The Darkest Minds (37 page)

Before the sound had even settled in the air, we heard the screams. Not the desperate kind—the one you’d hear when someone was terrified or hurt or even out of their head with grief. This was a war cry. A rising rebel yell. After that, there was no chance of Zu or Chubs coming with us. They stayed behind to watch the bags as Liam and I made our way to the line of trees that separated us from the rain-soaked asphalt of the highway.

The semitruck was on its side in the middle of the road, as if it had been flung there like a toy. The smell of burned rubber and smoke curled my stomach as we crouched down, and I was concerned the trail of sparks in front of us would turn into a wall of flame.

Liam stood up and was nearly at the shoulder of the road before my hand managed to catch his elbow.

“What are you doing?” I had to shout over the sound of the rain pinging against the silver, rippled body of the trailer the truck had been hauling.

“The driver—”

Needed help, yes, I knew that, and maybe it made me soulless and horrible, but I wasn’t about to let Liam be the one to do it. Trucks didn’t just flip over on their side for no reason. Either there was another car and driver we couldn’t see, or…

Or the yelling and the accident were connected.

Liam and I were still standing out in the open when the figures in black came pouring out of the trees opposite us. Every inch of them was covered in black, from the ski masks pulled down over their faces to their black shoes. There was an entire highway between us, and still the sight of them was enough to make me reach out and grab Liam’s arm, squeezing it until I was sure he’d be left with a permanent imprint of my fingers.

There were at least two dozen figures in black; they moved in unison, with practiced ease. And it was so weird, but watching them flood the road and divide into two groups—one that went to the front of the truck, the other to the back where its boxed contents were spilling out—reminded me of a football team running a play. The four of them sent to the front cab climbed up and ripped the door open. The driver, who was screaming something in a language I didn’t understand, was hauled down to the ground.

One of the figures in black—a big one, with shoulders the size of Kansas, pulled a knife from his belt and, signaling for the others to hold the driver down, pressed its silver blade against the man’s palm.

I heard a scream and didn’t realize it had belonged to me until that same black monster’s head swiveled toward us. Liam jumped at the ten gun barrels that swung our way. The first bullet was close enough to nick his ear as it whistled by. There wasn’t even time to turn and run. The firing stopped long enough for three of the figures to rush forward, screaming, “On your knees!” and “Head to the ground!”

I wanted to run. Liam must have sensed this, because he latched onto my shoulder and forced me down, pressing the side of my face against the cold, rough asphalt. The rain picked up, filling my ear, my nose, my mouth as I tried to bite back another scream.

“We’re not armed!” I heard Liam shout. “Easy—
easy
!”

“Save it, asshole,” someone hissed.

I was intimately familiar with what it felt like to have a barrel of a gun dig into my skin. Whoever was doing it this time had no qualms about dropping a knee onto my back, along with their entire weight. The gun’s metal mouth was cold against my cheek, and I felt someone weave a hand in my hair and give a sharp twist. That’s when I disconnected from the pain and lifted a hand, trying to twist my body enough to grab whoever was holding me. I was not powerless—we were
not
going to die here.

“Not those!” I heard Liam say. He was begging.
“Please!”

“Awww, don’t want your precious papers to get wet?” The same voice as before. “How about you try being worried about yourself or your girl here, huh? Huh?” He sounded like a jock amped up on too much juice and game adrenaline.

Someone stomped their foot down on the same hand I was trying to maneuver toward my attacker’s skin. I let out a choked cry, wishing I could turn my head to see what was causing Liam to do the same.

“Doctor Charles Meriwether,” the voice read out, “2775 Arlington Court, Alexandria, Virginia. George Fields—”

The letters.

“Stop it,” Liam said. “We didn’t do anything—we didn’t see anything, just—”

“Charles Meriwether?” another voice said. Also male, this one with a heavier Southern accent. I almost didn’t hear him over the rain. “George Fields—like Jack Fields?”

