Through the Dark (A Darkest Minds Collection) (A Darkest Minds Novel) (37 page)

There are benches running along the sides of the van, cuffs dangling above them, a metal grating separating the two front seats from the back area. Up close, the soldier looks even younger than I thought; there’s still a fullness to his face, and his age is never more obvious than when he glances at me, frowning. He hesitates, a flash of pity cutting through the stiff mask of determination.

And I think about it. I do. If he’s soft, I can be hard. I can shove him, give Mia a chance to run—

She beats me to it, drives her shoulder into his chest, hard enough to knock me sideways too.

I’m not sure what hurts worse, the first jolt of hitting the street, or the hundred-plus pounds of the soldiers who slam me right back down onto it. My vision blanks to static white as the air explodes out of my lungs all over again.

The soldier snaps at Mia in a language I can’t understand, lashes out a booted foot. Words sputter in my throat as he catches Mia around the ankle and trips her before she can take two steps. It’s almost impossible to get myself up onto my feet with my hands bound and my whole right side throbbing. I grit my teeth and lurch forward onto one knee, then the other.

“Stop this!” A large hand hauls me up by the scruff of my coat. The head soldier has a voice like a cannon, but I don’t catapult back into the thick fear until he holds up a small black device and brings it to within an inch of Mia’s panting face.

“Do you know what this is?” he asks, biting out each word.

My body is already trying to curl around my core to prepare for the piercing grind of White Noise. Our hands are still tied, there’s no way to even cover our ears. Hate powers through me, pumping like thunder. Because, of course. Of course—they can close the camps, they can disband the PSFs, but they still need a way to control us. As long as there are freaks in the world, there will always be White Noise and the people who get to use it, who will never understand what it feels like to have a noise send razors through your brain.

“I do not want to use this,” the man tells her. “Not one of us wants to use this. But we are authorized to do so, and we will. Understood?”

I see now that Mia is braver than I am, because I nod, distracted by what is happening over by the ambulance. She’s the one that asks, “Where are you taking us? Which camp?”

His surprise betrays the hardened expression on his face, like he can’t quite believe that’s our first assumption. All of this, the new government, the international peacekeeping force, happened so fast—these people have been injected into a reality that must feel as upside-down to them as it does to us.

“No more camps.” He shakes his head. “You are to be processed, and…re-homed.”

Re-homed. My lip curls back. Meaning…rewired. Released back into civilization with tiny machines implanted in our brains. I wonder if this will be our lives, for however many years we have left—no say, no choice, just orders and changes and handcuffs. I wonder if they think we are even really human.

We are, aren’t we?

“My brother—” Mia starts.

“Get in,” the soldier cuts her off, jerking his head toward the back of the van. When she doesn’t move, Mia is picked up and tossed inside.

“Stop it!” I shout, launching myself at his back. I’m thrown back immediately, lifted up and dropped onto the bench before the dizzying black spots can clear out of my vision.

I try to stand, but the man already has a seat belt whipped out and over my hips, securing me in place. The zip ties are traded for cuffs attached to the seat. Resentment steams under my skin, and my burns feel like they’re blistering.

Lucas, I’m sorry. If there’s a way to fix this, if it’s not too late, I will.

I won’t let them change her. Give her to adults who’ll mistreat or neglect her. I can find my old self long enough to do that one last thing.

“Where’s my brother?” Mia says, and it’s the first time she sounds like a kid to me. I think she’s hit the point where pride doesn’t matter, when desperation isn’t a weakness but a last resort. “Please don’t take him away, not again—he’s all I’ve got, he’s all that’s left—don’t take him to a place we can’t find him—”

“For Christ’s sake, kid—you are goddamn relentless!” he cuts her off. He steps back from the doors to allow the two paramedics to get to the van. A stretcher is slung between them, weighed down by Lucas’s body. I try to jump up from my seat, even with the belt and cuffs, and Mia does the same, just as another soldier secures her hands to the bench.

He’s been strapped down, and bags of clear fluid are resting on his stomach, feeding the IV lines. The paramedics shoot furious looks at the soldier in command as they slide the stretcher into that tiny bit of space at our feet. Mia and I both have to lift our legs up to make room.

