Never Fade

“Going somewhere?” I asked.

“To use the bathroom in the back,” he snapped. “Why, do you need to come in and watch?”

No, but I followed him to the back regardless, shooting him a meaningful look as he slammed the door and locked it.

I leaned back against the shelves of drinks and service ware in the back. My eyes drifted from Liam to Vida to Chubs and then, finally, to Jude sitting nearby. He’d been so quiet up until then, I’d just assumed he’d fallen asleep like the others.

“Hi,” I whispered.

He had been staring out the window to the unending stretch of land below, and he stayed that way, even when I touched his shoulder. Jude, who hated silence, whose past slithered up to him like a shadow along glass, did not say a single word.

I sat down on his chair’s armrest, glancing across the way to make sure both Liam and Chubs were still asleep. I had known Worried Jude and Terrified Jude and Ecstatic Jude, but never this shade of him.

“Talk to me,” I said.

Jude burst into tears.

“Hey!” I said, taking his shoulder. “I know it doesn’t feel this way, but it’ll be okay.”

It took several minutes of coaxing for him to settle down and sit up. His skin went blotchy, and his nose refused to stop running. He swiped it against the arm of his jacket.

“I should have been there. With them. I could have…I could have helped them somehow—Cate and Alban. They needed me, and I wasn’t there.”

“And thank God for that,” I said. “Otherwise you’d be trapped there with all of the others.” Or dead. It was too horrible to even consider.

I put an arm around him, and whatever invisible string had been holding him up promptly snapped. He leaned into my shoulder, still crying.

“Oh my God,” he muttered, “this is so not cool. It’s just…I’m really scared Cate’s dead, too. All of them. It’s like Blake all over again, and I’m just as responsible. Would any of this have even happened if I hadn’t been so stupid? If Rob and Jarvin hadn’t caught us listening that day?”

I blew out the breath I didn’t realize I had been holding and rubbed his arm. “None of this is your fault,” I told him. “None of it. You aren’t responsible for what other people do, good or bad. Everyone is just making the choices they think will help them get by.”

He nodded, swiping at his eyes with the back of his hand. For a long while, the only sound between us was the moaning of engines and Chubs’s rhythmic snores.

“But I could have made a difference,” Jude whispered. “I could have fought. I—”

“No,” I interrupted. “I’m sorry. I get where you’re coming from, and they’re all good thoughts, but I just don’t think it’s worth it. It’s not worth it to weigh what you could have done or should have done when there’s no way of changing it. And it’s not worth risking your life over. Nothing is more important or valuable than your life. Got it?”

He nodded but was quiet again. A little more settled, I thought, than before.

“It’s just not fair,” Jude said. “None of this is fair.”

“Life isn’t fair,” I said. “It’s taken me a while to get that. It’s always going to disappoint you in some way or another. You’ll make plans, and it’ll push you in another direction. You will love people, and they’ll be taken away no matter how hard you fight to keep them. You’ll try for something and won’t get it. You don’t have to find meaning in it; you don’t have to try to change things. You just have to accept the things that are out of your hands and try to take care of yourself. That’s your job.”

He nodded. I waited until he had taken a deep breath and seemed a little more composed before I stood and ruffled his unruly hair. I was sure he’d groan or bat my hand away; instead, he caught it with his own.

“Ruby…” His face was drawn. Not sad exactly, just…tired, I thought. “If you can’t change anything, then what’s the point of it?”

I wrapped my fingers around his and gave his hand a steady squeeze. “I don’t know. But when I figure that out, you’ll be the first to know.”

TWENTY-EIGHT

I NEVER THOUGHT I’D BE SO HAPPY to see California’s uneven, fractured mess of a freeway system as we headed toward the glowing high-rises of downtown Los Angeles. The ride was bumpy as all get-out, and the familiar stench of gasoline was working its magic through the car vents, smothering even the unnerving new-car smell clinging to the leather seats. It didn’t matter much to any of us, though.

There had been a large black SUV waiting for us on the runway when we disembarked at LAX. I cut Clancy’s hands free so he could take the car key offered by a man in a dress suit and black sunglasses, but he was back at the wrong end of my gun before he could think of trying to get away. After it just being the five of us for so long, I felt Jude flinch at the look the man passed over him.

“We need to talk about a plan,” I said once we were in the car, miles away from the airport. It was just past seven in the evening. If things had been normal at HQ, the first of two night classes would just be starting. Then it would be two hours to mandatory lights-out and another hour before the agents had to retreat to their quarters. It would be safer and easier to try to round up the kids from a single location—the sleeping rooms on the second level—but there were cameras in every corner.

Not to mention success depended on three very big ifs. If we got that far. If we found the entrance. If we didn’t get caught sneaking in.

“And that’s only if they are running the usual schedule,” I added. “Did Nico say anything about it? Hey—” I gripped the already torn collar of Clancy’s shirt. “I’m asking you a question.”

Clancy grit his teeth. “He hasn’t responded to my last few messages. I’m assuming they took the Chatters away to keep rumors from spreading.”

“They’d be running the usual schedule,” Vida said with certainty from the driver’s seat. “They wouldn’t want any of the kids to know that Alban was out. That’d cause a massive amount of panic, right? They wouldn’t tell any of them the actual objective.”

“How are they going to rig the explosions without the kids figuring it out?” Liam asked. “It seems like a vest of the stuff would be a pretty big clue.”

“That’s the easy part,” Clancy said. “You break them up into small groups of two or three, sew the explosives into the lining of a coat, and set it up with a remote detonator. All you have to do is wait to give the kids the jackets until the very end.”

He said it casually, without a hint of disgust—like some part of him actually admired the plan.

“That means prep time at HQ will be minimal. If they’re moving the kids out at six or so, wakeup will be at five.…” I shifted to look at Vida in the driver’s seat. “Does it make more sense to go in at three or four?”

“Four,” she said.

“Four?” Clancy repeated, like it was the stupidest thing he’d ever heard. “Sure, if you want to give yourself a better chance of being caught.”

“Mandatory rolling blackouts,” I explained to the others, ignoring him. “California has been trying to conserve energy that way. They happen every night in our area between three and five. The security system and cameras are the only things hooked up to the backup generator, but it’ll at least be dark in the hallways as we’re moving through them.”

“Once we’re in, I can go take care of the agents in the monitor room,” Vida said. “We won’t even have to shut the system off. How long do you think it’ll take to get in and out through this entrance of yours?”

“I don’t know; I’ve never walked it. I’ve only seen them bring people in and out.”

“Where does it lead?” Jude asked. “And how come I don’t know about it?”

I looked down at my hands, trying to keep my voice light. “It’s where they brought traitors and key assets for