Yeah, I’m an asshole. Oh, well.
“You should leave in about twenty minutes,” he told her, all business. “You’ll be traveling away from every area they have the manpower to watch so far. Blend in, and you should be good. Remember food and water. The address is between two storefronts, around back down the alley. Get in. Hunker down. Sit tight, ’cause the streets will be crawling with agents in a matter of hours. I’ll be there as soon as it’s safe to make a move.”
She nodded. Her arms went around herself.
“I will be there,” Alex continued. “This time…do us both a favor and actually wait for me.”
She cracked a smile. That was good. If she realized how badly she’d misjudged him, maybe she’d stop.
10
Lena wove through a crowd of people. Some moved against her to get to their homes and others hurried with her to make it to work. She settled the knit bag holding flatbread, hard cheese, and water further up her shoulder for security and focused on blending in. At least she looked like she belonged. She’d quickly showered away the dust and grit coating her skin and hair and shed the dress—her mind veered from the memory and instead focused on the clothes she wore now.
Ace had found them on one of his trade excursions. She’d left them with him because she had little use for bright, lapis-colored, antique blouses and silky teal skirts in her everyday life in the desert. Now they helped her look like one of the brightly clad young women who worked the power plants but hoped to catch the eye of someone in the Council building. Well, except for the bloom so bright Lena imagined she could see it herself from the corners of her eyes.
Reyes had commented on it before he left, wishing that they had some way for her to ground. It wasn’t like she could march into the grounding center. After what she’d done, the accumulated power zinging through her now would discharge spectacularly. She hoped anyone noticing the bloom would dismiss it as a young woman pushing her grounding way past the limits of what was smart.
So far, so good. Passersby were immersed in their own thoughts. The foot traffic was swift and free-flowing, citizens moving with heads down, hardly seeming happy in a city that billed itself as the comfortable, fair alternative to the unpowered wilderness.
A gust of southwestern spring wind roared through the street like a moving wall, pushing at the people. Dirt rose into the air in visible eddies. She automatically narrowed her eyes and turned her head away from the dust-filled wind that sent small, unsecured items rolling down the street with it. With her eyes squeezed into narrow slits and watering at the grit, she almost missed the faded lettering above the boarded up storefront. She darted into the small doorway. An equally faded notice informed her that Longoria General Goods had moved.
She steeled herself against the wind again as she stepped out of the slight protection the little alcove had provided. Only a few quick steps down from it, though, she could turn into the narrow alleyway between the two adobe buildings. When she reached the end of the building to her left, she turned behind it. The tiny little add-on building nestled in the far corner of the small lot. As promised, an electric lock secured it, tucked away to be as unobtrusive as possible.
Lena settled her hand against it, exhaling as she reached out to the Dust. The lock snicked open, and she slipped inside. She took the time to add her own special touch when she re-locked it. Now the Dust would send her a silent alarm if anyone attempted to open it.
She turned to the small, spare room. It covered only the essentials. A narrow cot ran along the wall across from the door. In the far corner across from the cot sat a lidded bucket. Being trapped in this tiny space with the smell of whatever waste she added to the bucket wasn’t ideal, but at least someone had provided one. She’d wait as long as she could.
She took a long, uneven breath. She was proud of herself for managing it without tears. As a rule, she wasn’t a crier. Being strong mattered, her parents had taught her. If the neighbors heard, they would question the sound of a dead child’s grief. Tears were a mistake none of them could afford.
Instead of crying, she looked around again, making a memory and knowing its import: this room was the first step on the road to revenge. She allowed herself a moment to savor the thought before setting it aside. She’d pick it up again later, when she could show the memory of her parents all that she’d done to make it right.
She crossed to a tiny table with a pair of three-legged wooden stools tucked under it and a book resting on its top. She set her bag of food and water down before picking up the book – The Complete Poetry and Prose of William Blake. It was very old, the cover dusty and worn, the edges of the pages yellowed. A small scrap of torn paper peeked out from the top. She carefully turned to it, hoping the thin pages wouldn’t tear in her hands.
“Auguries of Innocence,” she whispered to herself. She skimmed downward. Specific groups of lines were carefully underlined here and there, with tiny, neatly lettered comments written beside the poem. It appeared the words had been underlined at a different time than the comments, perhaps by a different hand?
* * *
A Truth that’s told with bad intent,
Beats all the Lies you can invent.
* * *
The note beside the lines read, “Integrity versus Honesty?” She skimmed down the poem to the next set of underlined words.
* * *
To be in a Passion you Good may do,
But no Good if a Passion is in you.
* * *
She reread the line a couple of times. The carefully lettered note beside the lines read simply, “EXACTLY.” Lena blinked. “Huh.” She had to disagree. Maybe. If she felt a little more confident that she understood the words.
She raised her brows. Whose book was it? Did anyone other than Reyes use this safe house? Or were there others in Relo-Azcon who did similar work and might have need of a place to hide? She shrugged and hooked one of the stools out from under the table with her foot, dragging it back. She plopped down and bent over the ancient book.