“Luc!” Mia says, ignoring the soldier slamming the back doors shut. In the instant before the internal lights shut off, I get a good look at him. They’ve cleaned the smudges of dirt and soot off his face, bandaged a cut on his upper arm. Aside from the slight rise and fall of his chest, he doesn’t seem to be moving at all.

When we first got out of Thurmond, I could never get through a full night of rest. It was like trying to fall asleep while floating on my back in a pool of water—every time I relaxed enough to sink into it, I’d startle myself awake again before I could drown. Every small sound was amplified and stretched by the paranoia that someone was creeping up on whatever house or hole I’d found for us to spend the night in.

Lucas never had that problem. I used to check on him while he slept. Count the measure of his breathing. Watch the way his eyes moved beneath his lids. I heard somewhere once that that only happened when people were deep asleep and dreaming…maybe it was Mr. Orfeo who told me? He was so smart, spilling over with the need to explain every mystery to us. Seeing it happen to Lucas was like some small miracle. I remember thinking,
He’s still there. He’s dreaming
. Something was happening beneath the blanket of his skin and bones. He never thrashed, he never cried out—they weren’t nightmares, I don’t think. I hope not.

And now he’s just…still. He breathes, but he doesn’t dream. But if there’s still a piece of him to save, I’ll find it.

We travel by darkness.

Time is broken up by the faint voices of the men talking to each other in the front seats, the scratchy van radio, and the few times we get to use the filthiest rest stops on the face of the earth. There isn’t an opportunity to talk to Mia without them listening in or tracking us with their eyes, not even when they uncuff us to give us sandwiches and water. Every word would be dissected, anyway, and I don’t want to give them any reason to discipline us or suspect we’re planning something.

I try to plan something.

In the early morning light that slips in through the front windshield and the tinted back windows, I study Lucas’s face. At the next stop for food or a bathroom break, when they uncuff us, Mia can shove the soldiers back and I’ll lunge for one of their guns. If she can’t knock them unconscious, then I’ll—

“No, Sam.”

I look up. Mia watches me, her dark eyes intent. The radio belches out more static, interrupting the song the driver was humming along to.

“But—”

“No,” she repeats, glancing down at Lucas. “It’s over. You were right.” Mia’s voice trembles. “You were right. I was just…stupid…”

“No,” I say, “
I
was wrong—”

“Wouldn’t it be better…for him?” she asks.

Maybe
. An unwanted voice whispers the word in my mind. Is it better to let him live like this, force him to eat and drink, when he’s clearly determined to drift away? How would Lucas feel about living as a shadow of himself, while we cling to the memory of who he was?

I must have fallen asleep at some point, too, because the next thing I’m aware of is waking up. I’m angry with myself all over again, blinking against the bright interior lights of the car, disoriented by the blast of icy air that charges into the cramped space. What time is it? The engine is off—I can’t read the dashboard clock. How many hours have I wasted in sleep?

A soldier with a face I don’t recognize is peering down at me, a pale blue helmet secured tightly under his chin.

“Where—?” I rasp out, my throat dry to the point of pain.
Where are we?

The floor at our feet is empty.

Lucas
?

They’ve already taken him out—God, they did it while we were asleep? Did they stop before now? Did they take him out just a few minutes ago? Mia struggles against her cuffs, straining to see what’s happening outside of the doors.

“Where is he?” she shouts. “What did you do to him?”

“What are you doing?” I demand. “Where is Lucas?”

Panic scrambles under my skin like a thousand ants. The soldier’s hand clamps down around my wrist hard enough to pin me there while he replaces the van’s cuffs with zip ties again. Where is he? Is he all right? Anything could be happening—he might slip away completely, and neither of us would know—

I’m choked by my own helplessness. I have nothing to pour my anger into, and it just feeds itself, until I practically push my escort out of the van, which earns me a stern look and a sharp tongue cluck, like I’m a dog getting my behavior corrected in obedience class. We’re under an overcast sky thick with steel-spun clouds, but I have to squint against the pale light. I swallow back the familiar wave of nausea that comes with too many nerves stewing in too little sleep, searching for Lucas.

