The Darkside War Read Free Page B

Stafford asked.
    â€œThere’s another way they can neutralize my parents,” I said. I knew what it was. That anger I’d been building inside had steered me toward a solution, and now it faded to sadness.
    Stafford looked curious. “What do you mean?”
    â€œMe,” I said. “You can use me.”
    Stafford leaned back, then cleared all the documents off the table with a wave of his hand. “I’m listening.”
    â€œIf I do this, I want to see them. I want to see them today,” I said. Because in order to save my family, I would have to first destroy it.
    â€œI can arrange something,” Stafford said.
    I took a deep breath and paused. Could I do what I was planning?
    Yes. To save their lives. I could do this.
    I had to. Angry as I might be, what sort of son would I be if I watched them die and didn’t try to stop it?
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    The electrified fence between us prevented any touching. My dad stood in the middle of his cell, avoiding the walls like I had. But he’d spent all day in the sun, and the bags under his eyes from lack of sleep, food, and drink made him look older and frail. His salt-and-pepper hair hung every which way.
    He licked bloodied, sun-cracked lips, and hung his head when he saw me enter.
    My mother, in the other cell, had managed to fold her legs into a tight cradle so she could sit down, but she also looked frazzled and exhausted. Her normally even brown skin was splotchy with dirt and streaked with blood from a cut on her scalp. Dried blood also stained her shoulders.
    â€œOh God. Dev!” She tried to stand, but shrank back into her position when the cell sparked. Mine had just been hot, theirs was designed for maximum misery. “You’re alive.”
    â€œMom.” I put a finger carefully between the spaces in the metal grid so we could touch fingertips gently. “I’m okay.”
    â€œI’m so sorry, Dev. We can’t even get to talk to Stephan. I’m so sorry. It’s very bad. All those Accordance soldiers in armor, they didn’t care. They shot people. Right in the street. Live, on camera.”
    She was shaking. In shock. It must be a war zone on 110th Street, I realized. Other prisoners in the cages looked worse than my parents. Blood-splattered clothes, distant stares. Gunshot wounds, jagged wounds. Ignored, without medics, some of the protestors trapped out here would die.
    â€œMom, you know I love you,” I said tentatively.
    â€œOf course. They said there was a chance you might . . . not be in the same position we are.” Her brown eyes teared up. She whispered now, not wanting my father to listen in. “You have to take that. And don’t feel guilty about it. Anything we’ve done, it’s only hurt you. And I’m sorry about that. What we’ve done, it’s us. Okay? It’s us. You run, like I told you. You run from all this.”
    I closed my eyes. “I know.” My voice cracked.
    â€œDevlin?” My dad had cocked his head to stare at me. He used his teacher voice, strong and commanding attention even in his state. “What’s going on?”
    â€œI can save you.” I took a deep breath filled with the smell of blood, unwashed bodies, and sewage. “But I’m going to have to say . . . some things. I’m going to have to do things.” I closed my eyes, focusing on the unsteady pressure of my mom’s fingertip against mine. A single line of contact. All I would have.
    Sometimes I thought about why family members always fought so hard with each other; maybe it was because they were the only ones who could get fully into each other’s heads. Dad saw through me instantly. “Don’t do what you’re thinking,” he said. “That’s everything we’ve been fighting against. We’re trying to stop you from having to fight their wars for them. You know none of the recruits