It didn’t take her long to decide she didn’t agree with the mystery commentator’s tiny notes, however thoughtful they might be. She had the urge to write a snarky reply. Good thing she had no pen and ink. On the upside, a one-sided debate while she read would give her something to occupy her attention while she waited.
By the next afternoon, however, not even puzzling over the ancient poetry kept her occupied. She paced the confines of the space, arms swinging loosely with nervous energy, as she had been for at least an hour. She heaved out a breath and fell onto the cot.
She’d tried to sleep the night before. Her efforts to beat the dust out of the pillow had resulted in a sneezing fit and streaming eyes and nose. Once she’d finally lain down, wiping at her nose every few minutes, she’d jerked awake every time she started to doze off.
While she was conscious, she could force her mind to focus on things other than the events in the Council building. The Kewa. Her home at the edge of their territory. The things she needed to get done to be ready for the harsh high desert summer. The puzzle of Reyes.
Every time she started to drift off, her mind flew back to that Council room with Lucas leering over her. She would force herself to wake, jerking up and away from both the cot and the pain. She’d finally fallen asleep out of sheer exhaustion. Hours later, she’d woken from a sobbing, cold-sweat nightmare. She couldn’t remember the details. She didn’t want to. Her hoarse cries had been for her mother. She didn’t need to know more.
She popped up from the cot, arms still tight around herself. She paced, every step a slap of heels on floor, and swore savagely at herself. It was ridiculous. She hadn’t seen her mother in months, and even longer before then. Neither of them had any real presence in the life of the other, and that was as they both preferred. Her mother hadn’t been able to deal with the strength of Lena’s “gifts,” and Lena refused to hide.
After several tries, she swallowed down the lump in her esophagus. She to
ld herself her allergy attack caused her sore throat. It wasn’t tight with tears.
The alert from the lock made her jump. She dropped her arms, looking wildly around, but with no bolt hole she had nowhere to run. Reyes swung open the door and entered. He barely spared her a glance before turning to re-secure the locks.
He turned and did a double take. His right hand came up as if to calm her.
Lena swiped at her nose. “I’m not crying,” she lied. “I’m having a reaction to the dust in the pillow.” She lifted her chin with stubborn pride, but she couldn’t keep it from trembling.
Reyes’s gaze swept over her as he evaluated whether or not he believed her. Finally, he nodded and crossed the room to stand in front of her. He chewed the inside of his lower lip as he regarded her. His eyes were deep and so dark his pupils disappeared. He opened his mouth to say something, closed it, then nodded and started again.
“You were right,” he said, his voice soft, “back there outside Santo Domingo. They did snatch little Alejandro away from his mom and dad to make him a Ward. And it fucked with his head.” He paused, swallowing, but not taking his steady gaze from hers.
“I was five years old when my parents handed me over to the Council. And the last words my father said to me before they put me on that steam train were, ‘Be strong, little man.’ I thought that meant I couldn’t cry. Every night, all of the other boys cried. All the way to the Ward School, and after we were there, the sound of crying lulled us all to sleep. But not me. I was going to be strong. Except it didn’t make me strong. It made me mean. It made me weak. It wasn’t until someone showed me that crying could help me heal that I learned how to be strong. You have to mourn what’s gone. You think if you nurse that wound, it will feed you. But if you let it heal, the scar will make you stronger than the wound ever could.”
She shook her head back and forth, refusing. She held the grief back.
He lifted his hands to her shoulders. “Yes. It’s okay to cry.”
“It’s not. It’s not, because I don’t deserve it,” she whispered and dropped her face so she wouldn’t have to look into his anymore.
“You don’t deserve to heal?” The soft words were incredulous.
“No!” The trembling was spreading from her chin. The tears were going to come anyway. “Because it’s my fault. They’re dead because of who I am, decisions that I made—”
“No. They died because of the Council, for decisions that Three, and Lucas, and whoever else they’re in bed with made. They died because they loved you, and they wanted you to live. You looked away at the end. You looked away. But I didn’t. Your mother never faltered. She didn’t falter, and she didn’t let go of you. She didn’t give you up, not even at the end. Do you think the woman who valued you more than life would say you don’t deserve it?”
He kept talking, but she couldn’t hear any of it. The tears had come, too loud and ugly for her to be aware of much more than being pulled close to his chest and the rumble of words inside of it. Finally, the rumble stopped, and he just held her.
A little while later, the tears stopped coming, too.
She stood still, even after the hiccupping breaths had eased, allowing herself to be held. It felt good. Not surprising. Under the scowls and barked orders, Reyes was a beautiful man. He was also solid and warm. She sniffled and rubbed her cheek against his chest, moving closer and sliding her arms around his waist. She drew in a deep, relaxing breath and enjoyed the familiar almost-tickle of the Dust moving within her. It pooled in her chest and belly, and all along her inner arms, as if drawn into the embrace as well. It swirled lower, too….
Under her ear, his heart skipped. So did the sound of his breathing.
Her eyes flew open. What was she doing?