Then I hear it.

It is a sound that lives inside me, vibrating at the edge of seven years of memory. The low hum turns me inside out in a second, and it happens so fast—my lungs constrict painfully, my vision tunnels on the tangles of barbed wire. The air shivers with electricity. Green trees—even the smell of the air and wet earth is the same. The fog hides the body of the camp, but I know it must be there. The electric fence—

Thurmond.

They brought me back—the electric fence in front of me is quivering with laughter—
thought you were gone, did you, thought you got away
—I recoil hard enough to trip up my escort and nearly bite my tongue off. Blood fills my mouth. Why are they doing this? Why—

I squeeze my eyes shut, open them, squeeze them, repeating it until the throbbing in my temples finally calms.

Not Thurmond.

Mia is talking to me, eyes wide—I don’t understand how I’m looking up at her until I see that I’m on my knees, that I’ve tripped and fallen. It takes two men in uniforms to get me back up.

One of them, his blue helmet gleaming from a light mist of rain, squints at me, his eyes as dark as his skin. “—won’t hurt you, won’t hurt—”

The drumming in my head gets louder as the darkness at the edge of my vision clears, expanding so I can finally take in the real scene in front of me, not the nightmare my mind decided to terrorize me with.

There
is
an electrified fence. I didn’t imagine that, at least. It stretches across the four lanes of empty highway we’re standing on, and disappears into the damp, spring-rich forests cushioning either side of it. There are trailers everywhere, but two enormous concrete buildings have already been erected on either side of the road. Construction workers in bright orange vests are building another section that will bridge them together over what looks like it’ll be some kind of tollbooth, or security checkpoint. National Guardsmen with blue bandanas tied around their upper arms are overseeing the work, hovering around as if they’re unsure what they’re supposed to be doing.

The asphalt is cracked and scattered with rotting leaves and tire tracks as we weave through the concrete barriers they’ve erected to slow down approaching cars. To our right, two soldiers in blue helmets are covering up the
WELCOME TO WEST VIRGINIA: WILD AND WONDERFUL
sign with one that reads
ZONE
1
SECURITY CHECKPOINT HAVE PASSES READY.

Wild and wonderful
. I don’t know if I should laugh or cry.

I should have paid better attention to the news reports about how the peacekeeping force was dividing the country up into four zones for better management—I do kind of remember hearing that West Virginia would be the western barrier and Virginia the southern barrier for Zone 1. It includes all of New England and the Mid-Atlantic states. Which would make Zone 2…the southern states, including Texas. Zone 3 would be the middle slice of the country, from the Great Lakes through Kansas, and everything west of that would be Zone 4.

They think it will be easier to manage the populations and rations this way, controlling the flow of both, telling us what to do and what’s right. But dependence won’t outlast desperation. I think they are building dams that will never withstand the hundreds of millions desperate for clean water, food, and work.

“Where is the boy? The one who was with us?”

He shakes his head, leading me through the construction, the deafening whine of drills and jackhammers hidden by work tarps. A shower of sparks falls from where the welders are binding the bones of the structure together over our heads. They strike the ground and disappear before they can catch.

When I dig my heels in, the escort signals to another soldier and they lift me, kicking, up the short stack of stairs into the warm arms of the building. The doors slide shut and seal behind us. A lock beeps.

Every head in the small, cramped entryway swivels in our direction. Mia and I are half walked, half dragged down the length of a door-lined hallway.

I am used to being watched. I am used to knowing that, even when I showered in the Wash Rooms, there was a camera there, keeping its eye on me. I ate under supervision. Worked with the eyes of PSFs drilling into my back. I am used to living like a shadow, a poor imitation of a person, but not invisible.

What I am not used to…is being
stared
at. Having men and women lean out of doorways, trail steps after us like we’re the circus coming to town. It feels like I’m being passed around, crumpled by their careless hands. These aren’t lethal looks. Mostly just plain, ugly curiosity.
Fascination
.