In the Afterlight - Bracken Alexandra (онлайн книги бесплатно полные TXT) 📗

“But,” he continued, “you all stay here and you cannot, for any reason, leave the Ranch without getting permission. That includes you, Carrots.”

Alice colored at the nickname, absently reaching up to smooth back her red hair.

He took a step closer to her, lowering his voice. I knew that look, the way his blue eyes hooded, how the otherwise friendly smile betrayed nothing of the contempt he felt. Only his low, rough voice. “If you reveal our location to anyone at Amplify, I’ll know.”

Alice leaned toward Cole, her arms crossed over her chest. One brow went up in challenge. “No you won’t. But I’m not in the business of getting kids killed. Unlike you.”

“Hey,” I warned. And clearly Liam must have mentioned something about me, because she finally backed off.

“All right, everyone good? Everyone cool?” Cole nodded, motioning for the others to start nodding, too. “Great. Let’s get the supplies off the bus and everything organized. Someone needs to tell me about the PSFs’ faces when they saw you.”

The tension broke at that, Gav busting out laughing as he relayed a story about how one of the PSFs may or may not have pissed himself when he realized what he was up against. Zu tried to catch my hand as I walked past her, but, in all honesty, I just wanted to be alone—I didn’t care if it hurt her feelings, I didn’t care that she was worried about me, and I didn’t want to pretend that I was fine with this outcome. Losing focus was wasting time. It meant more dead kids I wouldn’t be able to save.

I wanted to check in with Nico about any news of Cate and whether or not Vida and Chubs had checked in. Then I wanted to finalize the details for how I’d be taken back into Thurmond.

I burned off what extra energy I had by taking the tunnel between the Ranch and the garage at a run. The frustration drained out of me with each strike of my boots against the cement. I was through the kitchen, passing by bowls of pasta and pretzels the Oasis kids had picked up on their way, if I had to guess, to eat in the big room, when I finally heard him calling my name.

I didn’t slow down, didn’t let any part of me soften the armor of anger I wore. Liam ran to catch up to me. “Ruby! I want to talk to you!”

“Believe me,” I told him, “you don’t.”

I continued down the hall until he grabbed my arm and spun me around. I stared up into his face, looking past the strain, the shadow of scruff along his jaw and cheeks, to the intensity of his eyes, and for a single instant my body confused the need to kill him with the need to kiss him.

I yanked myself away and pushed the door open to the stairwell.

“Are you mad because I didn’t tell you, or because you know I’m right?” he demanded. “Because as far as I can tell, it’s both.”

“I think Cole gave you a pretty decent outline of the many reasons to be pissed at you,” I said, turning as I reached the first landing. He was right at my heels, trying to back me into the same dark corner I’d stolen a kiss from him in. And somehow, that only made me angrier, like he was doing it on purpose.

“I’m right, Ruby,” he said, taking my wrist again.

“Touch me one more time,” I warned him, “and you’ll regret it.”

He released his hold on me and backed off. “Please, listen to me—”

“No!” I said. “I don’t even want to look at you right now!”

Liam’s smile turned mocking. “Because I dared to disagree with Cole, who could never be wrong, not about anything.”

I whirled back on him, shoving at his chest with both hands. “Because you came within an inch of being blasted away at the wrong end of Zach’s gun! Because you could have died and I wouldn’t have been able to stop it! Because you didn’t think and everything we’ve been working toward could have fallen a—!”

His eyes flashed, blue flames, as he pulled me to him.

He kissed me.

He kissed me the way I’d kissed him in the forest at the edge of the East River camp. In the darkness, the smell of damp earth and dust and leather wrapped around us. Hard—desperate—his hands fisted in my hair, mine in his jacket.

He kissed me, and I let him, because I knew it was the last time.

I pushed him away, feeling something in my chest tear wide open as the cold air filled the space between us. Liam braced himself against the wall, trying to catch his breath. I fought the stupidest urge to sit down on the stairs and cry.

He took a shaking breath. “Anna said...she said that Nico’s been working secretly on some kind of virus. She thinks it’s for the Thurmond hit. It’s the kind that someone will have to go in and install before any kind of attack can happen.” His voice sounded hollow. “Would you happen to know anything about that?”

I looked away.

“Jesus, Ruby,” he said quietly.

He was giving me the chance to come clean about the Thurmond hit, but nothing, least of all him, was going to prevent me from doing this. I didn’t need his approval.

“They will kill you,” he said, anger seeping into the words. “You know this. They know what you are and what you can do. Are you going to sway the whole camp? Get them under your control the way Clancy did at East River? They aren’t going to let you leave that camp alive, and you don’t even care, do you?”

He scrubbed at his face, letting out a sound of pure aggravation. “Do I even have to ask who put this idea in your head? He’s not one of us, Ruby! He’s not, and you still side with him, you tell him the things you used to tell me. Tell me what happened, tell me how to make this right between us again. I don’t understand how we broke down. I don’t understand why he has this hold on you!”

“I don’t have to explain myself to you.” I felt a cold drop of ice spread down my spine at my own words, no matter how true they were.

“You used to want to,” he said. “Do you want to know why I didn’t tell you about Alice and Amplify? I came close a hundred times. I almost told you that night we were in the garage, but I stopped myself because lately...lately it doesn’t matter what I say. You and Cole think it’s wrong, stupid, or naive. Dammit, I am sick to death of that word. I’m not stupid, and I’m not blind either. I can keep us fed, I can fix every damn fixture that’s falling off, I can make sure all of the cars run, I can find us the one real shot we have doing some lasting good in a world that’s already too violent, but it’s not enough. I don’t even register, do I? Not to him. Not to you, not anymore.”

I said nothing. Felt nothing. Was nothing.

“I’m trying to think of what comes after—how we’ll move on with our lives when this is all over. It’s what we talked about before. I don’t want any of these kids to live their lives stained with pain and regret and blood. I don’t want that for you, either. We can do good work—we can make the whole damn world see that we’re good kids in a shitty situation. Please—Ruby, please. Cole is going to walk you right over a cliff, and he’s going to be holding your hand the entire time.”

I held his gaze a moment longer, letting the words expand, filling the parts of me that were crumbling. Think of the girls, I thought, Cabin 27. Sam. All of those thousands of kids who’d been left behind as I got out. Ashley’s face, the dead eyes staring up at me, the accusation I’d read in them. Where were you? Why didn’t you come sooner?

“If I’ve hurt you half as bad as you’re hurting me,” he said, his voice ragged, “then, God, just kill me. I can’t stand this. Say something. Say something!”

I could sacrifice this, the thing I wanted most, for them, and the trade would never balance out, not fully. I owed them more than my love. I owed each of those girls my life. They needed to know what I’d felt today as we pulled out of Oasis. We would find the cure, if it was the last thing I did on this earth, and it would be waiting for them when they got out. They would know true freedom—not because they’d be able to shed their terrible abilities, the thing that marked them as freak. Because they’d be able to make every choice that had been denied to them for years. They could go anywhere. Be with the people they loved.