Lena yanked her arms from Reyes and stepped away. She crossed her arms, and her mouth worked for a moment. “I—I’m sorry. I mean, thank you. I’m good now. So thank you.” She didn’t want to look up from the spot on his chest that was damp from her tears. She had to.
His lips twitched, but his eyes were still grave and concerned. “You sure?”
“Yep. All better.”
“Lena—”
“Thank you, Reyes. Really, I’m good. Thank you. You went above and beyond. Thanks.”
You can stop thanking him now. It was just a damn hug. It was. Why was her heart racing?
Reyes searched her face, as if looking for something. Whatever conclusion he reached, he nodded and crossed to the little table.
She moved in the opposite direction to perch on the edge of the cot.
Wincing and favoring his left side, Reyes pulled the straps of a bag he’d been wearing slung across his back over his head.
“Oh, yeah,” she mumbled, mostly to herself. “Broken ribs.”
He glanced over, shrugging his right shoulder in acknowledgment of his injury.
She’d forgotten to offer to help him back at Ace’s. She hadn’t offered when he got here, either. He had broken ribs because of her. He’d spent the last day and night in serious pain. And he was the one comforting her.
“Come here,” she said hoarsely, beckoning him over.
Reyes made one startled sweep of her and the cot. His brows rose. “Enticing as you are, Lena,” he drawled, “That’s really not what you need right now. I’m going to have to pass.”
Her mouth fell open. She snapped it shut. The heat of a redhead’s flush flooded up her skin, from chest to face. “I’m not offering to screw you, Reyes. I’m going to fix your ribs. Or do you like being in pain and short of breath?”
“Fix my ribs?” He stopped working at the knot securing a rectangular flap over the bag’s opening. She had his full attention now. “You can do that?”
She shrugged. Then, unable to help it, she smirked. “I’m multi-talented. I can smash a room over you and break your ribs. And then I can fix them.”
His guffaw almost sounded like a cough of pain. He settled the bag and crossed to her.
Lena gestured. “Take off your shirt.”
He hissed out a breath as he pulled it over his head.
Her gaze rose with it, flowing over the skin revealed by the rising shirt, then made a slower return trip back down over his chest and abdomen. Yes, he was a finely built man. She couldn’t resist needling him a little to remind him of how he’d come into her life and turned it upside down.
“I don’t blame you for thinking I was propositioning you, considering you’ve talked to my sister. I know what she thinks of me. I am a little surprised you turned me down so fast.” She tilted her head back so she could look him in the face as he pulled the shirt away. She cocked a brow, making her voice a pointed purr. “Especially since you did promise to be good to me when we met. Remember?”
Reyes rolled his eyes.
Lena laughed. Still chuckling, she inspected the offending ribs. Livid bruises spread across his side and curved around to his back. She made a spinning motion with her fingers.
He dutifully turned. “This isn’t going to hurt, is it?”
She met his suspicious gaze, struggling to hold back another laugh. “No, Reyes. It isn’t going to hurt.”
“I’m fine with pain,” he growled, “I just like a little warning.”
She lifted her hands and placed them on his warm skin. She didn’t have to be in physical contact in order to make the Dust heal another. It was all mental. But the contact made her feel more connected.
She traced the contours of his ribs around her hands. Where his skin curved over the muscle and bones of his chest and abdomen, his olive tone paled. She focused in, past his skin, her vision blurring as she called to the Dust living within him. They woke and swarmed to the site of Reyes’s injured ribs. She told them how to pulse, and they sent currents of energy into his bones and the bruised flesh surrounding them to stimulate his cells. She could feel his skin warm under her hands and instructed a slight adjustment. She wasn’t sure if it the warmth or the contact or maybe even the connection of moments
ago spurred her, but the urge to turn the touch into a caress nearly overwhelmed her. Just a little more and then—
“Stop.” Reyes’s voice, tinged with alarm, intruded on her thoughts. “Lena! Stop!”
His rough hands pulled her own away from his skin. He held her arms between them and gave them a small shake to get her attention. His eyes were wide and alarmed. He searched her face.
She blinked. She gave a final instruction and sighed, pulling away from the Dust. “What?”
“You’re glowing.” He swallowed. He didn’t release her arms, as if he thought he might have to hold her up.
“Yeah? Sparks do that. I’m overdue for grounding because of…because of what happened.”
“No. Lena. You’re….” His words trailed off. He shook his head. “It’s not the Spark latent bloom. Only we can see that. This is different. You’re actually….” He shook his head and released her to hold one hand up between them and the wall. The stark dark outline of his hand appeared on it, a shadow cast by her. “You’re actually lighting the room. I’ve never seen anything like this. Are you okay?”
“I’m fine.” Except she couldn’t look away from the shadows she cast on the wall.
He dropped his arm to get her attention. “How’s your head?”
From the way he looked at her, he clearly expected her to fall to the ground writhing in pain at any moment. She should be on the floor, incapacitated by pain and the need to ground, but she wasn’t.
Instead of answering, she lifted her hand. She was glowing, the Dust beneath her skin incandescent. It wasn’t subtle, either.
Wicked Legends: A Dystopian Paranormal Romance and Urban Fantasy Collection Page 137