Arclight by Josin L. McQuein Page B

dead?” Silver asks.
    “You killed it.” Dante says, staring at me. “You really did.”
    “But I didn’t do anything.”
    The Fade chose to shut itself down; all I did was try to retain my sanity while it made me see and feel things that weren’t happening.
    We all stand clinging to one another, our hair dripping as our elders take possession of the Fade. Though the careful way they handle it speaks to how little confidence they have in their ability to hold it should the Fade decide it doesn’t want to be dead anymore. But it stays inert, even when Lt. Sykes nudges it with his boot.
    Honoria stops him from removing the Fade’s loosened facial covering. “Not here,” she says. “Get that thing down to the White Room. And somebody get this water turned off!”
    He nods, not at all happy that he’s going to have to lift the Fade with his own hands. He takes a deep breath, and signals for help.
    “Did you draw blood on it?” Honoria asks me harshly. She slips the silvered pistol she’d been using as a pointer back into her waistband.
    “I hit it with the door,” I blurt. “But it didn’t bleed.”
    “Show me your hands.”
    I hold them out to her without hesitation, turning them so she can see both sides. Honoria examines them closely, checking my fingernails to make sure I didn’t take any of the Fade’s skin away beneath them. After another inspection of my branded wrist, she seems satisfied, and lets go.
    She turns to the other woman, whose name tag reads M. OLIVET. “Where do we stand?”
    “All the living areas locked down,” M. Olivet says. “The kids headed back to the check point in the Common Hall.”
    “Take Tran and Miller and get a head count. If anyone’s missing, find them.”
    “Should we move people to the bunkers as we clear them?”
    “Not so long as there’s a chance we’ll be locking our kids in with another one of those things. Take them to their parents. Pair the singles off with upper-years.”
    “Got it.”
    “And I want to know how that thing got into my compound. It should have tripped ten sensors before getting this deep.”
    M. Olivet hurries out, giving her a curt nod.
    “Get them back to their rooms,” Honoria orders Mr. Pace. The furious red tint that had overtaken her face recedes. “Annie can go to the hospital. Dominique’s already there with Trey.”
    “What’s wrong with Trey?” Anne-Marie asks.
    “He had an accident,” Honoria says.
    Anne-Marie darts forward, but the adults won’t let her pass.
    “You are not roaming these halls alone, Anne-Marie Johnston,” Honoria says. Her voice never softens, and her posture never relaxes; I’m not sure she’s capable of anything short of harsh.
    “Trey’s asleep,” Mr. Pace says. “He won’t know if you’re there, yet.”
    Anne-Marie starts in on her fingernails, ripping them with her teeth.
    “Is anyone hurt?” Mr. Pace asks “Cuts, scratches, anything?”
    I shudder at the thought of Trey and Portman, and the only way to “treat” someone poisoned by contact with the Fade.
    “We’re okay,” Dante says through chattering teeth. “Marina killed it.”
    “I didn’t—”
    Oh, never mind. No one’s listening to me.
    “Tobin, what happened to your head?” Mr. Pace reaches for the rising welt on Tobin’s forehead; Tobin knocks his hand away.
    “It threw me into the wall.” He points to the slight dent where he hit.
    “I don’t think it made contact with anyone,” Silver says. “It was all covered up so the light couldn’t get to its skin . . . it has skin, right?” She turns a strange shade of sickly pale at the prospect of the robes and bindings holding together a loosely packed mass of organs and arteries.
    “They’re clear,” Mr. Pace says to Honoria Whit.
    “Everyone get to where you’re supposed to be. We’re on alert until we get this sorted.”
    She tromps off down the corridor, back the way she came.
    “You’d think she’d be happy we won,” Anne-Marie