Never Fade (The Darkest Minds 2)

Vida and I would scope out the location; if it was one person, Jarvin or one of the other agents, we could take him easily. She would attack him in her way, and I would overwhelm him in mine. If a group of armed agents was there waiting for us, we’d make a clean getaway without being detected. This would work. This will work, I told myself. The only real question was, what would we do if it were no longer safe to bring the flash drive back to HQ? If Cole or Cate were gone. Dead.

Liam’s eyes were closed, and his breathing was easier than it had been in days. Now and then, a lone passing truck’s headlights would fill the window he leaned against, lighting his golden blond hair. And in those few precious seconds, I couldn’t see the cuts or bruises on his face. Not even the dark circles under his eyes.

The Beatles song drifting from the radio gave way to a softly strumming Fleetwood Mac, which faded, finally, into the cheerful opening riffs of the Beach Boys’s “Wouldn’t It Be Nice.”

I don’t know that, until that moment, I really understood that this was the end. That in a matter of miles, hours, I would leave that car and shut the door behind me one last time. It had been hard enough to let go before, and now…this. Maybe that was my real punishment for the things I’d done—being trapped in a world where I had to leave them again and again and again until there wasn’t enough left of my heart for it to break.

I wasn’t embarrassed or ashamed to cry then. Better to get it out while the others were asleep and Vida was concentrating on the dark road. I let myself, just this once, sink deeper into the pain. I let myself wonder why this had happened to me—to all of us—until I was sure the shape of the flash drive would be cut into my palm.

At least now, hopefully, we’d know who…what…was responsible. I’d have something to blame for the mess that was my life, other than myself.

And that song, it wasn’t ending. It kept on playing, that stupid, upbeat swing of voices and plucked strings, the promise of a future that would never be mine.

The touch was so hesitant at first, I thought for sure that he was still asleep, shifting in dreams. Liam’s hand came down next to mine on the seat, his fingers inching over one at a time, hooking over mine in a way that was as tender as it was shy. I bit my lip, letting his warm, rough skin engulf mine.

His eyes were still shut and stayed that way, even as I saw him struggle to swallow. There was nothing to say now. Our linked hands rose as he guided them to rest against his chest, and they stayed there, through the song, the mountains, the cities. Until the end.

Pueblo—HOME OF HEROES! or STEEL CITY OF THE WEST, depending on which sign you believed—was close to abandoned, but not quite empty enough to ease my mind as we drove past a line of flickering streetlights and empty car dealerships. It looked like much of what we’d seen so far, with mountains circling from all sides, rising up from otherwise flat, dry landscape. I had always pictured the state to be one giant mountain, I guess, covered in a thick skin of snow-dusted evergreens and ski slopes. There was snow, all right, capping the distant Rockies, but here in the daylight, there were no trees to provide cover, no blooming flowers to lend some beauty. Life in a place like this felt unnatural.

Vida parked the SUV across the street from the address “Cate” had sent us, letting the car roll to an anticlimactic stop.

“Are you sure this is right?” Chubs asked, glancing down at the tablet again. He had a point. Meeting at a deserted Dairy Queen did seem strange—it seemed in line with what I had seen of Cole’s sense of humor, I guess, but the randomness of it all made me doubt myself.

“I don’t see anyone in there,” Chubs said for the tenth time. “I don’t know…maybe we should circle around it again?”

“Grannie, chill—you’re giving me an ulcer,” Vida said, shifting the car into park. “She’s probably waiting in one of those cars.”

“Yeah,” Liam said, “but which one?”

Most were smaller sedans in a variety of colors and shapes. The one thing they had in common, aside from the beating their paint had taken from the sun, was that every inch of them seemed to be coated with dust. The roofs, the windows, the hoods. The only exception was a white SUV—the wheels and lower half of the car were caked with grime, but the rest of it was otherwise clean. It hadn’t been there long.

“She said to meet her inside,” I said, unbuckling my seat belt. “We’ll start there.”

“Wait,” Chubs began, a note of panic underlying his tone. “Can’t we just…wait a few more minutes?”

“We can’t keep her waiting,” Jude said. “She’s probably worried sick.”

I met Vida’s gaze in the rearview mirror. “Why don’t you stay here and pack a bag of supplies,” I suggested, keeping my voice casual. “Vida and I will get the full picture from her. We’ll see what her plans are and if it’s safe for you guys to travel with us.”

“Okay,” Jude said, “I’ll meet you in there in a second!”

“Take your time,” I said, stepping over his long legs. “Think about what we’re going to need.”

“But Cate will probably have everything we need,” he protested. “And anyway, I want to see her. It feels like it’s been forever.”

Vida took her cue from me and unbuckled her seat belt.

I shut the door behind me, careful not to look at Liam’s face as I walked around the back of the car to meet Vida. There was a faint click as she checked the magazine of the gun in her hand.

“We don’t go inside unless we confirm we’re not going to walk into a wall of guns, capisce? In and out only long enough for you to do brain voodoo and see if the others are all right,” she said. “How long until Judith gets whiny and impatient and comes after us?”

“Ten minutes, max.” Maybe twelve if Liam distracted him.

We kept to the street’s shadows, weaving in and out of the cars. I hadn’t felt nervous until that very moment, when I thought I caught a flicker of light and movement in one of the restaurant’s windows. But Vida was gripping my arm, dragging me around the enormous garbage Dumpsters and their rotting, forgotten innards. The back door was propped open with a small rock. Vida wasted only one second to look at me, then ducked into the Dairy Queen’s dark kitchen. The door slipped shut behind us, and I turned the lock as quietly as I could.