The Aftermath Read online

  “No, but it can be used for a quick deletion,” he says. Our eyes meet. “But those don’t happen often, and they’re messy.”

  My throat constricts. I don’t have the stomach to ask what he means by a messy deletion. Not right now while we’re standing in the middle of a cannibal den.

  “What else is it for?”

  “Resetting a chip. Deactivate, delete, reset. Triple C—and before you ask, I know none of those things begin with a C, Virtue.”

  But I’m not worried over the reasoning behind the device’s name. Was this what Dr. Coleman did to me? Reset my Cerebrum Chip? “Does it hurt?”

  He raises his head and squints at me. “I’m not sure.”

  I take an uncertain step forward; feel my hand on top of my own head although I didn’t even realize I lifted it. “Can you do this to me?”

  “No,” he says, concentrating. When I tense up and open my mouth to speak, he wrinkles his nose in frustration and holds up a hand. “I’ll tell you why when I’m done.”

  My heart feels as though it’s jumped into my throat. It stays there as he continues working. He presses the flat end of the Triple C to Wesley’s crown. There are beads of sweat on Declan’s top lip. His shoulders tense up as he pulls a button on the tool up with his thumb. He holds it as Wesley begins to twitch violently. Even when the other boy trembles off the couch, Declan doesn’t release the trigger. I can see his lips move, silently counting.

  “Done,” he says when he reaches forty seconds. He scoots back on his hands and bottom and sits against the wall, next to the rest of his gear.

  Wesley lies on the floor in a twisted heap. If not for the slight rise and fall of his chest, I’d think he was dead. “Is he going to live?”

  “He’ll come to in a few minutes.”

  I nod, then move next to Declan, supporting my back on a portion of the wall that is not bathed in blood. We’re quiet for a very long time before he starts talking. “Your chip is different. Your link is different.”

  “What do you mean by different?”

  “Exactly what I just said. I’ve known that since the moment we met,” he says. I close my eyes and picture him probing my head with the blue device at the fence. “The structure of your chip is different from other characters. Ten times more complex. My chip reader couldn’t even read it. The only thing it was able to tell me was that you were an active character.”

  “You’re just teasing me.” He has to be. There can’t possibly be something else wrong with me.

  “No, I’m serious. I’ll have to wait until we’re out to try to work on yours.”

  He doesn’t plan to just disappear once we leave the game. I want to feel some relief over this, but it’s impossible when he’s sitting beside me telling me my chip is an anomaly.

  I’m an anomaly.

  “I want to go back, Declan,” I say. “If I’d known you had a way to deactivate the chips, I’d have made you free my friends back in the bar.”

  His mouth hardens. “They’re not your friends. You’ve never even really met them. And don’t tell me you’ve grown attached to the gamers inside their heads.”

  I hate him a little for saying that, but I continue, “Still, you have what it takes to get them out of this game.”

  He snorts. “Going back there is suicide. Once Wesley comes to, we have forty-eight hours, tops, to get out of the game before we’re found out. The sooner the better.”

  This is new information. And even though nothing shocks me about Declan anymore, I suddenly have a million questions. “Why do we have to get out? You’re a moderator. You work for the game. You—”

  “Save your questions for later, Virtue.”

  There’s an uneasy sensation slinking its way through my body. But I don’t get a chance to tell him how I feel—tell him how selfish he is for not informing me about his ability to break links or the time constraints we now face—because Wesley moves.

  Declan stumbles to his feet. I have no time to react before he’s by the boy’s side. I cup my ear protectively, shrink as close to the wall as possible. I have no idea what will happen next.

  Wesley rolls over on his back and stares up at Declan. His chest heaves up and down. He’s...laughing. “You got chubby,” he says hoarsely.

  Declan grins and shakes his head. Shrugging his shoulders, he replies, “So what? You look like a corpse.”

  I watch in horror as this flesh-eating character, Wesley, moves shakily into a sitting position. They’re staring at each other. Why hasn’t Declan restrained him or made a move to make sure he’s not dangerous? Why the hell are they both grinning?

  This boy is an assignment. He’s Declan’s last assignment before he quits LanCorp. I repeat this over and over in my head, holding my breath and praying this whole situation will start making sense soon.

  Wesley glances over at me and gives me a half smile that chills me to the bone. Not because of who he is and how he attacked me three years ago, but because I’ve seen that grin many times over the past few weeks. It’s cocky and self-assured, even for someone who looks an inch away from death.

  It’s Declan’s smile.

  I expect that up close, his eyes are the same shade of gray, too.

  “Leave it to you to bring a girl to a prison break, little brother,” Wesley says.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  They want to leave immediately—Declan and his older brother—but I refuse to budge. Gritting my teeth, I train my eyes on Mia, who’s sitting across the room from me.

  Declan kneels in front of me and blocks my view. He touches my hand, but I jerk away from him. When I don’t meet his gaze, he gently touches my chin to turn my head. His gray eyes look up at me apologetically. “Claudia, I—”

  “Save it,” I say.

  He bares his teeth and scratches both hands at the back of his neck. “He’s my brother.” He makes it sound as if he’s trying to convince me.

