Through the Dark (A Darkest Minds Collection) (A Darkest Minds Novel) (28 page)

U
NCLAIMED.

I think it is the worst word I’ve ever heard. The worst label they’ve tried to give us, at least. Call us freaks any day of the week, we’re all so used to it that the sting barely registers. But this…it confirms the one fear so many of us have carried around like a blister on our hearts.

Part of me wishes the news and officials would just be honest about it; “unclaimed” is the polite whisper for
unwanted
. “Unclaimed” means a loose end, something that could change any minute, any day. It’s something that gets lost, or left behind, and is only waiting for the owner to return and retrieve it. It’s only a matter of time….

“Unwanted” is a statement of fact. It is something to come to terms with and move past. Wherever my parents are, whatever they’re doing, they are never coming back for me. And that’s by choice.

How many times did Ruby and I talk about exactly this?
When this is over,
I told her,
no one is going to be waiting. No one will want us.
She’d nodded in that quiet, sad way of hers. It was the same for both of us. We were the only girls in our cabin who would admit it.

I swallow the bile in my throat as I finally pry the piece of plywood away from the doorframe. I’ve been carrying around this screwdriver for the past few weeks; I don’t know how to use a gun, and I’m not sure where I’d find a knife, but this is more than enough to hurt anyone who tries to hurt me.

This is the first time I’ve had to use it, and it’s not even in self-defense, but a break-in. I’m already a thief; why not add “trespassing” to my score?

I found this emergency exit after a full day of slowly circling the towering hotel. Someone, or something, has smashed in the central glass pane, and if I’m right…I
am
right. There’s a turning lock on the other side. I grip it with stiff, half-frozen hands, turn my wrist until I hear the metal
click
as it unlocks, and slowly ease the door open.

My shoes are coated with so much mud and snow I have to take some time to wipe them off against a nearby patch of carpet, to keep them from squeaking and alerting everyone to my presence.

This is an in-and-out type of thing. I need to see if she’s still here, or confirm that someone’s already come to get her, and then I’ll be able to go. But if they catch me, identify me…well, they’ll have another “unclaimed” to add to their list.

I sidle up along the far wall, keeping to the edge of the open space. There are a few soldiers in uniform milling around, but most of them are sipping cups of coffee to stay awake. Some are finally breaking down the tables lining the opposite end of the room, along with the signs above them, where the families were supposed to line up to claim the kids by last name:
A-D, E-H, I-L
…Highlighted rosters, the names crossed off, are being dumped into the overflowing trash cans.

The concierge desk is empty, dark. I wait there in a crouch, hanging back. My hair is stuffed into a knit cap, my oversized parka zipped up all the way, half-masking my face. I picked them up out of a charity bin somewhere in Kentucky, thinking
These jeans, this sweater, these sneakers, this coat—they’ll give me the confidence I can’t fake
. All they’ve done in the end is make me feel like I’m ten all over again, wearing a costume pieced together from Mrs. Orfeo’s closet.

Someone’s already come for her,
I think, hoping I’ll believe it this time.
You can go in a second….

The hotel’s lobby has been left in shambles by the media. Empty, half-crushed soda cans are scattered alongside empty food wrappers. There’s a protest sign, highlighter-yellow, that somehow found its way inside. A soldier bends down to pick it up, angling it so the other man can see.
WOULD YOU FREE CRIMINALS FROM PRISON?
They laugh.

I almost can’t believe how filthy the world is—in every sense of that word. Thurmond might have been falling down around us, the grounds covered in enough mud to make walking a challenge, but we kept the buildings spotless. Not a crumb left behind in the Mess Hall. Everything stowed neatly in the Factory. The Wash Rooms scrubbed on hands and knees.

But trash is the media’s footprint, its calling card, and that’s exactly what they’ve been producing each night on the TV and each morning in the papers. I’ve had to wait all day for them to leave. The news—the channels that have been turned back on—love this. They serve everyone the sweet stuff, try to make them feel better about what they did to us by shoving image after image of family, tears, hugs, in front of them.

