Never Fade

“Look at you, making the impossible choice,” he said. “That’s what that Minder of yours said about you in your file, you know. That was her justification for naming you as Leader of your sad little team. Ruby is fiercely protective and possesses the strong will and resilience needed to make impossible choices. I liked that. Very poetic.”

He slid out of the booth, lifting both hands in the classic pose of surrender. It was about as genuine as his smile.

“Ruby.” His voice was soft, and his hands lowered, angling themselves like he was about to step into an embrace. “Please. I am so happy to see you again—”

“Stay right where you are,” I warned, raising the gun again.

“You’re not going to shoot me,” Clancy continued, his voice taking on that silky quality it always did when he was trying to influence someone. It made my skin crawl, my hands slick. I hated him—I hated him for everything he had done, but, more than that, I hated him for being right.

My expression must have given me away, because he lunged toward me, his fingers straining toward my gun.

The shot was all lightning and thunder; the bullet ripped through the air, catching him across the arm, and the explosion of it followed a second later. Clancy howled in pain, dropping onto his knees. His left hand clutched the place where the bullet had clipped his right forearm.

I could hear Jude banging on the back door of the kitchen, his muffled yells, but it was Vida who came into view. She rose up from behind the counter, the gun in her hands aimed directly at his head.

“She told you to stay where you are,” Vida said coldly as she came to stand behind me. “Next time it’ll be your nuts.”

I realized the danger two seconds too late, when Clancy lifted his head.

“Stop—!”

Vida made a noise like a small gasp, her face scrunching with the force of Clancy’s intrusion. She shuddered, fighting it—I could see it in her eyes just before they went glassy under his mind’s touch. Her arm shook as she lifted the gun again, this time pointing it at me.

“Put down your gun and listen to me,” Clancy ordered. He had hauled himself back up so he was sitting on the edge of the booth, glancing at the line of blood darkening his formerly pristine shirt. I didn’t budge, fighting every urge in my body to shoot him dead on the spot and just be done with it. Vida was shaking behind me; I felt the barrel of the gun tremble as it came to rest against my skull. Her cheeks were wet, but I didn’t look long enough to see if it was sweat or tears.

It surprised me how very little fear I had in that moment outside of what was happening to Vida. If Clancy had gone out of his way to do this—to come here, to hack into our Chatter link, to degrade himself by waiting in a Dairy Queen of all places—then he had done it for a purpose. He couldn’t talk to me if I were dead.

“Ah,” he said softly, like I’d spoken my thoughts aloud.

Clancy shifted his eyes back to Vida. The gun pulled away, coming to rest against the side of Vida’s temple.

“You wouldn’t,” I whispered.

“Are you really going to test me?” He only raised his brows and swept his hand out to the other side of the booth. Inviting me to sit. I stayed on my feet but switched the safety back on my gun and slid it into the back of my pants.

I can break the connection, I thought, letting my mind reach out for hers. But it was like a sheet of steel had melded around Vida’s thoughts—no matter how hard I threw myself against it, I was knocked back. Shut down.

“You’ve improved a great deal,” Clancy said. “But do you honestly think you could break my hold before I could have her fire?”

No, I thought, hoping my eyes would be enough to convey to Vida how sorry I was, that I hadn’t given up yet.

“How long have you been monitoring our Chatter’s link?” I asked, turning back to him.

“Take a guess, and then another, at when I actually started answering in Catherine Conner’s place.” He began drumming his fingers against the table, and Vida’s hand steadied, finger tightening on the trigger. I clenched my fists but took a seat across from him, not bothering to hide the revulsion on my face. “She’s very worried about all of you. To her credit, she figured out I wasn’t you faster than you figured out I wasn’t her. And, even better, she sent you to Nashville. I’m guessing you ran into that little poser while you were there. Did you take care of him?”

It took me a moment to realize he was talking about Knox.

“It must have killed you,” I said, “to know a lowly little Blue was parading around with the identity you built. Did you know he had one of your Reds?”

“I heard murmurs about it.” Clancy gave a dismissive wave of his hand. “I knew the Red was damaged, otherwise I would have gone and gotten him myself. He would have been incredibly useful to have around, but I don’t have the time to sit around and retrain that kid, to strip all of the mental conditioning and build it back up.”

“They destroyed him—you destroyed him,” I said. “By just suggesting the program to your father. That boy was…he was like an animal.”

“And what was the other option for them?” Clancy asked. “Would it have been better to let my father’s people murder all of them the way they did the Oranges? Is it better to out-monster the monster or to be quietly devoured?” He fingered the edges of his old paperback. “A good question from Nietzsche. I know my answer. Do you know yours?”

I didn’t know who Nietzsche was, and I didn’t particularly care, but I wasn’t about to let him derail the conversation.

“Tell me why you’re here,” I said. “Is it about the Reds again? Or are you finally bored with screwing people over? I bet it gets pretty lonely with only your ego for company.”

Clancy actually laughed. “I’ll be the first to admit my East River plan was childish. It completely lacked the sophistication it needed to be successful. I got ahead of myself, testing the waters before they were warm enough. No, I’m here now because I wanted to see you.”

Every joint in my body seemed to seize in the grip of cold dread.

His attack came at me like a knife in the dark; the strange, disconcerting feeling at the back of my skull was the only warning. But I was quick, too. It was just like what Instructor Johnson said—sometimes the only time an opponent has his guard down is when he’s mid-swing. So I went for it; I knew what I was doing now. I blocked his assault with one of my own, driving straight into the deep reaches of his mind.

Images and sensations flittered by, bursting like white hot flashes, changing every moment I seemed to get a grip on one. I focused on the one that kept coming up—a woman’s face framed by blond hair—and seized it, pulling it up to the front of his thoughts.

The scene slid down around me, shaky and discolored at first but growing stronger the longer I held it. With every breath a new detail would appear. The dark room wavered in my mind before a ring of stainless steel tables appeared. Just as quickly, those tables filled with glowing machines and intricate microscopes.

The woman was no longer a face but a whole person, and standing in the middle of it all. Though her face was calm, her hands were up in front of her in a pacifying way that made me think she was trying to calm someone down or defend herself.

The woman tripped on something behind her as she backed away, sending her stumbling to the ground. The glass scattered on the tile around her flared as it caught the light of a nearby fire. I leaned down over her, noticing the small spray of blood on the woman’s white lab coat, and her lips forming the words, Clancy, no, please Clancy—

I wasn’t sure how the two of us ended up on the ground, crawling away from each other with weak, shaking limbs. I heard Jude shouting my name from outside again, thundering his fists against the back door. I pressed a hand to my chest, like that would be enough to slow my heart’s galloping pace. Clancy couldn’t stop shaking his head—in disbelief, maybe, or to clear it. For a long, terrible moment, we did nothing but stare at each other.

“I’m assuming that’s Stewart out there, banging to be let in like the dog he is?” he asked finally.