The Darkest Minds (38 page)

Chubs rolled his eyes heavenward, and I got the distinct impression that he and Mike were not all that fond of each other.

“And there are hundreds of kids here just roaming around unchecked?” I asked. “How has he been able to stay here so long without the PSFs catching on?”

Mike had already explained how the camp worked. All of the kids who had gathered there—some who had escaped from camps or capture, others that had been able to hide out long enough to avoid it all together—had responsibilities.

“Oh, see, now that’s the beauty of being under the Slip Kid’s protection,” Mike said. “The PSFs can’t attack him because of who he is and what he could do to them. Even ol’ Gray is terrified of him.”

“I know who it is!” Liam snapped his fingers. “Santa!”

Zu giggled.

“You’re not too far off,” Mike said. “This is going to sound super sappy, so feel free to give me shit for it, but every day here feels like Christmas.”

I saw what he meant right away. Once we reached the clearing that, I assumed, had once been used for campers to set up tents, we were surrounded by dozens of kids. To our right, teens were playing volleyball—with an actual net. I heard a few shrieks of laughter and stopped to let a few little girls rush by in front of me. They were the ones that caught Zu’s attention.

They all looked happy. Up and shiny and smiley. And clean. Not covered in cuts and bruises and mud like we were, but in decent clothes and shoes. A few kids lounging under the trees stopped whatever it was that they were doing and actually helped us carry the fruit boxes toward a white building marked
OFFICE CAMP/SHOP
without being asked or prompted.

The Office/Camp Shop was the sturdiest of the structures we had passed so far, built in a more permanent style than the smaller log cabins with their dark green doors.

“This is where we keep the food,” Mike said, like it was the most exciting thing we were ever going to hear. “And where the Slip Kid runs the whole show—I’ll bring you guys in for an introduction. Get permission for you to stay a while.”

“We need permission?” Chubs asked. “What happens if he says no?”

“He’s never said no before,” Mike said, shifting the box onto his shoulder so he could drop an arm around Chubs’s shoulder. Seeing he had my attention, he grinned ear-to-ear.

“Now, you couldn’t have been at Caledonia. I would remember a face like yours.” I think he thought he was being charming with those dark eyes and dimples. He looked over at Lee, who was fighting back a smile as he watched my reaction. “Where did she come from, and where can I find one?”

“Picked this one up at a gas station in West Virginia, bargain price,” Lee said. “Last one on the shelf, sorry.”

Mike laughed again, giving Chubs’s shoulder a squeeze before he hopped up the steps, ducking under a white sheet that had been strung up over the building’s small porch. I glanced at it, then had to look again.

The enormous black Ψ painted there had stopped Zu dead in her tracks and turned her face a sickly shade. I couldn’t move—couldn’t look away from it. Liam cleared his throat, his jaw working, as if trying to shake the words loose.

It was enough to stop Zu and me dead in our tracks, at least. Alarm lit up her face like a candle. Liam gave his friend a confused look.

“What?” Mike asked, seeing our reactions.

“Any reason in particular you’ve decorated this fine establishment with our mortal enemies’ symbol?” Liam said.

It was the first time I had seen Mike’s expression drop the entire time we’d been with him, which was close to two hours. Something hardened in his eyes, something strained the muscles in his jaw. “That’s our symbol, isn’t it? It’s Psi. It should represent us, not them.”

“How do you explain the black, then?” Liam pressed. “The armbands, the shirts…?”

He was right. Everyone, in some form or another, had the color on them. Most were apparently satisfied with tying a black band around their arm, but others, and not just the ones that had hit the truck for supplies, were in head-to-toe black.

“Black is the absence of all colors,” Mike said. “We don’t segregate by color here. We all respect one another and our abilities, and we all
help
one another understand them. I thought if anyone would be on board with that, it’d be you, Lee.”

“Oh no, no, I am on board. I am, like, captain of that ship,” Liam said. “I was just…confused, that’s all. Black is the color. Got it.”

The screen door creaked open again. Mike caught it with his foot. “Coming?”

Inside, I was surprised to feel a wave of heat hit my face and see the overhead lights on. Electricity—I remembered Greg mentioning something about the Yellows rigging the system to work, but did they have running water, too?

