The Darkest Legacy (The Darkest Minds, #4)

by Alexandra Bracken

For us, there is no such thing as self-defense.

the world was never as simple as it wanted you to believe it was. Hard exteriors could hide soft hearts, a chosen family could be more important than a blood one…and even the safest of places could be made into a trap.

there are times you have to listen to your gut and tell common courtesy to fuck right off.

I know my power.

“Oh good,” I whispered back, forcing a brightness into my voice. The patented Liam Stewart method of trying to defuse someone else’s fears while swallowing your own.

As Vida always said, the best way through bullshit was to wade in, hold your nose with one hand and a grenade in the other, and cut straight through it.

Liam’s favorite trick to stay awake: singing.

The result was a mean mug shot that Vida had found so funny she’d printed and framed it.

we need to reclaim the one that was stolen from us the day we agreed to allow the rest of the world to solve our problems.

Liam telling stories or singing off-key to his endless stream of favorite classic rock songs. Working out the clever little math problems Chubs wrote for me in the notebook we had to share. Wandering through the dark husk of a Walmart with Ruby, finding something I actually wanted to wear. Feeling safe. Feeling hopeful. Feeling loved.

As unhelpful as it was to wear bright pink on the run, it had let me feel some small bit of power to present myself the way I wanted to, in a world that was trying to render me powerless. It had made me feel like one of the magic girls in the manga I grew up reading, with their bright colors and beautiful costumes. Back then, that’s what strength had looked like to me.

I set down my pencil, giving her my sweetest smile. The one Vida told me should be illegal.

I understood why. I understood the choice. But some part of me would never fully understand how four had become two.

He’s Lee—he’s funny and nice and he dresses like a walking hug.”

“Sorry,” Lisa said. “I hope you’re not embarrassed. You know how Liam gets. I think he just…wanted everyone to know you.”

“I don’t want to be your stranger.” I glanced back. “Then don’t be.”

Watercolors couldn’t have begun to capture the sky in that moment, just as it prepared to brighten for dawn. The cruelest truth about life is that it just goes on—the sun rises, gravity keeps your feet on the ground, flowers open their faces to greet the sky. Your world could be dissolving with grief or pain or anger, but the sky would still give you the most breathtaking sunrise of violet warming to shell pink.

At the time, Liam had wanted to go looking for Betty so he could bring her in and fix her up. But by the time we found the old van, nature had done its worst to her engine and undercarriage. It would have been a nightmare to try to get a tow truck in there to haul her out. So we left Betty behind, as a kind of monument to what we had done together—who we had been together.

But you survived that camp, you used your voice to try to help others, you fought like hell against those kidnappers, you saved us from them—you, alone. You’ve navigated us this far, and you haven’t backed down from anything, even as you’ve taken hit after hit. That’s not disappointing. That’s incredible.”

I always thought the world would feel easier as I got older, but I’ve only gotten more practice at pretending it is.”

we would never try to hide them, or erase them. Back then, I hadn’t understood that we didn’t always wear our scars on our skin; some ran deep beneath it, unseen by the rest of the world, aching even as we wore happy masks, even as we assured others we were fine.

We’ve inherited the darkest legacy, but they don’t know that we’ve learned how to thrive in shadows and create our own light.”

The comfortable kind of quiet you’d find walking next to someone who no longer needed words to know your heart.

Before he could answer, a dark shape appeared in the haze, moving in a quick, smooth path across the silver surface of the lake. Plaid shirt. Baseball cap. Whistling the Rolling Stones. Liam.

darlin’.

“Come on,” he said softly, “don’t fight the twirl.”

“That fucking drive through no-man’s-land, Oklahoma, was the icing on a seven-layer shit cake.”

“It’s been three years since you called me ugly to my face,”

The way forward isn’t to choose the best of two bad choices, it’s finding a way to navigate between them.

“Settle down, old man,” I told him, picking up speed as we turned off the long driveway and onto the dirt road.

He looked almost horrified at the suggestion. “Driver chooses, always.”

“You were watching!” I said, reaching over to smack his shoulder. I glanced up at Priyanka in the rearview mirror, her eyes on the roof of the car. “You were all watching?”

Liam raised his brows at me. “Very dreamy.” “Can you not?” I said, pushing him toward the opening. To make the fit work, he had to shed his belt and plaid shirt, leaving him in a gray undershirt.

“Come on, darlin’,” Liam was murmuring. “Don’t keep us waiting. You know how impatient I get.”

Liam reached over with his free arm, drawing me close to his side and to Ruby. Right now, I needed that, too.

I’m okay. This is okay.

I’m okay. This is okay.

No leaving without good-byes.

“Come together, leave together,”