The Darkest Legacy (Darkest Min - Alexandra Bracken Page 0,103

trust myself to make any kind of decision.

It wasn’t just that she had gone to see Clancy, knowing the risks, knowing who he was and what he had done. It was that she had chosen to confide in him. Anyone could lie about another person’s exact words, but he had seen something that Ruby never let slip. When I’d first met her, she hadn’t even wanted to be touched, she was so locked inside her own fear. And while she’d learned control and had become stronger, those darker storms moving beneath her skin hadn’t left, they’d only morphed.

Trapped by people’s expectations and needs, alone in what she’d seen and what she could do. Lonely.

I was here, I thought. I was here the whole time.

I couldn’t keep from wondering if I had done this somehow. By working with the government, by not going to live with them at Haven—did that lock the door on our friendship? I’d only been trying to help her live a better life. I wanted that for all Psi. She could have used our contact procedure to get in touch with me. I would have come to her. Instead, I waited for a call that never came.

I should have made the call.

Still, there was a small part of me that clung to the belief that Ruby wouldn’t just walk away. From Liam. From the kids at Haven. From her friends. From her family. From the world. The more I tried to picture it, the harder it became. The only times Ruby had willingly distanced herself, it had been to protect us.

But things were different now, and all of us were, too. So much could have happened between when I’d last seen her and the time she’d vanished. She could have been swallowed by her old, familiar darkness and left us for good.

I leaned between the seats and turned on the radio, just to see what terrifying crime I’d been accused of that day.

When the familiar voice came over the speakers, I thought my exhausted mind had spun it out of thin air.

“—out there, if you’re listening, turn yourself in. Please, Suzume. Turn yourself in.”

“Who’s this chump?” Priyanka asked as Roman pulled into an empty rest station parking lot. He turned the engine off, but none of us moved.

“You’re a delegate in the Virginia state House, are you not?”

I closed my eyes. Of course. Of course he’d gone on Truth Talk Radio.

“I am. I’ve had thoughts about resigning, but staying and fighting for the American way is the only thing I can think to do to counteract the evil Suzume has injected into our fragile world.”

“Okay, no, seriously, who is this asshole?”

I cracked an eye open. Priyanka looked ready to jump through the sound system and strangle someone. Roman had gone stiff, his hands still gripping the wheel. An orange glow from the rest station’s lights filtered through the windshield.

“My father,” I said dryly. “Can’t you tell by the love and warmth in his voice?”

“Her mother, Akari, and I wanted her home—we wanted to work with her and to try to reform her ourselves—but she refused, and she has gone out of her way to hurt us and others ever since. And, of course, Interim President Cruz interfered and made an exception for her. I could not believe my eyes when I saw her speaking on the government’s behalf. If that’s not reason enough for people to vote for Joseph Moore, I don’t know what is.”

Priyanka looked at me. “I’m going to need a meat cleaver and your home address.”

Even Jim Johnson was intrigued by this statement. “Can we consider this your official endorsement of Joseph Moore, Delegate Kimura? Isn’t that the same man who, citing the ineffectiveness of Cruz, has been using his own money to fund a search for your daughter to bring her to justice?”

“Yes,” he said. “In fact, I would like to say this to Mr. Moore—”

Roman was the one to switch the radio off. I didn’t have it in me to move. Didn’t have a thought in my head, not at first. There was just this feeling like a balloon at the center of my chest, and I thought if I did anything at all in that moment I might actually burst.

But, somehow, the others’ twin looks of concern were worse.

“I’m going to use the bathroom,” I mumbled, popping the door open. The air was drenched with the smell of grass and the days-old garbage spilling out of the trash bins. I started