The front rooms were filled with piles of blankets and bedding, a few stacked mattresses, and a number of unidentifiable gray plastic tubs. The backroom—the Shop in the Office/Camp Shop combo—was to the right of a small, white-tiled kitchen. Mike waved to the kids inside, who were turning whatever delicious creation was inside of their pots with long wooden spoons.

The old store’s wood shelves were painted a dour green, but stuffed with a rainbow assortment of canned food and bags of chips, pasta, and even marshmallows. Liam let out a low whistle at the sight of the boxes of cereal stacked high over our heads.

I thought Chubs might cry.

We left the fruit on the floor in a shady corner of the room, near a girl with cropped blond hair and a midriff-baring black shirt. She was still clapping her hands in delight, bouncing on her toes. She couldn’t have been more than fourteen or fifteen and seemed to have as many piercings in the cartilage of each ear.

“I knew you’d be happy, Lizzie,” Mike said, tossing her a grapefruit.

“We haven’t had fruit in
ages
,” she said, her pitch rising with every word. “I hope this all keeps for a few weeks.”

Mike led us out of the room, leaving Lizzie to coo over the pineapples and oranges. “Let’s go upstairs. He should be done meeting with the security team by now. Hayes handles hits, but Olivia—you’ll meet her—coordinates watch duty around the perimeter of the camp. If you want, I can talk to her about getting you assigned there.”

He looked down at Zu. “But unfortunately for you, my dear, everyone under thirteen has to sit through lessons.”

That caught Chubs’s attention. “What kinds of lessons?”

“School stuff, I guess. Math, a little science, some reading—depends on whatever books we were able to scrounge. It’s important to the boss that everyone gets the basics down.” Mike stopped at the top of the stairs and looked over his shoulder. “I know you never liked using them, but there are lessons on how to use your abilities, too.”

Chubs cleared his throat behind me. “I’m fine with what Jack taught me.”

“Jack…”
Mike’s voice trailed off. “Man, I miss that kid.”

On our walk over, he had explained that there were five kids from Caledonia living in the Slip Kid’s camp. Mike was the only one from Liam’s old room, but there were two Blue girls, one Yellow boy, and a Green who had somehow made it all the way to eastern Virginia.

The second story of the building was more of an attic; the entire floor was one open room, but it was a nice one. Mike knocked on the door, waiting for the “Come in,” before daring to twist the handle. I heard Chubs let out a nervous squeak, and I was surprised to feel my own heart skip a beat.

The door opened to the middle of the room. To the right was a white curtain, drawn all the way over to hide what I thought was probably the living area. The window behind the curtain let in enough afternoon light to hint at the shape of a bed and dresser.

The other half of the room was set up like an office. There were two bookshelves filled with binders and books of every shape and size. An old metal desk with peeling black paint sat in between. There were two simple chairs in front of the desk, and a long table pushed to the far left wall, with all sorts of electronic equipment. A TV was on, set to one of the news channels. President Gray’s face filled the screen, flanked by two American flags. His mouth moved, but the TV had been muted. The only sound, aside from Chubs’s sharp intake of breath, was Clancy Gray’s fingers striking the keys of the sleek silver laptop.

I would have recognized him even if he had shaved his head of thick, wavy black hair—if he had tattooed his cheeks, or pierced his long, straight nose. I had spent six years staring up at every single one of his portraits at Thurmond, memorizing every mole, the shape of his thin lips—I was even intimately familiar with the peak of his hairline. But it was nothing like seeing the real thing. Those portraits hadn’t captured his dark eyes, and they certainly hadn’t been able to predict how striking he’d turn out to be as he aged.

“Just a sec—” He glanced up from his screen in our direction and immediately did a double take.

“Boss?” Mike said. “You okay?”

The president’s son rose slowly, shutting the lid of his laptop. The rolled-up sleeves of his white shirt slid down his tan arms.

This is the Slip Kid? I thought.
Him?
Surprise was an understatement. Brain-numbing shock, the kind that reduced my train of thought to an inching crawl, was an understatement. I didn’t even have a second to collect myself before the next three words passed his lips. There was no way I could have, because Clancy Gray looked straight at me and said the very last thing on earth I expected.

