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

“They can’t do this!” Zach shouted over the chatter buzzing around us. “They had nothing to do with it! They’re making us look like terrorists—”

“Is this real?” Senator Cruz asked Cole. “Would they claim responsibility for it? Or is Gray trying to pin it on them to justify another attack on them?”

“I think they’re claiming credit,” I said feeling a need to inject a calm voice into the panicking fray. “Gray doesn’t need another excuse to attack them, and he’s been scrambling to float the theory that everything was doctored. I guess it doesn’t matter, though. The League has the target on their backs now, not us.”

Cole managed to wrangle his smug look—or at least dampen it somewhat. “Well, y’all have succeeded in putting another undeserved feather in their cap. But Ruby’s right. This is a good thing for us.”

The anchor continued, undaunted. “—fifteen Psi Special Forces officers sustained mild injuries and were treated on-site. All declined to comment on the treatment of the children and the rehabilitation camp when questioned before the arrival of ranking military officials. As of yet there has been no response from President Gray, and Washington remains silent.”

The unspoken words trickled through my mind. But not for long.

Lillian was not only awake when we unlocked the door and came in, she was pacing the length of the room in the dark. She’d left all of the lights off, save for the one at her desk. Compared to earlier, she looked a little more presentable. Someone, likely Cole, had brought her wipes to clean off her face, a hairbrush, and a clean set of sweats. I’d seen her in press clippings wearing the costume of a First Lady—suits, perfectly coiffed hair, pearls—and I’d seen her in Clancy’s memory as a scientist, crisp and clinical in her white lab coat. Here, dressed like this, she could have been anyone. And that made it easier to approach her—easier to do what I had to.

“Hi, Dr. Gray,” I said. “Do you remember me and Chu—Charles?”

Vida and Cole had both wanted to watch, but I’d been worried about overwhelming Dr. Gray with too many people around her. I needed her calm, or at least calmer than she had been while dealing with me before.

The woman mumbled something to herself as she continued that careful stride back and forth, back and forth, not breaking pace as she glanced over at her bed and the papers strewn over it. Suddenly, she stopped and pointed at them with urgency, her mouth struggling around each sound she was trying to make. Her entire body shook with her frustration as she pressed a hand against her throat, rubbing it.

In that moment I understood. Clancy hadn’t just wanted to silence her from being able to tell others about the cure. He wanted to punish her, in the exact way he knew would hurt her the worst. He’d taken her brilliant mind and trapped her inside of it.

“That’s right, we want to talk about the research you did.”

“Chhaaaa—” She swallowed and tried again, looking as humiliated as I’d ever seen a person. I had to fight the urge to take her hand when she raised it toward us. “Chaaaart.”

“Right, the charts.” I carefully took her shoulders and guided her toward the bed. I don’t know if she remembered what had happened the last time I was in here with her, but she didn’t struggle until I tried to force her to sit.

“Ruby,” Chubs said. “Are you ready?”

Her shoulders bunched up, the muscles tightening beneath my hand. She was already preparing herself. She knew what I was.

Diving into her mind the second time was no less painful than the first. Dr. Gray turned her memories into a roaring river I couldn’t cross—a stream of landscapes, homes, roads, children’s toys, textbooks, flowers, silverware—anything and everything she could think of to protect the important memories.

But we were connected. That was all that mattered.

“Ruby.” Chubs was standing behind me, I knew that, but it sounded like he was talking to me from outside in the hall. “Ruby, what’s...er...your favorite color?”

“My favorite color,” I repeated, letting the word take shape in my mind, “is green.”

The shift came midway through the word. One moment I was being dragged between scenes lasting no longer than a fraction of a second. The next, it felt as if I’d been thrown against a wall of glass shards. I recoiled, physically and mentally.

“Tell me what your middle name is,” Chubs said.

“It’s...” The words brought me up closer to the pain, the sharpness of it. This part of her mind was so dark, so unbearably dark. It must have been painful for her every time she tried to speak, to use this part of her mind. He wanted her to hurt. Hurt.

“What’s your middle name?” he repeated.

“It’s Elizabeth.” I felt my mouth form the words, but I couldn’t hear them over the rush of blood inside my own head. I have to push through this. This is glass. I have to break it. I have to get through it. Mirror minds.

“Who were you named after?” Chubs’s questions were keeping me in that part of her mind. Every time I had to stop and think about what he was asking, the pain became slightly more bearable.

“Grandmother,” I said. “Grams.”

Grams. Grams. Grams. The person who remembered me. Who I’d be able to find once this was over. I need you. We need you.

My grip on her tightened to the point where I’m sure my nails dug into her flesh. With one final, deep breath, I pushed against the wall as hard as I could, turning my mind into a bat and slamming against it until I felt it give with a deafening crack. I slid forward, forcing my way through, until it shattered and cut the connection to ribbons.

“Ruby, what was the name of our van? What did we call it?” Chubs must have been shouting the question to me. His voice was ragged.

“Black...” I mumbled, my mind in pieces—pain everywhere—agony—“Black Betty.”

I didn’t slide through, so much as fall past the remnants of the barrier. The world around me exploded into electric blue light—

When I came around, rising up from the murky pain, I was flat on my back on the floor, Chubs’s anxious face an inch above mine.

“Okay?” he asked, taking my arm to help me sit up. “How do you feel?”

“Like I took a flaming knife to the head,” I got out around gritted teeth.

“You were out for a full minute. I was starting to get worried,” he said.

“What happened?” I asked, turning toward the bed. “What—”

Lillian Gray was sitting at the edge of her bed, her face hidden behind her hands. Her shoulders shook, trembling with each gasp of breath.

She’s crying, I realized, rising up to my knees, I hurt her—

Her face was red, swollen from the force of her weeping. The air in the room had shifted, a thunderstorm of feeling had rolled back, and what was left was weightless blue sky. When she looked at me, she saw me. Her lips pulled back into a painful smile.

“Thank. You.” She treated each word like the small miracle it was.

And then, without warning, I began to cry too. The pressure that had built in my chest gave way with the next heavy breath in, and expelled fully as I released it. I did this. If I did nothing else worthwhile in my life, I helped this woman. I gave her back her voice. I hadn’t broken someone; I’d put them back together.

“Um...” Chubs began awkwardly. “Should I maybe...er...”

I stood up, swiping at my face with a laugh. “I’m going to find Cole,” I said. “Can you tell her what’s going on? Make sure everything is okay?”

I used the hem of my shirt to scrub my face once I was outside of the room, allowing myself a few steadying breaths before I looked in on the gym and office, then the big room, where kids were already sitting down with their plates of macaroni and cheese.

Right. Dinner. That meant...

I took the stairs two at a time, bounding down the hall to the kitchen. The kids serving there only shrugged and said Cole had come in and left with two plates. It would have looked too suspicious for me to wait outside of the storage room; I slipped the string I held the key on up from around my neck and glanced back and forth, making sure no one was watching as I went inside and locked it behind me. The overhead bulb swung with the movement of air, and the door behind the shelf unit groaned, not fully shut.