In The Afterlight (The Darkest Minds 3)

“You don’t have to go if you don’t want to,” I said quickly. “It’s not too late.”

“Isn’t it? Besides, I have to pull my weight, too.” He shrugged with a nonchalance that looked unnatural on him. His voice sounded strained, filtered through a lump in his throat.

“You and Vida will both be fine,” I said, planting both hands on his shoulders and forcing him to look down and meet my gaze. “You have everything under control. You’ll both be careful, and quick, and back in one piece.”

Chubs turned back toward Vida, who was the only person I knew who could make pacing look like prowling.

“Well,” he amended with a long-suffering look, “hopefully no more than two pieces.”

Despite what Vida had said, she waited patiently as Chubs knelt to talk to Zu and gave Liam a good pounding on the back. Cole unlocked the door, letting a draft of cold air into the hallway, and stood back as Chubs took the first few steps down.

As much faith as I had in them, I did have to fight off the urge to throw myself in front of the tunnel out and block their path. I pressed a hand against my chest, trying to stamp the feeling of panic out. But Zu had no such reservations. She bolted out of Liam’s grip and pushed past Cole, who was shutting the door after them. By the time we caught up to them, she was gripping their packs, her heels digging into the unfinished floor, crying in that silent, heartbreaking way. Crying harder than I’d ever seen; she shook her head, her lips moving with silent pleas. Chubs looked back at us, startled.

Zu had been the toughest of our group in many ways, the one quickest to bounce back after terror or sadness knocked her flat. Whatever walls she’d built up to keep the feelings from cresting, they weren’t high enough now to stop the desperate fear. And it devastated me. My throat ached with the need to cry, too.

Vida dropped her pack and knelt down in front of her. “Hey girl, none of that. It’s like what we talked about, yeah?”

Zu pressed her face against Chubs’s backpack.

“What happened to you with that guy—the one who drove you to California, that was some—” I saw her catch herself, modify her word choice—“that was some messed-up stuff, and I’m sorry, I’m really sorry that it happened to him. But me and Charlie Boy? We’re coming back. None of us are going to leave you here alone. We take care of our family, right?”

I didn’t realize Liam still had a hand on my shoulder until it tightened. His face was ashen.

That calmed Zu down, at least enough to release her grip on Chubs and turn toward Vida fully.

“You can trust me, Z. I won’t let you down. Okay?”

She nodded, scrubbing at her face with her sleeve. Vida held up her fist for a bump, but Zu one-upped her, wrapping her bony arms around the older girl’s neck. Vida said something too low for any of the rest of us to hear, but when Zu pulled back she was nodding, a look of fierce determination on her face. With no other warning she turned and hugged Chubs, too, looking back to point a finger toward Vida as if to say, Be nice.

“I told you,” Vida said as she stood. “I keep my promises.”

Liam stepped forward to guide Zu back into the hallway so she didn’t have to watch the door shut and lock behind them. I saw her straighten herself out, her fists clenching at her sides and her chin lifting up—the same way I’d seen Vida prep herself for battle.

“Let’s go get something to eat, okay?” Liam said. He looked back over his shoulder. “Coming?”

I shook my head. “Have to shower and take care of a few things. I’ll catch up with you later.”

Liam waved and started walking with Zu back down the hall, heading to the kitchen in the lower level.

“Okay, what’s going on?” I asked before either Cole or Nico could speak. “What happened last night?”

“It’s easier to show you.” Cole started past me, heading the same way his brother had taken, toward the stairs. I followed him silently, watching Nico watch the floor, my stomach clenching. It was getting too hard to pretend like I didn’t care.

It was the first time I’d been down in the computer room since the supplies had come in last night. Where there had once been only one laptop, there were now five desktops. Another three silver laptops were spaced out along the desks, which were still pushed against the walls, leaving an empty space at the center of the room for planning. I spotted a printer and a scanner near the old laptop. Nico had picked a seat at the far back corner of the room, as usual. Cole brushed aside printouts of indecipherable code from one of the nearby seats and offered it to me.

Nico keyed in some kind of a password and brought up a window of more code.

“Somehow this doesn’t feel ‘easier,’” I said. “What are we looking at?”

“This is our server log,” Nico said. “It seemed like it was lagging last night, so I was trying to troubleshoot what the issue was. This right here—” He pointed to the screen. “That means someone sent one of the files saved there, transferring it via FTP to another encrypted server.”

“What file?” I asked.

“It was one of the videos from the Thurmond testing,” Cole said.

“But there’s more,” Nico scrolled up. “There are gaps in the server’s activity log, all between the hours of midnight and four A.M. on two other days.”

“It’s not because no one was awake to use the computers?” I asked.