Never Fade (27 page)

“I’m Ruby,” I said, then thrust a thumb toward Chubs. “This is Charles. Like I said, we’re just making our way through, heading east.”

Knox returned to his seat and, without any sort of prompt, the same girl as before scurried back to him, handing him the bowl of food. Soup, judging by the splatters that hit his jacket. I didn’t miss the way the teens around him seemed to lean in, watching as the broth vanished spoonful by spoonful.

Do not look at Chubs,
I ordered myself. I wouldn’t have been able to hold back. The girl, in her threadbare outfit, was skin hanging off birdlike bones.

Knox waved Michael forward, and he and another teen dumped our backpacks on the platform. Two other girls, younger than the first, sprang to action. Piece by piece, they disassembled the packs of supplies we had so carefully stowed.
Good-bye, food bars; good-bye, first-aid kits; good-bye, water bottles and blankets and matches…

Each item they took out was enough to break the thin control I had on my anger. I shifted my eyes up toward where Knox was watching this process, wondering how good it would feel to take his mind apart in the same way. It would be easy, if I could just get close to him.

When Knox glanced up at us, it was with a completely new expression on his face. One that was…hungry. Excited. “Where did you get this stuff?”

“We picked over an old gas station,” I said, taking a small step closer. “It’s ours. We found it.”

“What’s yours is mine, baby,” he said. “Everyone here has to earn his or her things.”

Chubs grumbled something under his breath.

“Take this all to storage,” Knox told Michael. “Then you and your guys can eat. As much as you want.”

Michael grinned, gathering the blanket more firmly around his coat. His team was jumping all over themselves with excitement, pushing past one another to go out the same side door the boy had earlier, except for one teen, the one who hung at the back of the pack. He was average height, wearing an army green coat that was a size too small and had to be worn open. His hair was as long and wild as the others in his group, but he kept his out of his face with a fleece hunter’s hat. Just before the door shut, something must have caught his eye, because he turned back, leaning up against the wall there.

“Are you with the kids my guys picked up earlier?” Knox asked, drawing my attention back to him. A heavy gold chain slipped out from beneath his undershirt and jacket as he leaned forward. “The hot piece and the scarecrow?”

Well…that was one way to describe them.

“No,” I said. Another step closer. Another. “I have no idea who you’re talking about.”

“Roo!”

Every head in the warehouse swiveled toward that side door. A river of relief broke through me—Vida and Jude stood there, looking slightly worse for wear but whole. Both of them were without jackets. Jude had given up any sort of pretense of pretending he wasn’t freezing, but Vida’s jaw was clenched tight, her arms pressed hard against her sides. I saw something flicker in her eyes, but she didn’t say anything. I wish the same could have been said for Jude.

“See?” he was saying as he poked her arm. “I told you they’d come!”

I sighed, turning back to Knox and the platform.

“Want to try that answer again, sweetness?” he asked coldly.

I shrugged and said nothing.
Dammit
.

“So a Green, a Yellow, and two Blues walk into my woods.…” Knox began. He stood and hopped down over the edge of the platform. Vida and Jude were shoved toward us.

He was pacing in front of us, to the amusement of the other kids. Just out of my reach. “Now, the two Blues—you’re mighty welcome here, but, of course, we’ll have to figure out which of you is actually strong enough to join the hunting parties in initiation.”

Initiation?

“I have to duke it out with him?” Vida asked petulantly. “I thought you said it was going to be a fight?”

Knox laughed—and once Knox laughed, everyone was laughing, too.

“Honestly,” Vida said, whipping her mass of blue hair back over her shoulder, “you might as well let him go. He’s totally worthless—I’ll have him laid out on the ground in three seconds. Just sayin’.”

Jude wore his confusion plainly, not understanding that this was her warped way of trying to protect Chubs from a fight he’d never win. I was surprised she cared enough to try.

“She’s not lying,” I said. “If you want the better fighter, it’s her, hands down. But he’s trained in first-aid. He’s patched me up more than once. Look.” I lifted my hair away from the scar on my forehead.

Knox didn’t take the bait to examine it closer. He wove his fingers together and rested them on the back of his neck as he seemed to mull this over. “The question is more what we’re going to do with you and the Yellow.”

I did not like the direction this conversation was heading. And neither did Jude. I felt him start to shake, just a little bit, and I closed one hand over his wrist.

“We don’t take on weak ones,” Knox said. “This isn’t a pity parade or a homeless shelter. I’m not about to waste food on a
Green
or a
Yellow
. No one here can vouch for you, which means you’ll have to prove yourself in…other ways.”

Chubs turned on him, his fists clenched at his sides, but another voice rose up before his had the chance to. It was small, more timid than I remembered, but I recognized it.

“I can vouch for them.”

At East River, Clancy had relied on two different kids to run security for the camp—Hayes, the ogre-sized brute who ran hits for supplies, and Olivia, who coordinated watch at the perimeters of the camp. To say I was relieved to see a head of long, honey-blond hair push its way through the crowd was an understatement, but her face—I recognized the pieces of her, but it was like they had been torn apart and reassembled with a careless hand. She limped, badly, as she moved closer to us.

Yes. This was Olivia. But at the same time, it wasn’t.

Her round cheeks, always flushed with the run she had taken or the orders she had barked out, had sunk in so deeply that it made her eyes look owlish. The golden tan that had kissed her skin was faded to dull ash—and as she turned to look at me, a bolt of horror raced from my heart to the pit of my stomach. Almost the entire right side of her face was puckered with pink scar tissue; it dragged down the corner of that eye, ran down her jawline. It looked as though she’d been mauled by a wild animal or slapped with a fistful of flames.

“Olivia,” I gasped. “Oh my God!”

