Never Fade by Alexandra Bracken Page A

pulling—what they’d do to you kids if they got their way. And they will if we don’t figure out a way to outplay them.”
    You think we can keep this up without making a big statement? Rob’s words echoed back to me. “What are they planning? Something to do with us and the camps?”
    The water sputtered between us; the timer they’d installed to limit the use of hot water clicked off. The water was still flowing, but it was cooling off to its usual frigid temperature. And neither of us moved.
    “His big idea,” Cole began, his voice brittle, “is to use some of the ‘nonessential’ kids here and the information you provided about the camps. You know, the ones too young to be activated, some of the Greens.”
    “To do what?” I demanded.
    “You said in your report that they don’t search or pat down the kids who are supposedly pre-sorted as Green, right?” He waited until I nodded before continuing. “That was backed up by one of the other kids we pulled from a smaller camp. Meadows thinks that their intake security procedures have become lax over the past year—since there are so few kids left outside of the camps, they’re usually only bringing a few in at a time. That, and the PSFs are stretched too thin at the bigger camps.”
    “That’s true,” I said. I’d noticed the number of soldiers decrease over the years at Thurmond as the camp reached maximum capacity and they closed it off to new arrivals. But decreasing the bodies present only translated to them increasing the weapons present and the willingness to hit us with White Noise anytime anyone so much as looked on the verge of acting out.
    “He thinks—” Cole cleared his throat, pressing his good hand against it. “Meadows wants to strap explosives to the kids. Turn them over to the PSFs, then set the bombs off as they’re being driven into camps. He thinks it’ll stir enough fear and discontent among the PSFs to get them to ditch their required service.”
    I didn’t hear the last part, not fully. There was a static in my ears that burned and burned and burned away every thought, every sound, everything outside of my racing thoughts.
    “If you think you’re going to faint, sit your ass down,” Cole ordered. “I told you this because you’re a big girl and I need your help. I know you didn’t mean for this to happen, but you’re in it. Knee deep. You’re as responsible for righting this as the rest of us.”
    I didn’t sit, but the dark blotches in my vision were growing, expanding, swallowing his face. “The other agents…they want to do this?”
    “Not everyone,” he said, “but enough that if Alban weren’t here, it wouldn’t even be a question. Read between the lines there.”
    Oh my God. “Cate knows about this, but…she’s still with him? Why would she stay with someone who could even think about something like that?”
    “Conner is a smart woman. If she’s with him, it’s for a reason, and probably not the one you think. We’ve both seen how Meadows handles things.”
    “Then you know that Jarvin ‘handled’ Blake Howard?” I asked. “The kid he shot in the back on the Op last night?”
    “You know that for sure?” he demanded. “You have some kind of proof?”
    “Security camera footage,” I said. “It was downloaded before anyone could wipe it remotely from here.”
    “Keep it to yourself for now. When you bring the intel back, we’ll take that to Alban, too. Nail Meadows and the others into their coffins.”
    “I haven’t agreed to anything yet.”
    “You’re killin’ me, kid,” he said, rolling his eyes again. “You’ll go and find Liam. You’ll bring the intel back. There’s never been any doubt in my mind about it. Because, Gem,” Cole said, smiling when I rolled my eyes at the new nickname, “I know that you don’t want Alban to figure out what really happened and that Liam’s involved, and I know you don’t want to give him any reason to invest in Meadows’s plan. And