Nowhere Girl | The Darkest Minds Fanfic

Fixing a Hole

We moved out at about noon. Ang would prefer to leave our safe spot in the woods much later, after dusk even, but Drew gets grumpy when hungry, and we hadn't eaten anything since last morning.

　　We set out to find food immediately. Fortunately, this was one of the rare occasions where Ang deemed it necessary to use the small amount of cash he stashed in all of our backpacks. We bought ourselves some sandwiches and fries from a diner. It was the best lunch I have had in more than three years, and from James' and Drew's faces, I could tell that they felt almost exactly the same as I did.

　　We didn't set into motion for the raid until midnight, though. It was the standard operation procedure of their raids before, only sometimes they went a bit flexible. The one when they found me was one of those occasions.

　　Our target that night was a wholesale in the northeastern side of the city. James explained to me that they took turns getting supplies from eight different stores across the city, and each of them three had a favorite in these stores. Today's target was James' favorite, because it had a lousy security system, and no backup generator.

　　"It really is as simple as that." He said, "All you need to do is kill one power source, and that's it. If they were stupid enough to put that main switch on the outside of the building, you wouldn't even need me to do it."

　　The raid went as smoothly as I could imagine. James killed the electricity, Drew jimmied the lock, and Ang lit our way in and out. We got as much stuff our trunk can carry. Canned and dried goods mostly, but we each got a few clothes because most of what we had were left in the house when it burnt.

　　After the raid, we found an empty warehouse beside the Delaware River and decided to spend the night there. It was cold as hell, but we couldn't risk starting a fire. Drew and James took the first watch, but I didn't close my eyes at all when I was supposed to sleep.

　　At first, I didn't realize what was keeping me awake, until the sense of something missing finally took the color of azure.

　　This is my last chance to find him. Maybe ever.

　　I know it's dangerous to go back there, but I have to try. Truth be told, I had no idea what I could accomplish by going back, but there was something in my head that kept insisting I had to.

　　I waited till it was my turn to take the watch with Ang. Even though James is more friendly to me now, it would also be the exact reason why he would stop me from doing this; he is protective towards his friends, and maybe now, he has started to see me as one. Out of all three of them, Ang would be the one most likely to understand why I wanted to do this.

　　Ang didn't say much during our watch, maybe because he was tired. When I thought James and Drew had fell asleep, I wrote to tell Ang that I wanted to go for a walk.

　　"Do you want me to go with you?" Ang asked, and I shook.

　　"Well, be very careful, then." He said. "And, um, take your backpack with you. You might find something useful on the way."

　　I wondered if he knew where I was going. But either way, he didn't stop me, so that was good news.

　　Leda Corp Research Center is not hard to find at all. It is a few blocks away from the big park in Center City, surrounded by houses, offices, and restaurants. Just all sorts of normal stuff. It is weird to think about that between all these mundane places where people go in and out and live their lives, there is this hell, where children die almost every week if not every day when I was in there.

　　It looked almost identical to the white building in my memory, but something was off. The Leda Corp as I remembered, was occupied by scientists and their subjects all day, every day. However, there were no lights coming out from the windows at all. The golden swan sculpture was gone. In fact, the entire building just seemed abandoned.