How—No, I knew that she had escaped. Liam had told us as much. When the fires and PSFs came to East River, a few of the Watch kids had been lucky enough to get away in time, Olivia included. Liam was the only one who had come back to look for us.

“Christ,” Chubs said, automatically taking a step toward her. “You—”

“The four of them were with me when we escaped the PSF van that had rounded us up,” Olivia said, ignoring the hand Chubs raised in her direction. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw the boy in the green coat push himself off the door and through the crowd, stopping near Knox’s side. “We got separated in the escape through the woods.”

The Olivia I had known had been so full of fire, she could have brought the entire warehouse down to a pile of simpering ash. Now, she merely bobbed her head with a meekness that didn’t suit her at all. “Ruby is the one who planned the escape, sir.”

“Oh yeah,” said the boy in the green coat. He stuffed his hands in his pockets, rocking back on his heels. “I thought they looked familiar. A couple kids gave us the slip that day.”

Olivia’s gaze flickered toward his, her brows creased in what was either surprise or confusion. It certainly wasn’t gratitude on her face.

“Really.” Knox’s voice was still flat, but I felt his eyes drift back over to me. “And you spent the last few months just wandering around my fine state?”

“Laying low, gathering supplies, looking for Olivia,” I said quickly, risking a glance to the boy. What
was
he playing at?

“Why didn’t you mention this to Michael, Brett?” Knox asked. “Or speak up before.”

The boy—Brett—shrugged. “Didn’t make the connection till now, I guess. Her hair was shorter”—he nodded toward me—“and the other one was dressed different.”

“They can help me,” Olivia continued, her eyes still on the ground. “At least until they prove themselves to you.”

Knox blew out an exasperated sigh. He began to pace again, each step falling like thunder in the silence of the warehouse. There was almost a little skip to his step as he walked. “Fine,” he said, looking up. “Take the Yellow and Green. Charles, too.”

And just like that, he was out of my reach. I was useless to get us out of there.

“The hot piece will stay and keep us entertained,” Knox said, smoothing his hair behind his ears with a grin. He nodded to the boys at his left. “Strip their jackets, take anything valuable they might still have on them, and keep them outside—where the trash belongs.”

FOURTEEN

T
HE SIDE DOOR OF THE WAREHOUSE
led into an extensive parking lot. The sea of black was broken up by a few sullen-looking tents, all near to collapsing under the pockets of water collecting on them. Wood pallets formed a kind of floating platform for each one and connected them in a crooked loop. I saw right away why they were needed—they lifted us those few precious inches out of the murky water that swamped the whole lot.

Smoke drifted up lazily from the smoldering remains of fires, mingling with the sour smell of old water. I crossed my arms over my chest, feeling the last bit of anger and despair at the loss of Liam’s jacket shake off me. At the far left end of the lot were two small gray buildings—one of which Michael and his team were streaming out of, clutching armfuls of bread and chips. They crossed paths with Brett on their way back to the warehouse, slapping his shoulder, trying to turn him back. He simply waved them on and kept walking toward the building they had come from and the one next to it marked with a spray-painted red
X
over the door. Judging by the locks on the door, no one came out, and no one went in.

Olivia waited until the hunters ducked back into the warehouse before she turned sharp on her heels and gripped my shoulders.

“Oh my God,” she was saying, her voice shaking madly. “Not you, too—He’s—”

“What happened?” I whispered. Chubs was there in an instant, looping one of Olivia’s arms over his shoulder. “What the hell is going on?”

“Wait, you actually
do
know each other?” Jude cried. Chubs yanked him forward, pulling him into our huddle.

“After I left East River…I was, well…” There was no small amount of fury tucked into her words. “I found a car with a few of the others and we got all the way to Tennessee.”

I nodded, waiting for her to continue.

“Of course the car gave out. The PSFs were on us the entire time, and we didn’t really have a choice. We split up and ran. I took to the woods and got pulled in by one of the ‘Slip Kid’s’ hunting parties.”

“But I thought Fancy was the Slip Kid?” Jude wrapped his arms around himself in a vain attempt to stay warm. I elbowed him hard.

“Fancy?” Olivia asked, startled.

“He nicknamed Clancy,” I said, blowing out a long sigh.

The slightest smile curled her lips, only to be replaced by a burst of intense, dark pain. Her hand floated up to her neck and pressed hard at her collarbone, as if she were trying to keep something in by force.

“You know what happened, right?” I whispered. “You know he was responsible?”

She nodded. “I didn’t want to believe it at first, but that night, when you guys tried to leave…I could see the way he had manipulated us. Controlled us. Our security system was near perfect, and we always knew Gray would leave Clancy alone rather than risk exposing him. The only way they could have found us was if someone leaked the coordinates or provoked him, and the only one with a way to do that was…was…”

She slid her hand up the length of her throat, hiding the tremor there.

Before, at East River, I’d only had a kind of passing acquaintance with Olivia. Most of our interactions were colored by whether or not Clancy or Liam were around; if they weren’t there, we barely acknowledged each other. She had been invested in both, in different ways. Liam was someone who had been easy to work with, who challenged her to think about what they could do for the camps instead of just biding their time deep in the woods. But Clancy—Clancy had been the one she had wanted to protect, impress.

Like every other kid at that camp, he had been her savior. Her everything.

“Fancy sort of suits him,” she said finally, stepping out of my grip.

We made our way carefully over the pallets, walking along the swaying trail of them. “When their hunting party found me, I only went with them willingly because I wanted to get to Clancy,” Olivia muttered. “I wasn’t even thinking it was strange he could set up another camp so fast or that he had gotten away at all. I just wanted to ask him why he did that to us. I think I would have killed him.”

“A totally reasonable response,” Chubs assured her. “Even more reasonable if you had done it slowly, with much fire and ice picks.”