“Ruby Elizabeth Daly.”

My reaction was way too strong for something as innocent as my full name. It wasn’t like he had spat out three vile cusswords or screamed “Kill them now!” or “Lock them up!” I shouldn’t have stumbled back, tripping over my own boots, but I was nearly to the door before I even realized it.

Clancy took a step forward, but Liam pushed him back, hard.

“Lee!” Mike sounded scandalized.

Clancy held up his hands. “Sorry—I’m sorry! My bad. I should have realized how that would sound. I was just surprised to see you.” He leaned around Liam with an apologetic smile, and I paused at the door, momentarily stunned by how white and straight his teeth were. “I’ve read your file so many times on so many different networks that I feel like we’ve already met. There are so many people out there looking for you right now.”

“And which one do you plan on turning her over to?” Chubs snapped.

I stood still, letting Zu keep one arm wrapped around my waist. Clancy’s face flushed at the accusation, his dark eyes flicking back over to me. “None of them. I just collect information, watch the networks to see what everyone is buzzing about. And that just happens to be you, Miss Daly.” He paused, rubbing a hand absently over his shoulder. “Let’s see if I remember all of this—born in Charlottesville, Virginia, but raised in Salem by her mother, Susan, a teacher, and her father, Jacob, a police officer. Attended Salem Elementary School until your tenth birthday, when your father called into his station to report an unknown child in his house—”

“Stop,” I muttered. Liam looked over his shoulder, trying to divide his attention between me and the boy reciting the sordid tale of my life.

“—but, bad luck, the PSFs beat the police to your house. Good luck, someone dropped the ball or they had other kiddies to pick up, because they didn’t wait around long enough to question your parents, and thus, didn’t pre-sort you. And then you came to Thurmond, and you managed to avoid their detecting you were Orange—”

“Stop!”
I didn’t want to hear this—I didn’t want anyone to hear it.

“What’s the matter with you?” Liam shouted. “Can’t you see you’re upsetting her?”

Clancy, maybe anticipating another hard shove, moved to the other side of his desk. “I’m excited to meet her, that’s all. It’s not often that you find another Orange.”

A spark lit at the center of my chest, spreading quickly up to my brain.
He
is
an Orange. The rumors were right. He might actually be able to help me.

“But…weren’t you reformed?” I asked slowly. “Isn’t that why they let you out?”

“You of all people should know they can’t reform shit at Thurmond, Ruby,” he said. “How is good ol’ Thurmond, by the way? I had the dubious honor of being its first inmate—got to see them build the Mess Hall brick by brick. Did they really hang my picture up everywhere?”

A better question: Did he really think I was going to pull up a chair and shoot the breeze about the good old days?

Clancy sighed. “Anyway…if you’re Ruby, then
you
must be Lee Stewart. I’ve read your file, too.”

“Anything good in there?” Mike asked with a nervous laugh.

“The PSFs have been following your every move,” Clancy said, leaning back in his chair. “Which means you need some place to lie low for a while, right?”

Liam hesitated a split second before nodding.

“You made a good choice coming here. You can stay as long as you need.” Clancy rested his hands on his chest. “Now that I’ve managed to upset everyone, Mike, do you want to take them to a cabin and get them set up in the rotations?”

Mike nodded. “For the record, you didn’t upset me, boss.”

Clancy laughed, rich and slow. “Okay, good. Thanks for all of your hard work today, by the way. Sounds like it was a good haul.”

“Like you wouldn’t believe,” Mike said, moving toward the door. He waved us after him, but he no longer looked at us with the same warmth. “Cabin eighteen is open, right?”

“Yeah, Ty and his guys went tribal on us,” Clancy said. “I don’t know that anyone has gone in to clean it since they left, though, so I apologize if it’s a mess.”

And then he was staring at me again, one corner of his lips turning up, then the other. A warm, fizzling sensation filled my head, sending my pulse spiking. I turned away and broke eye contact, but the image still flooded my mind, spilling in until I thought I might choke. In my mind’s eye, I saw Clancy and me alone in the same room, him on one knee, offering a rose in my direction.

Forgive me?
His voice was loud in my ears, echoing as I stumbled down the stairs.