In the Afterlight - Bracken Alexandra (онлайн книги бесплатно полные TXT) 📗
Cole had remained where he was, nodding to the team members who came down from the bus, slapping their backs and proudly congratulating them as they spilled out and formed a cluster around him. There was a backpack at his feet, but he didn’t reach for it, not until Liam and Alice finally exited the bus. I knew what was about to happen, but frankly, I was too damn pissed off myself to try to prevent it.
He signaled to Senator Cruz. With Rosa still pressed against her side, she said calmly, “All right, everyone, follow me. We’ll get you a nice warm shower, some new clothes, and a good meal. How does that sound?”
Liam and the Amplify reporter had their path toward us cut off as the Oasis kids streamed by, forming a line that followed the senator to the tunnel down, passing Zu, Hina, Mike, and Kylie, who’d come running to meet us. They joined the group of kids who had been left behind here, standing on the white crescent moon painted onto the cement.
The moment he was within range, Cole stooped to pick up the backpack and tossed it to Liam, who sagged under its weight as he caught it.
“I took the liberty,” Cole began, his voice edged with ice, “of packing your things. You’re finished here. Get on your little bike and go home.”
“I’m not going anywhere.” Liam’s expression hardened as he shoved the bag back at his brother. “And I’m just getting started. You can’t make me go.”
Cole let out a derisive laugh, but I was the one to answer. The words sprang into my mind, filled my mouth like bile. “No, but I could.”
I saw Zu jerk her gaze from Liam to me, her lips parting in shock. It was nothing compared to the pain of seeing Liam set his jaw and blanch, his eyes burning with a terrible, silent disappointment. How dare he act like this was the real betrayal here? He’d gone behind my back for all of this. I’d sensed he was keeping some kind of secret, but nothing of this magnitude. Nothing that risked the safety and lives of every kid here.
And why? Because he was mad Cole dismissed his idea? He didn’t understand how these things worked. He’d left the League, run away. He’d checked out of training too early to understand that you fought fire with fire.
“You went behind my back,” Cole said, heat pouring off the words, “and somehow contacted Amplify when I specifically told you not to. You were stupid enough to email confidential files, risking Gray’s Internet crawlers picking them up and tracing them back to us. You clearly lied about going to meet that other group of kids and met with Amplify instead, wasting our gas and our time. You interrupted an Op in play and endangered every single kid participating in it, including yourself and the ones we rescued. And to top it off, Liam, you brought a civilian into play. I really hope it was worth it to you, because while you’re getting the hell out of here, she is staying where we can keep her secured and locked up until this is all over.”
“Excuse me?” Alice stepped up, brown eyes flashing. To Liam she muttered, “You said he’d be pissed, but this is...”
“Reality,” Cole finished, holding out his hand. “Give me your camera.”
She leaned away, pressing her hand against the device, which was now stowed away safely in her bag. “Listen to me when I say this,” she said, “because I mean it literally—over my dead body. You think I’m scared of you? I survived the D.C. bombing and covered eight major city riots, including the one in Atlanta that killed my camera guy and my fiance. So go ahead and try it, ass**le.”
“Okay, sweetheart,” Cole said, “you can keep your camera. May the tender, glowing light from the digital screen keep you company when we lock you in your new room and throw away the key.”
“That’s—”
Liam held out an arm, stopping her. The woman didn’t shrink back, though, and her ivory skin didn’t lose its tinge of pink.
“You’re right,” he said. “I did go behind your back and find out how to contact Amplify. I met with Alice and her team, but only after I found Olivia and Brett, who I told not to come in until I was sure being here would guarantee a lower chance of getting killed than trying to survive alone in the wild. I downloaded files onto a flash drive to prove my story to Amplify; I never sent them. And you know why I did all of those things? Because no matter what you said in Los Angeles, this hasn’t been anything that resembles a democracy, let alone a fresh start. You’ve ignored everyone’s ideas in favor of your own and you haven’t once listened to what I’ve tried to say, even though you know nothing about our lives and what we’ve been through. You like the fight, but some of us don’t.”
“Not your best argument,” Cole said, gesturing to the team, “considering today worked out pretty damn well.”
“He’s telling the truth,” Alice insisted. “We never would have asked him to risk sending the files digitally. He only brought us printouts, and only a few to prove his affiliation with the League. Or whatever the hell it is you’re calling yourselves now.”
Liam blew out a harsh breath. “We can use the footage Alice captured today, deliver a media package to their contacts to run—a package that carries an actual message. That proves something, even if it’s just that people have nothing to fear from us kids. You don’t get it. It doesn’t matter if we get all the kids out of the camps and blast through every damn fence and wall between us and them. If we don’t change people’s minds about us, then where the hell are those kids going to go?”
Cole crossed his arms over his chest and said simply, “Bye, Liam.”
I had started to turn, intending on following Cole to the tunnel, anger making my head throb, erasing every last trace of light inside my heart, when a voice piped up. “If he has to go, then so do I.”
It was the Green girl I’d seen a few nights ago, the one who had painted the crescent moon on Liam’s helmet. That moment, when I’d questioned who “she” was, finally made sense. The symbol was how Alice identified him during their meetings.
“For any particular reason...?” Cole prompted.
“I covered for him.” She tossed her dark hair back over her shoulder. “I knew he was going to meet Alice and I didn’t tell anyone.”
“Me too,” said Lucy, wringing her hands red. “I lied about supplies he never brought in, and I don’t really want to fight, I’m sorry.”
“Ditto,” Kylie said. “Not sorry, though.”
“And me,” piped up Anna, one of the Greens who’d made it out of Los Angeles. “I’m the one that showed him how to access and download the files.”
Beside me, Zach scratched his head and looked up at the ceiling. “I might have showed him how he could, if he needed to, establish a contact procedure with someone.”
“I’m the one who asked Senator Cruz how she contacted someone in Amplify,” said another one of the Greens. “So I guess I’m out, too?”
“Me too, since—”
Cole held up a hand, interrupting Sarah. “Okay—Christ, I get it, Spartacus. You all made your point.”
He glanced over at me. I lifted a shoulder, letting him decide this one. I didn’t trust my judgment in that moment, and, truthfully, if they were all interested in sabotaging our hit on Thurmond, I wouldn’t have been sorry to see them go off and live somewhere safe and away, especially if Harry delivered on his promise of trained soldiers.
“You get one shot,” he told them. “Prove to me this works the way you want it to, and we’ll adapt our plan, but—” His voice turned sharp as the kids behind us began to chatter excitedly. I stepped closer to him, wanting to use Cole as a shield from the now-obvious truth that most, if not all of them, had known what Liam was planning, and none of them had been inclined to let me in on it.
They probably think it serves you right, a voice whispered in my head, for keeping them in the dark about getting rid of the agents.
But the difference was, that had only been done to protect them. Cole was absolutely right—Liam interrupting a carefully choreographed Op and introducing an unknown variable could have ended badly for all of us, including the kids we were trying to rescue. A fresh wave of anger steamed through me.
