and the words catch in my throat.

He’s looking back.

He is looking
right at me
.

His throat is moving, like he’s working himself up to speak.

“Luc?” I say. “Lucas?”

There’s something in his eyes—something bright that flickers there and is gone. But I saw it, I know it was there, I know
he
is there—

I can’t help it, my hands reach out for him before I can stop myself. And, just like that, whatever spell I managed to cast is shattered. He pulls away, pressing himself against the firm back of the couch, and looks ready to snap at me if I bring my fingers too close. Message received.

I step back from the couch, showing him I won’t follow through, no matter how much I want to. It’s such a small thing, that one look, but I swear, he saw me.
He recognized me
.

Recognized what I was saying?

If these people, the ones who trained him to hate and dread Mom and Dad so much—even the
idea
of them—who did their best to stain his old life, turn it so ugly he can’t even stand to think about it…My mind races, trying to assemble the pieces before I drop them again. They would have had access to information about our family. The house where we lived, the names of families, even pictures, the schools he went to…but they wouldn’t ever know about Greenwood, would they? They wouldn’t know to turn that place into a kingdom of thorns.

This is our way in,
I think, letting my feet carry me back and forth across the floor, behind the couch. I look at the kitchen door again; I’m waiting to pounce on Sam when she comes through, waiting to tell her what I discovered. We can try it again together, see if we can draw Lucas out and get him to say whatever it was he was trying to before. I feel as light as dust, like I’m about to scatter and float to the ceiling.

I know where we have to go.

But Sam still isn’t home.

I listen for the car engine, wait for the lights to flash through lace curtains in the front windows. The hours stretch on into the night and my patience is about to stretch into fear when I hear the jangle and scratch of keys in the door.

Sam is barely inside, locking the door behind her, when I launch myself at her.

“You said you’d be home by dinnertime!” I hate the way my words come out like a whine. Sam startles violently; the plastic bag bursts as it hits the floor, and cans go rolling in every direction. She actually clutches at her chest, like she has to catch her heart before it goes leaping out of her.

“I know, I’m sorry,” she breathes out. We both bend to scoop up the food. She’s found soup, mostly, and beans, and a jar of peanut butter. All of which sound a thousand times better than the nothing I’ve had to eat since this morning.

Sam cringes as she steps forward to put everything down on the counter.

“Are you okay? What happened?” I ask. Her limp is worse—it looks like it hurts her just to stand.

“I told you I might be late,” she says, with an edge to her voice. “I had to drive halfway across the state to find a filling station.”

“Sorry, I didn’t mean it like that—I was just worried,” I say. “I’ve been waiting for you. Something
really
incredible happened!”

Sam looks like she’s physically bracing herself for whatever is about to come out of my mouth. It pricks at my nerves, but I don’t let it deflate the flutter of excitement that’s still trapped under my skin.

“I know where we have to go,” I say, grinning. “We have to go back to Bedford. To the old house.”

“Bedford,” she repeats slowly, carefully, like she hasn’t said the word for years. “Why?”

“Because earlier, I was talking to Lucas—trying to see if there was anything he remembered, or if I could just…find him, you know? And he reacted. I told him one of his old stories and it calmed him down. And I kept going and going and by the time I was finished, he was
looking
at me, Sam. He was
watching
me.”

I don’t understand why she isn’t smiling, too. Why she isn’t running over to test this out for herself. This is so simple: we just need to take him back to the place that meant so much to him, one that doesn’t bring him any pain.

“By Bedford, what you really mean is Greenwood, right?” Sam leans back against the counter, crossing her arms over her chest.

“Well, yeah.”

Her brows draw together sharply. “So your solution for helping him is to bring him back to a place where we played as kids and, what, expect him to be magically fixed? He’ll suddenly remember everything?”

“Why are you acting like this?” I demand, getting angry myself now. “It’s not a stupid idea!” It isn’t! And even if it is, it’s not like she’s offering any other solutions.