What are they trying to prove? That it’s
all good now
? All better? All anyone has to do is look out the window and see the peacekeeping forces on their patrols, implementing the new curfews, distributing meager foreign rations of imported food and water. Because, of course, even our crops have been watered with Agent Ambrosia.

Business as usual,
the Washington types keep saying.
We’ll get there soon.

Yeah. Right.

I count about a dozen kids left—not bad for a camp this big. The radio report said there were upwards of twelve hundred kids at Black Rock—a little less than half the size of Thurmond, but it’s like comparing a leopard to a lion; size is relative when a camp has you between its teeth.

They’ve been reporting on camp closures for the last three weeks. The peacekeeping force is clearly working its way down some secret list. Most of the shock and novelty of seeing the kids and the camps has worn off, but Black Rock sent a ripple back through the calming waters. It’s one of only two camps that took kids
before
they changed, whether their families volunteered them or not. To study them, or…I don’t know.

Mia would know. They grabbed her before her switch was flipped: death or freak? Lucas didn’t even know if she had survived the change after they were separated.

I squeeze my eyes shut, grateful to whatever stone is lodged at the base of my throat. It’s the only thing that keeps me from screaming.

Because…she’s here.

She’s still here.

I recognize Mia right away, sitting on the far side of the lobby. This place must have been expensive, a real jewel, before the economy sputtered to a stop. The furniture curves around the sitting area in a smooth arc, facing the large television screen. Someone’s started a fire in the hearth on the far wall, which makes the dark coils of her hair gleam. Wide, dark eyes like Lucas, rimmed with thick lashes. Small for fifteen—too thin, but I can fix that.

She’s still here
. I press my hands to my face, trying to get control of my breathing again. I’ve become so used to the feeling of terror these past two weeks, I don’t even bother trying to stop it as it grips my lungs and shakes me until the world blurs.

Every small clatter or groan of a sound makes me jump. No matter where I go, it feels like someone is constantly two steps behind me, trailing after my shadow. I can’t sleep. I can’t close my eyes. Fear and I have long conversations in my head, and I tell it to stop being ridiculous, to leave me alone, but it never does. And when it hits me, I just have to wait for it to pass, hating myself the whole time, wondering what happened to the Sam who could look a PSF in the eye and risk getting a beating for it.

I think I left her behind at Thurmond.

The kids around Mia are fixated on the same news report about the progress they’re making to strip Agent Ambrosia out of the water supply. It’s the same story they’ve run a thousand times at this point.

Unlike the others, she has her standard-issue supply pack given to her by the government at her feet, all packed up and ready to go, ready to leave at any moment.

Like she hasn’t spent the last week sitting here, waiting, watching a thousand kids get escorted back to their former lives. Waiting, waiting, waiting…

The papers added her to the “unclaimed” column a few days ago. It’s the only reason I knew to come. If her grandparents were still alive, they would have been here days ago, no matter what. I tried to get here faster, I did. It’s just…things got really complicated.

And now the only one left to get her is me.

I need to get her attention somehow, lead her away from the others, or follow her up to her room when it’s time to call it a night—and I need to do it before the soldiers wrap up what they’re doing and actually start paying attention. One goes outside to light up a smoke, and I have to grit my teeth to keep from snarling at her. If
I’ve
heard the reports of snatchers after their next big pay day, abductors selling kids on something the news has taken to calling the “freak market,” then they have, too. They need to have eyes on these kids at all times.

I crawl forward, toward the roster of names posted on the wall next to the concierge desk, considering my options.

The sliding doors behind me glide open, sending me scuttling back behind the desk. It’s no shield against the freezing air that blasts the back of my neck, raking icicles down my spine. My whole body clenches as I ease back, just a bit, to see who’s come in. I absorb the most important details: adult man, suit a little too tight, an outline of a holster under his jacket. The tightness in my shoulders doesn’t ease until he holds up some kind of ID badge, and the soldiers give a distracted wave in greeting.

