The Darkest Minds (10 page)

“I’m glad,” Cate said. “There’s a water bottle back there for you if you need it. We’ll be stopping in about an hour to switch cars again.”

“Where are we going?”

“We’re meeting with a friend in Marlinton, West Virginia. He’ll have a change of clothes and identification papers for both of you. We’re almost there now.”

I thought for sure Martin had dropped right back off into sleep until he asked, “Where are we going after that?”

The radio flashed to life, snatching up bits and pieces of Led Zeppelin, before losing it again to static and silence.

I could feel Martin’s eyes burning holes into the back of my neck. I tried not to turn around to stare right back, but it was the closest I had been to a boy my age since we had been sorted. After years of living on opposite sides of the main trail in Thurmond, it was unnerving to suddenly be presented with all his little details. The freckles I hadn’t noticed on his face, for instance, or the way his eyebrows seemed to merge into one.

What was I supposed to say to him?
I’m so glad I found you
?
We’re the last of us
? One was the truth, and one couldn’t be further from it.

“We’re going to regroup with the League at their southern headquarters. After we get there, you can decide if you want to stay,” she said. “I know you’ve been through a lot, so you don’t have to make any choices now. Just know that you’ll be safe if you stay with me.”

The feeling of freedom rose in me so fast that I had to chase it down to squash it along with my swelling heart. It was still too dangerous. There was a chance that the PSFs could catch up to us, that I’d be back in camp or dead before we even got to Virginia.

Martin watched me, his dark eyes narrowed. I watched as his pupils seemed to shrink, and I felt a tickle in the back of my mind. The same one I always felt when my abilities wanted to be let out and used.

What the hell?
My fingers dug into the armrests, but I didn’t turn back around to see if he was still at it. I glanced up into the rearview mirror only once, watching as he leaned back against the seat and crossed his arms over his chest with a huff. A sore at the corner of his mouth looked angry and red, like he had been scratching at the scab.

“I want to go where I can do what I couldn’t do at Thurmond,” Martin said, finally.

I didn’t want to know what he meant by that.

“I’m a lot more powerful than you think,” he continued. “You won’t need anyone else after you see what I can do.”

Cate smiled. “That’s what I’m counting on. I knew you’d understand.”

“What about you, Ruby?” she asked, turning to me. “Are you willing to make a difference?”

If I said I no, would they let me go? If I asked to go to my parents’ house in Salem, would they take me there—no questions asked? To Virginia Beach, if I wanted to see my grandmother? Out of the country, if that’s what I really wanted?

They were both looking at me, wearing mirrored looks of urgency and excitement. I wish I could have felt it. I wish I could have shared in the security they were feeling about their choice, but I wasn’t absolutely certain of what I wanted. I only knew what I didn’t want.

“Take me anywhere,” I said. “Anywhere but home.”

Martin picked at the sore with grubby nails until blood appeared and he licked it off his lips and the tip of his fingers. Watching me, like he expected me to ask for a taste.

I turned back to Cate, a question dying on my lips. Because for a second, just one, all I could think about was the sight of fire and smoke rising from the sharp lines of her shoulders, and the door she couldn’t open.

SEVEN

W
E REACHED
M
ARLINTON’S CITY LIMITS
at seven o’clock in the morning, just as the sun decided to reappear from behind the thick layer of clouds. It colored the nearby trees a faint violet, and glinted off the wall of mist that had gathered over the asphalt. By then, we had driven past several highway exits that were barricaded with junk, rails, or deserted cars—done up either by the National Guard to contain hostile towns and cities, or by the residents themselves, to keep unwanted looters and visitors out of already hard-hit areas. The road itself, however, had been silent for hours on end, which meant that we were due for some sort of human interaction sooner or later.

It came sooner, in the form of a red semitruck. I scooted down in my seat as it whipped past us. It was headed clear in the opposite direction, but I had a perfect view of the gold swan painted on its side.

“They’re everywhere,” Cate said, following my line of sight. “That was probably a shipment to Thurmond.”

It was the first true sign of life we’d seen in all of our driving—most likely because we were cruising down Dead Man’s Highway in the middle of Butt-Freaking Nowhere—but that single truck was enough to scare Cate.

“Get in the backseat,” she said, “and stay down.”

I did as I was told. Unbuckling my seat belt, I twisted between the front seats and threaded my legs through them.

Martin watched me with glassy eyes. At one point, I felt his hand slip against my arm, like he was trying to help me. I recoiled, slipping down in the space between the backseat and the front. My back was against the door and my knees were against my chest, but we were still too close. When he grinned, it was enough to make my skin crawl.

There were boys at Thurmond. Plenty of them, in fact. But any activity that involved the commingling of the sexes—whether that was eating together, sharing cabins, or even passing one another on the way to the Washrooms—was strictly forbidden. The PSFs and camp controllers enforced the rule with the same level of severity they did with the kids who—however intentionally or unintentionally—used their abilities. Which, of course, only drove everyone’s already hormone-drunk brains crazier, and turned some of my cabinmates into an elite breed of covert stalkers.

Maybe I didn’t remember the “right” way to interact with someone of the opposite gender, but I’m pretty sure Martin didn’t, either.

“Fun, huh?” he said. I thought he was kidding, until I saw the too-eager look in his eyes. The itching came again, the tingling sensation of yet another attempt to peer inside my head, dread trailing down the length of my spine like a freezing fingertip. I pressed up against the door and kept my eyes on Cate, but it wasn’t far enough.