“Because this isn’t some fairy tale, Mia!” she says, throwing her hands up. “This isn’t make-believe. He can’t even hear your parents’ names without lashing out—how is he going to handle seeing your house?”

“I don’t know! And neither do you!” I say, my voice cracking. “That’s the whole point! We have to at least try. Maybe they haven’t ruined that place for him. Why are you shaking your head? Why are you acting like this?”

Sam sucks in a few deep breaths, rubbing at her forehead. When she finally speaks again, the words are strained to the point of breaking. “Because I
have
thought about it…all day, every day, for weeks. It’s
all
I think about! I’ve had to watch him get worse and worse, and then, yesterday…I thought maybe
you
would be the thing to bring him around. He didn’t react to your name the way he did to your parents’, so I hoped that seeing you would be enough. I really did. But it did
nothing
.”

That stings, more than I can put into words.

“What are you saying, then?” I demand. “You…what? You want to just let him go?” No—it hits me then. Her words add up to a horrifying truth. “You want to give him back to the people who made him this way?”

“No!” She presses her hands to her face. “I don’t know! I don’t…he wouldn’t want to be like this.”

“They’re going to
kill
him!” I yell. “You’re sending him back to be killed! You’re giving up on him!”

“You don’t know that!” Sam shouts. “What if the only people who can fix him are the ones who made him like this? There’s no need for the program anymore, right? Maybe they…”

“I will take him and run if you even
think
about it,” I warn her. “If you want out of this, then just go. We don’t need you. We never have.”

I’m aiming to hurt with that one, to make her feel that same jagged pain that’s got me in its grip. But instead of responding, she tilts her head back toward the kitchen door, brows drawn together. Not listening to me.

I hear it a second later—a car engine. It clatters and moans and only gets louder before it cuts off completely.

Doors open.

Slam shut.

“No—”
Sam’s whole body tenses as she closes her eyes. “Get in the bedroom. Lock the door.”

She pushes past me, limping into the living room. She turns off the flashlight and throws my gray blanket over Lucas’s still form before I can even move.

“Mia!
Now!
” Sam throws an arm out, pointing toward the hall. “Don’t come out—no matter what. Promise me!”

“What’s going on?” Why won’t she tell me? Why is she so pale?

“Go!”

I’m mad at myself—
furious
—that I listen to her. I don’t want to leave Lucas, but if I stay I think Sam will drag me to the bedroom by my hair. Whatever she has planned, I don’t factor into it.

Someone’s here….

Someone’s here for us?

I go into the bedroom and twist the lock behind me. It has to be someone from the government—Officer McClintock, maybe. The guy is a pain, but he’s not stupid. He could have followed us here, and now he’s going to take me back. He’s going to bring me to Chicago and cut into my brain—

I don’t realize how hard my heart is flipping—
careening
—around my chest until it’s all I can hear. I wipe my slick palms against my jeans and climb over the mattress to the crevice between the bed frame and the wall.

Coward, coward, coward, coward!

“—around front—take the back—”

I have to press my hands against my mouth to muffle my sound of surprise. The man sounds like he’s right on top of me.

He is.

I’m right below the window—out of sight to someone looking through the curtains into the room. A single beam of light sweeps in, flicking over the wall and door.

“Car’s parked three blocks over—”

There are two of them?

My pulse is fluttering like a moth’s wings.

“Yeah, but one set of fresh tracks leading here. Tricky little bitch tried to cover ’em.”

“Better pan out—wasted gas—auction—” The second voice fades, breaks up into a trail of mumbled crumbs that I can’t follow for much longer.

My breath is too hot—
scalding
—to hold. It comes out like a silent scream.

They aren’t just here for me, are they? Soldiers would have blasted their way in by now to grab me. I only went to school for a few years, but I can put two and two together here. Sam was spotted by these men, and despite her shapeless clothes, despite her tricks, they figured out what she was and followed her back here.