The man’s focused on the kids. His shoes click a quick path toward them. They’ve been sucked into the void of the TV screen after years of separation, and nothing can break them out of it until the man reaches down to turn it off.

“Hey!” protests a kid in a plaid shirt, maybe fourteen at the most. They’ve given them all street clothes, and something about it looks unnatural to me—I wish I didn’t expect to see uniforms, I wish I’d never had to wear mine, but I don’t know how to mentally sort these kids without them wearing who they are and what they can do.

“I know,” the man says, his voice soothing; like he’s speaking to toddlers, not teenagers. “But I have something important I need to talk to you all about.”

I ease back a step, around the corner, toward the dark set of elevators behind me. A soldier passes by, bringing a box of supplies outside.
Packing up, heading out
. I can already see the direction this conversation is moving, and it cracks what’s left of my heart in half. Because the kids
don’t
.

“It might…” the man looks up to the ceiling for a moment, gathering his thoughts—or cursing his bad luck. His hands burrow deep into his pants pockets and he rocks back on his heels once, clearing his throat. “We’re hitting the road today. The hotel owners have plans to reopen, and it’s time to get you ready for the next phase of your lives.”

Next phase
. Something in me coils so tight, I can’t breathe.

“Where are we going?” the girl sitting beside Mia asks.

Mia hasn’t so much as looked in the man’s direction; although she’s physically present, her mind is clearly skating a million miles away.

“We’re going to Chicago,” the man continues. “You’ll be given the procedure by a very skilled doctor there, and then safely re-homed.”

He seems relieved to have it out, the whole of it. The longer I stare in disbelief, the more it feels like the floor is knocking up against the soles of my shoes, trying to move me forward. To take all of these kids and
run
.

The procedure? The “miracle cure”? Do these kids even know what it involves—that they’d be letting this doctor drill into their skulls and implant some kind of device that might change who they are, or might one day stop working, or might not even work for them at all?

“I thought we had a choice?” one of them asks, the words trembling only a little. It’s another boy, all bony limbs and untidy hair, his knees drawn up to his chest. This one is even younger than the first. I’d put him at twelve. “That’s what the lady said.”

The man looks up at the ceiling again and taps his fingers against his leg, one at a time. I know what he’s doing now—counting to ten—to, what? Steady his temper? He’s
annoyed
with these kids? I bristle, feeling my hackles rise. My ribs ache from how hard I’ve wrapped my arms around them.

“There’s no law on the books saying that yet,” the man continues, his voice strained by the effort it’s clearly taking to sound patient and compassionate. “It’s hard to understand, I know—”

No. Nothing about this is hard to understand.

“But you’re our responsibility—you’re officially wards of the transitional government until otherwise notified, and it’s been decided that our wards will proceed with the instructions we were given.”

Unclaimed. Unwanted. And now, everything that they are…undone.

If he’d tried to use the argument that the procedure would make the kids less appealing as targets to snatchers, more appealing to prospective parents fostering and adopting them, I would have understood; I maybe even would have supported the idea just a little bit. But he doesn’t say that. There’s no other reason than
because we said so
, and I’m so tired of that attitude, that no-explanation explanation.

The man kneels down beside one of the younger girls. She can’t be more than thirteen, and I can see the tears filling her eyes from here. “Don’t you want a home? To live with a kind family?”

So many parents lost their kids to IAAN. I have to imagine that there are some kind ones out there that want to fill that hole in their family again. But I also have to imagine there are plenty who have dollar signs in their eyes over the promised “support packages” from the government for each child taken in.

“I have a family,” she says, her voice trembling.

The man doesn’t touch her, the way you’d normally comfort a kid who’s clearly on the verge of a full-blown panic attack. I can tell by the set of his shoulders that he didn’t expect this. There’s no strategy. The expectation was clearly that they would just nod and follow him out like a line of ducklings.

“Sweetheart,” he begins, looking around. “You don’t. I’ve spent the better part of the last two weeks trying to track down your families. They’ve either moved and disappeared, they’ve passed on, or they—”