“Yes!” Liam made the connection a full second before I did. This was a tribe—these were kids. “Yes, we’re Psi, please—we’re Psi like you!”

“Lee? Liam Stewart?” There was a shuffle of feet running toward us.

“Mike? That you?” That, from Liam.

“Oh my God…stop, stop!” The gun lifted off my face, but I was still pinned to the ground. “I know him—that’s Liam Stewart! Stop! Hayes, get off of him!”

“He saw; you know the rules!”

“Jesus, are you deaf?” Mike yelled. “The rules apply to adults—they’re kids, you asshole!”

I don’t know if Liam finally managed to throw him off, or if Mike’s words did the trick, but I felt Liam rise next to me, and opened my eyes in time to see Liam drive his shoulder into the black figure on top of me. I gulped in a full chest of air.

“Are you all right?” he asked. He put his hands on either side of my face. “Ruby, look at me—you okay?”

My hands came up to grab his. I nodded.

Of the six guys gathered around us, only two pulled their knit ski caps up off their faces: the big kid—big in a Hercules kind of way—with ruddy skin and black paint under both eyes, and another one with olive coloring, shaggy brown hair pulled back into a short ponytail. The latter was Mike. He reached over and pulled the letters out of Hercules’s hand and pressed them against his own chest.

“Lee, man, I’m so sorry. I never thought—” Mike choked up. Liam let go of one of my hands to clap him on the back. “What the hell are you doing here?”

Liam took the letters back from him, and reached back to draw me forward again. “We’re okay now,” he told me. It seemed to be true enough. The other kids in black had lost interest in us the minute Mike stepped up.

“God, Lee,” he said, wiping the rain off his face. “Oh my God, I can’t believe you actually made it out.”

Liam’s voice was tight. “I thought you were with Josh when…”

“I was, but I got through the fields.” He added, “Thanks to you.”

Another kid, this one with skin as dark as Chubs, jerked his thumb in Liam’s direction. “This is Lee Stewart?” he demanded. “From Caledonia?”

“From
North Carolina
,” Liam said, with surprising venom.

Mike gripped Liam’s hand, his entire body shaking. “The others—did you see if any of the others made it out?”

Liam hesitated. I knew what he was thinking, and I wondered if he would tell Mike the truth about how many kids actually escaped that night.

Instead, their watches went off at once, a shrill beep.

“That’s time,” Hercules said to the others. “Grab the supplies and head back. The uniforms will be here any second.”

A single gunshot punctuated his order like an exclamation point, thundering across the open road. Liam and I both jumped back, away from them.

The kids at the back of the truck were tossing down the entirety of the truck’s load: boxes and crates of brightly colored fruit. My lips parted at the sight of green bananas, just a few days shy of being ripe.

When they moved off and started back toward the trees, I had a clear view of the truck driver being rolled, unconscious and bound, into the ditch alongside the road.

“So, you’re what?” Liam rubbed the back of his neck. “Raiding anyone stupid enough to drive by?”

“It’s a supply hit,” Mike said. “We’re just trying to bring in a little food to eat, and this is the only way that works for us. We just have to do it fast—in and out before anyone notices us and can follow us back home.”

“Back home?”

“Yeah. Where are you guys headed?” Mike had to shout over the people shouting for him. “You should come with us!”

“We already have our own tribe, thanks,” Liam said.

Mike’s dark brows furrowed. “We’re not a tribe. Not like that, at least. We’re with the Slip Kid. You heard of him?”

TWENTY-ONE

E
AST
R
IVER WAS,
after all that speculating, nothing more than a camping ground. A big one, of course, but nothing I hadn’t seen before a dozen times over with my parents. After the buildup that Mike and the others had given it, you would have thought we were walking toward Heaven’s pearly gates, not some old camping spot that had been called Chesapeake Trails in its past life.

Since Mike had been the one to convince the others to take us along, he was the one stuck babysitting us as we hiked up the muddy unpaved road, saddled with boxes of fruit that were as heavy as they were tempting.