We are nothing alike, I realized. We had been brought to the same place, lived in the same kind of terror, but he…he was so…

I needed to change the subject and distract him from whatever it was he was trying to do. The AC was on, but you never would have known by the heat he was giving off.

“Do you think Thurmond has noticed we’re gone?” I asked, breaking the silence.

Cate switched off her headlights. “I would think so. The PSFs don’t have the manpower to launch a full hunt for us, but I’m positive they’ve put two and two together about what you are.”

“What do you mean?” I asked. “That we’re Orange? I thought you said they already knew. That was why we had to leave so quickly.”

“They were on the verge of finding out,” Cate explained. “They were testing the Orange and Red frequencies in that Calm Control. I don’t think any of them expected it to work that quickly—
that’s
why we had to get you out, and fast.”

“Frequencies,” Martin repeated. “You mean they added something to it?”

“That’s exactly right.” Cate smiled at him in the rearview mirror. “The League got wind of their new method of trying to weed out kids who had been labeled incorrectly when they were brought into camp. You know that adults can’t hear the Calm Control, I’m sure.”

We both nodded.

“The scientists there have been working on frequencies that only certain kinds of Psi youth can pick up and process. There are some wavelengths you all can hear, and others that only Greens, or Blues, or—in this instance—Oranges can detect.”

It made sense, but it didn’t make it any less horrifying.

“You know, I’ve been wondering,” Cate began. “How
did
you two do it? You especially, Ruby. You went into that camp so young. How did you get around their sorting?”

“I…just did,” I said. “I told the man who was supposed to run my tests that I was Green. He listened.”

“That’s weak,” Martin interrupted, looking right at me. “You probably didn’t even have to use your powers.”

I didn’t like to think of them as
powers
—that seemed to imply they were something to celebrate. And they were most definitely not.

“I told someone to trade places with me when they started separating all the O’s and R’s out. Didn’t want to go down with them, you know?” Martin leaned forward. “So I took one of the new Greens aside who was about my age, and made him and that warden think he was me. Same for anyone who asked. One by one. Cool, huh?”

The disgust coiled in my gut. He didn’t feel sorry about doing any of this, that was clear. Maybe I had lied about what I was, but I hadn’t damned another kid to do so. Was that what having control over your Orange abilities turned you into? Some kind of monster—someone who could do whatever you wanted, because no one was capable of stopping you?

Was that what being powerful was like?

“So you can make people believe they’re someone they’re not?” Cate said. “I thought Oranges could only command someone to do something. Sort of like hypnosis?”

“Nah,” Martin said. “I can do much more than that. I get people to do what I want by making them feel what I want them to feel. Like that kid I switched places with? I made him feel too scared to stay in his cabin, made him feel like it would be a good idea to pretend to be me. Anyone who questioned me—I made them feel crazy for doing it. So I can sort of command people to do stuff, but it’s more like, if I want someone to hurt someone else, I have to make him feel really, really pissed at the person I want him to attack.”

“Huh,” Cate said. “Is it the same for you, Ruby?”

No. Not at all, in fact. I looked down at my hands, to the dark mud still caked under my fingernails. The thought of revealing exactly what I could do made them shake in a way I hadn’t expected. “I don’t throw feelings into someone; I just see things.”

At least, as far as I knew.

“Wow…I just…wow. I know I keep saying this, but you two are really something amazing. I keep thinking of all the things you could do—how much help you’ll be to us. Incredible.”

Twisting around, I lifted my head just enough to look out to the road. Behind me, I felt Martin grab a few loose strands of my hair and begin to twirl them around his fingers. I could see the reflection of my round face in the rearview mirror—the big eyes that seemed almost sleepy; thick, dark brows; full lips—I could see the revulsion slide over it.

I shouldn’t have, but I took the bait. Martin barely had time to brace himself before I whirled around and slapped that same clammy hand back down into his lap. My next breath caught in my throat.
Do
not
touch me
, I wanted to say;
don’t think I won’t break every single finger on that hand
. But he was grinning at me, his tongue on his cold sore, his hand rising again. Only this time, he wagged his fingers in my direction, taunting. I leaned forward, ready to grab that same wrist, to shut the pig down cold, hard, and fast.

But that was exactly what he wanted. The realization flowed thick and slow through me, inching its way to my guts. He wanted me to show him what I could do, to be willing to fuel my abilities with the same kind of viciousness pumping through him.

I turned my back on him again, my fists tightening with his triumphant chuckles.

Had the anger even been mine, or had he pushed it into me?

“Everything okay back there?” Cate called over her shoulder. “Hang on tight, we’re almost there.”

Whatever Marlinton normally looked like, it was that much worse under the cover of gray clouds and a layer of misty rain. Strange and terrible enough to distract even Martin from the games he was playing with my head.

The deserted shopping centers with broken storefronts were disturbing enough before we cut into the first neighborhood of little brown and gray and white houses. We passed a number of empty cars along the street and in driveways, some with bright orange
FOR SALE
signs still stuck in the back window, but all of them covered in a thick skin of brown, rotting leaves. The cars were surrounded by piles of junk and boxes—furniture, rugs, computers. Entire rooms full of rusting, useless electronics.

“What happened here?” I asked.

“It’s a little hard to explain, but do you remember what I told you about the economy? After the attack in D.C., the government was thrown into a tailspin, and one thing led to another. We couldn’t pay off our national debt, we couldn’t provide money to the states, we couldn’t provide benefits, we couldn’t pay government employees. Even small towns like this one didn’t escape. People lost their jobs when companies failed, and then they lost their homes because they could no longer pay for them. The whole thing is terrible.”

“But where is everyone?”