  I already understand. If there were a member of my family in The Aftermath, I would do anything to free them, even if that meant sabotaging my job or my life. But still, I’m furious. And there are other things that Declan is keeping from me that I’m bent on making him reveal. Right now.

  “You were a character, weren’t you?” I demand. His head pops up and his eyes widen. He can lie to me if he wants to, but his expression tells me everything I want to know. Declan is not a moderator. “Did you escape?” I ask.

  “I told you already—nobody’s ever escaped the games.”

  “Then how’d you get out?”

  His shoulders tense up. After a long moment, he takes a deep breath and squeezes his eyes shut. “Why does it matter?”

  “Because you’ve been lying to me for weeks. Because I deserve to know the truth.” I wish he had just told me what was going on from the beginning. If he had, I wouldn’t feel like such a pathetic fool right now.

  But I’m a liar, too. And there’s a part of me that knows that I should tell him everything, that desperately wants to tell him just in case he knows something that might help me.

  I shake that thought from my head. No, that guilty part of myself will just have to wait.

  “I didn’t escape the game. I was just outside of it, being taken to a deletion facility, when I broke free. Some sympathizers found me, took me in, and we started coming up with every possible way to save my brother. Took us about six months to find which game he was in. Another four to figure out how to infiltrate the system, gather all the gear I’d need to complete the mission. And one more to find my key into The Aftermath. Meeting you was the best thing that ever happened to me, because I’d honestly planned to walk around in circles ’til I found Wes— I didn’t know the area, this game, at all. Happy?”

  My face burns, and I silently admonish myself for being so weak. I shouldn’t feel a
nything. I’ve known all along that he was using me. Still, having him come right out and tell me that makes my chest hurt. “How can you ask me that?”

  He jumps to his feet and whirls on me, but I stand, too. I cross my arms over my chest and count down from fifty in my head to control my breathing. “I did what I had to do to save myself. And I’ll do whatever it takes to get my brother out of here alive.”

  “What about me? Or am I just along for the ride in case you need to throw the mods off your scent?”

  “How can you ask me that?” he demands.

  I draw myself so close to him that our shoulders brush. He’s glaring at me, but I won’t back down. As long as he tells me the truth, I can take whatever it is he has to say. “Well, am I?” I ask.

  “Absolutely not. I promised to keep you safe and get you out of here.” He rocks back and forth on his heels. “Please, Virtue...just work with me, okay? I’m sorry for lying, but we have to go now.”

  There’s so much more I want to ask him. What game was he in? Does he remember anything at all about it? Why was he put up for deletion anyway—he doesn’t look damaged to me. But all those questions can wait for later, when we’re not on the run from a deranged company.

  “I want you to use the Triple C on the rest of them first,” I say.

  He groans. Out of the corner of my eye, I see him shake his head slowly. “That’s impossible, Virtue.”

  I know it is. I know what he’s doing is illegal, but it doesn’t make me feel any less vulnerable. When we leave here, I’ll know that I left so many behind that we could have helped.

  How am I supposed to live with myself, knowing I could have given someone their freedom?

  “They’ll catch us quickly if you do.” My words are more of a statement than a question, but he nods anyway. “At least let her go,” I say, using his shoulder to climb to my feet. I gesture to Mia.

  “Why?” he whispers, squinting up at me.

  “Because you got Wesley. I deserve her.”

  I expect him to argue with me. I expect him to come up with some kind of excuse for why we can’t take her. But instead he touches the side of my face, brushing the tip of his thumb gently over my bad ear.

  “All right.”

  He finishes severing Mia’s link quickly. She lies a few inches from the boy she held when we came in, and I sit beside her, waiting for her to awaken. Hoping she’s not too damaged.

  I slide my hand into hers.

  Declan and Wesley work on installing a signal jammer. There’s already a tear in one of the walls, so Declan programs the device and they slowly lower it into the hole. The entire time they do this, I watch Wesley carefully. If he turns on us, I’ll shoot him in the ankles.

  My breath hitches. I’m disgusted with myself for letting that thought enter my head for even a split second.

  Mia’s fingernails clamp down on my hand, and I jerk away from her. She inhales so deeply it sounds as if she’s choking. I scramble up and lift her head. I watch as she opens her eyes.

  “Listen to me,” I whisper. “I don’t care if you remember me or not. You were—are—my best friend. And I’m getting you out of this game.”

  She screams.

  Declan rushes past me. “She’s in shock.” He picks her up as if she’s as light as his rucksack and carries her from the ballroom. Wesley and I follow him, and I can’t help but keep a couple of steps behind him, with one hand on the Glock and the other on the electroshock gun.

  “It wasn’t me who hurt you, you know,” Wesley says, looking backward as he runs down the spiral staircase. I take each step hesitantly. Between the vertigo and the smell clinging to the air and all that’s happened, I’m worried the CDS I ate earlier will come up.

  He stands on the bottom stair, looking up at me. I move to the left. He blocks me. The same thing happens three times. Declan and Mia are already outside, and I feel trapped. I lift the Glock. Shove the barrel into his flesh. It clinks against bone and my teeth chatter.

  “Move,” I say.

