Never Fade (The Darkest Minds 2)

And just like that, he was out of my reach. I was useless to get us out of there.

“The hot piece will stay and keep us entertained,” Knox said, smoothing his hair behind his ears with a grin. He nodded to the boys at his left. “Strip their jackets, take anything valuable they might still have on them, and keep them outside—where the trash belongs.”

FOURTEEN

THE SIDE DOOR OF THE WAREHOUSE led into an extensive parking lot. The sea of black was broken up by a few sullen-looking tents, all near to collapsing under the pockets of water collecting on them. Wood pallets formed a kind of floating platform for each one and connected them in a crooked loop. I saw right away why they were needed—they lifted us those few precious inches out of the murky water that swamped the whole lot.

Smoke drifted up lazily from the smoldering remains of fires, mingling with the sour smell of old water. I crossed my arms over my chest, feeling the last bit of anger and despair at the loss of Liam’s jacket shake off me. At the far left end of the lot were two small gray buildings—one of which Michael and his team were streaming out of, clutching armfuls of bread and chips. They crossed paths with Brett on their way back to the warehouse, slapping his shoulder, trying to turn him back. He simply waved them on and kept walking toward the building they had come from and the one next to it marked with a spray-painted red X over the door. Judging by the locks on the door, no one came out, and no one went in.

Olivia waited until the hunters ducked back into the warehouse before she turned sharp on her heels and gripped my shoulders.

“Oh my God,” she was saying, her voice shaking madly. “Not you, too—He’s—”

“What happened?” I whispered. Chubs was there in an instant, looping one of Olivia’s arms over his shoulder. “What the hell is going on?”

“Wait, you actually do know each other?” Jude cried. Chubs yanked him forward, pulling him into our huddle.

“After I left East River…I was, well…” There was no small amount of fury tucked into her words. “I found a car with a few of the others and we got all the way to Tennessee.”

I nodded, waiting for her to continue.

“Of course the car gave out. The PSFs were on us the entire time, and we didn’t really have a choice. We split up and ran. I took to the woods and got pulled in by one of the ‘Slip Kid’s’ hunting parties.”

“But I thought Fancy was the Slip Kid?” Jude wrapped his arms around himself in a vain attempt to stay warm. I elbowed him hard.

“Fancy?” Olivia asked, startled.

“He nicknamed Clancy,” I said, blowing out a long sigh.

The slightest smile curled her lips, only to be replaced by a burst of intense, dark pain. Her hand floated up to her neck and pressed hard at her collarbone, as if she were trying to keep something in by force.

“You know what happened, right?” I whispered. “You know he was responsible?”

She nodded. “I didn’t want to believe it at first, but that night, when you guys tried to leave…I could see the way he had manipulated us. Controlled us. Our security system was near perfect, and we always knew Gray would leave Clancy alone rather than risk exposing him. The only way they could have found us was if someone leaked the coordinates or provoked him, and the only one with a way to do that was…was…”

She slid her hand up the length of her throat, hiding the tremor there.

Before, at East River, I’d only had a kind of passing acquaintance with Olivia. Most of our interactions were colored by whether or not Clancy or Liam were around; if they weren’t there, we barely acknowledged each other. She had been invested in both, in different ways. Liam was someone who had been easy to work with, who challenged her to think about what they could do for the camps instead of just biding their time deep in the woods. But Clancy—Clancy had been the one she had wanted to protect, impress.

Like every other kid at that camp, he had been her savior. Her everything.

“Fancy sort of suits him,” she said finally, stepping out of my grip.

We made our way carefully over the pallets, walking along the swaying trail of them. “When their hunting party found me, I only went with them willingly because I wanted to get to Clancy,” Olivia muttered. “I wasn’t even thinking it was strange he could set up another camp so fast or that he had gotten away at all. I just wanted to ask him why he did that to us. I think I would have killed him.”

“A totally reasonable response,” Chubs assured her. “Even more reasonable if you had done it slowly, with much fire and ice picks.”

Somehow, Olivia didn’t find that funny.

“Imagine my surprise when they dragged me in front of that hick,” she said. “The very first thing he told me was that the only way I’d get out of his tribe was if they decided to dump my body in the river.”

I shook my head, trying to dispel the angry buzzing between my ears and focus on the here and now, rather than what I was going to do to the bastard. “What’s his story?”

“Knox’s?” Olivia glanced around, but we were alone. “I can’t get a straight one. Supposedly, he broke out of PSF custody a few years back and was holed up in different parts of Nashville until the flood. I don’t know how he convinced the first kids here to join up, but I can tell you that most of us didn’t join the tribe by choice.”

Jude’s thick eyebrows were drawn together. “Why does he hate the other colors so much? What happened?”

Olivia lifted a shoulder. “Who knows? No one’s willing to risk his anger by asking. We already have to fight for every scrap of food as it is.”

“I was wondering about that. It seems like he doesn’t even treat the Blues he has here all that well,” I said. “Are they staying because they’re scared?”

She nodded to the trees at the other end of the parking lot, past the tents. “If you were to try to make a run for it, you’d run into the patrol he set up, and if you run into the patrol, you don’t come back. It’s already hard enough that he takes everything you own and forces you to ‘earn’ it back, but if you don’t work hard enough, or suck up enough, or entertain him, you get sent out here. Or you get traded.”

“Traded…?”

Olivia was as close to tears as I had ever seen her. “He… That’s how he gets food. You saw the blockades around the city, right? All the soldiers? He brings in the kids he considers worthless, and he trades them for smokes and food. Only now they’ve been asking for more kids and giving him less and less stuff to balance it out. I’m surprised they haven’t just raided us, but I guess he’s managed to keep this place a secret.”