“We go on these things—we call them hits—to gather up supplies for the camp. Stuff like food, medicine, you name it. We also raid stores from time to time.”

Liam had given me his jacket to wear to ward off the rain. Though it had turned to a faint drizzle as we walked, the damage had already been done to the flimsy cardboard boxes in our arms. Every now and then, the bottom of a carton would give out completely, and whatever kid was carrying it would be forced to stuff the sodden piles of fruit into their pockets or carry them cupped in their shirts. Kids were doubling back to pick up the scattered, bright trail we were leaving behind us. Every once in a while, I would catch myself from being distracted by the bright trail we were leaving behind.

When Mike had his back turned to us, Liam snuck a hand in the top box and held an orange out in front of my face, a shy smile on his lips. When he dropped it in my jacket’s pocket, he leaned over, his sweatshirt hood slipping off his head, and pressed a light kiss against my bruised cheek. After that, the cold trickle on my skin seemed to evaporate.

“Ow, ow, ow, ow,” Chubs chanted behind us. “Ow, ow, ow, ow.”

“You know,” Mike said, “it gives me hope that, after everything he’s been through, Chubs is still the same Chubs we all know and love.”

“Aw, that’s not true,” Liam said. “This is Chubs two-point-oh. He hasn’t cried once this entire walk.”

“Give him a few minutes.” Greg snorted. “I’m sure he won’t let us down.”

“Hey,” I said in a low, warning tone. “Not funny.”

Chubs was still trailing behind, the gap between us growing with each mile marker we passed. I stopped and waited for him, not wanting him to feel like he was being left behind.

“Need some help?” I asked as he limped up to me. “My box isn’t too heavy.” And his was, I could tell. He was saddled with grapefruit.

I could see in his eyes that he desperately wanted to trade, even if it was only for a few minutes. Instead, he lifted his chin and said, over the cardboard flap, “I’m fine, though I appreciate your asking.”

Liam and Mike burst out laughing about something—even Zu looked back to grin at them, Liam’s hat falling over her eyes. It was amazing how much better Liam looked after only a few hours; his face was animated with a kind of energy I hadn’t seen…well, ever.

“What was he like?” I asked quietly. “When he was in camp?”

Chubs blew out a long sigh. “Well, for one thing, he was a lot more annoying with his whole,
We’re gonna make it, guys
,
we’re gonna get out one day
Pollyanna shtick. That’s been dying a slow death now that he’s realized just how sucky everything actually is.”

He stopped to shift the box in his arms. “I mean, what do you want me to tell you? Lee is Lee. Everyone loved him, even some of the PSFs. They picked him out of all of the Blues to be a runner for the control center of our camp.”

“Yeah? And what were you like in camp?” I asked, smiling.

“Ignored, for the most part,” he said. “Unless I was with Lee.”

As if he’d heard his name, Liam turned. “Hurry up, ladies! We’re going to be left behind.”

Mike was in the middle of explaining how he had hitchhiked from Ohio to Virginia after breaking out of Caledonia, when Chubs and I finally caught up to them. Zu tugged the sleeve of my jacket and pointed through the trees to our left.

I had been so involved in my conversation with Chubs that I had completely missed the silky blue lake that had suddenly come into view. The clouds pulled back, revealing the sun high overhead. The water sparkled under its touch, throwing its light around the trees that lined its every side. Through them, I could see I could see a small T-shaped wood dock at the other end, and, beyond that, several wooden cabins.

“So it’s more of a place to hide, then,” Liam was saying. “Can he help us get in touch with our folks?”

Mike frowned. “I guess, but he usually asks that you stay and help with the camp for a few weeks in return. Plus, why would you want to go home now? It’s much safer here.”

I could tell Chubs wanted to press this issue, but Liam charged on with yet another question. “How long has the Slip guy had this setup?”

“Two or so years, I think,” Mike answered. “Man, I can’t wait until you meet him. You are going to lose your mind.”