  “Declan told me what happened to you. It wasn’t me.” But he steps aside. I jump down and hurry past him, wondering if Declan also told him about knocking me unconscious the first time we met. Had that been a part of his plan to find Wesley, too?

  “It’s fine,” I say.

  He grabs my arm, whirling me around and I point the gun at him again—this time at his belly. “Do you think I wanted to be like this? I wanted in this game about as much as you did.” He pushes the Glock down and toward me. “We have the same goal. Save your trigger finger for Thomas Lancaster.”

  Lancaster. He must be the person behind LanCorp—the creator of my living nightmare. The son of that Natalie Lancaster. Thomas Lancaster is the reason why I’m so broken.

  Wesley leaves me standing there, cradling my gun to myself. I’m shaking so violently that I can barely keep hold of it. I’m furious. At Wesley and Declan. At myself. I kick a spot on the wall where the wallpaper is falling loose and I scream as loud as I can, until my chest hurts and my face is on fire and I find myself unintentionally slipping in and out of Olivia’s head.

  She’s talking to what looks to be two physicians—Dr. Coleman and a younger man—in a room with blinding lights. This catches my interest and I push aside my frustration to focus in on what they’re saying.

  “You should be well enough to play the game by next week,” Dr. Coleman tells her soothingly.

  “Do you think it will work?” Olivia asks.

  “It should.”

  As I lean over to catch my breath, I wonder aloud what’s wrong with my gamer. She hadn’t seemed different before she left for Calwas. Maybe she’s gotten sick since arriving. Hearing Dr. Coleman tell her she wouldn’t be able to play The Aftermath until next week makes me feel a little better—I don’t need a week to get out of the game; I only need a few more days.

  “Stay sick, Olivia,” I say.

  Then I put the Glock back into its holster and join the rest of my new clan—two former flesh-eaters and a fake game moderator—outside.

  * * *

  Mia stays near me—so close our shoulders rub as we walk—but she doesn’t say anything for a few miles. When she does speak, her words are so shaky I don’t understand her at first.

  I move closer to her. She backs up, her foot snagging on a branch, but I catch her hand. Dried blood stains her palm and fingertips. A massive weight drops onto my chest.

  “Have I— Was I asleep for long?” she whispers. She looks closely at her hand, then shivers and slides it into her back pocket. Staring at the ground, she inhales several times, then releases it in one big breath. “It feels like I was there for only a day or two, but...”

  Three years. Mia’s been stuck in Rehabilitation for at least three years. She joined up with Ethan and me a day after we met. Now I’m sure our gamers planned it all—they were probably friends—but at the time, I was drawn to her personality. She’s strong and brave.

  At least, she was strong and brave.

  The real Mia seems as if she’ll have a heart attack if I even yell at her. Before I can stop myself, I pull her into my arms, wrap her up. I think this surprises her. She stands still for a moment, with her arms half raised as if she’s not sure what to do with them. Then she buries her face into my shoulder and lets out a soft sob.

  This whole emotion thing—it’s new for me, too.

  “How long?” she asks again. I feel her tears on my shoulder. They drip down my chest and back, like scalding water. I grit my teeth, hating LanCorp and Thomas Lancaster a little more each second.

  “Not long,” I lie.

  She steps backward, pressing her fingers to the corners of her eyes. “Thank you,” she whispers. “For picking me. Out of all those people back there...”

  It was never a choice, I want to say
, but instead I smile. A tight and painful smile, one that rips me into thousands of tiny shreds. I hear soft laughter up ahead, then the sound of a zipper coming undone. “Come on,” I say. “Let’s not waste rest time.”

  We eat dinner—or breakfast, I suppose, because the sky is already starting to lighten—between two oak trees. I try my best to eat my CDS and drink my bottle of water, but it’s impossible. Every time I look at Wesley or Mia, I think of the things they’ve likely been forced to do while under the LanCorp workers’ control.

  It turns my stomach.

  And an annoying voice in the back of my head whispers to me, You’re no better.

  Trembling, I bite into the CDS.

  “How far are we from the border?” Wesley asks. He balls up one CDS wrapper, then opens another. I almost want to point out that only one is necessary, but then he shifts, and I see his rib cage through his dirty shirt. I stare down at my own empty packet, wishing absurdly that I could have given it to him, as well.

  “Thirty-five miles. Forty-six hours left,” Declan replies. “I’ve already figured it. Three miles an hour, half an hour of rest every two hours. Sleep at the halfway point. That should put us at the border in less than twenty-four hours and gives us a little room for error.” He glances over at Mia and me when he says this. She’s looking down at her water as he sizes her up, but I see the way his eyebrows pull together. I know he thinks she’ll hold us back.

  I narrow my eyes at him. “You owe me,” I mouth. For the elevator incident. For lying to me—repeatedly.

  Declan tilts his head to one side. Lifting his bottle of water in a dramatic toast, he says, “I know.”

  Wesley grins and stares back and forth between us. “How’ve you two survived a few weeks together?” He twirls his CDS packet between his fingers. It’s distracting and draws my attention to his dirty fingernails. I think of blood. Flesh-eater dens. His hands around my neck right before he—

  I pinch myself.