Spark Rising (14 page)

His head lifted. “Not hardly. Do you know how much this thing is worth?”

At her shrug, he laughed. “A lot.”

“Well, it helped anyway. I spent a lot of time on that poem you marked.”

“The poem I—” Alex’s brows dipped in puzzlement as he flipped it open to the page marked by the slip of paper.

His eyes moved as he skimmed it and noted the underlined lines. The lines hadn’t been by his hand, then. He closed the book.

“Never mind. I know exactly how it got in here,” he murmured to himself. “Would’ve been the last time I came through here. Can’t believe I didn’t notice, even if I was distracted.” His face clouded over at some memory. Reyes shook his head, physically shaking it away.

He looked at her again. “Are you not a poetry fan, then?”

“No, I like poetry. Are you kidding? I was the weird, hidden child, remember? I read a lot. A lot.” She nodded toward the book in his hands. “But I’d never heard of him. William Blake. His stuff was hard at first, but he’s good.” She’d keep the details of her snarky internal debate with Alex’s margin notes to herself. “Is he your favorite?”

“He is good. But no, Stephen Crane is my favorite.” A ghost of a smile came and went. “My father put a book of Crane’s poems into my bag when I was sent to school. It had an inscription from his father to him. Then he’d inscribed it for me.”

Lena shivered. He so casually referred to being shipped to the Ward School, the school for strongly gifted children. They were sent there to be trained and never returned home. Once they reached the age of majority, they were given an assignment in another zone, and that was that. Taken from home at five, they would never see their families again. After what he’d told her earlier, he clearly had lingering pain from the separation. How hard would it have been, if instead of hiding her, her parents had given her to the Council?

Reyes’s eyes were distant. He came back to himself with a self-conscious grimace. “It took me a while to appreciate the book, of course. I was a pretty damn precocious child, but I wasn’t reading Crane at five. Don’t think I did more than read the inscription before I turned fifteen.”

She nodded. “But I bet you had the inscription memorized by then.”

His flicked a look at her then glanced away. He made a little shrugging, nodding motion, acknowledging the truth of her words but discounting their importance.

“Have you ever asked yourself why he wanted you to have the book? Other than, you know, his father had given it to him?”

Reyes barked a laugh. He pulled the bag back around and shook crumbs out of the bag and onto the table before stowing the Blake book inside. “I know exactly why he wanted me to have it. He’d marked certain poems, underlined passages, made notes to me, or maybe himself. It was all there, as if he were with me. The things he thought were important to know or to think about.” He pushed the bag back around to his back and looked down at his hands. When he looked up again, he quietly recited a verse:

“In the desert

I saw a creature, naked, bestial,

Who, squatting upon the ground,

Held his heart in his hands,

And ate of it.

I said, “Is it good, friend?”

“It is bitter – bitter,” he answered;

“But I like it

Because it is bitter,

And because it is my heart.”

Lena sat, wordless, for a long moment after he’d fallen silent. Finally she ventured, “So, presumably he…
explained…
that grotesque poem to you in a helpful note?”

Reyes laughed, a burst of sound after the quiet of his voice reciting words written hundreds of years before. “Not that one,” he told her with a grin. “But he did put a star next to it so I’d know to read it with extra attention. It was a very helpful star.” He laughed again and then stood, telling her to rise with a cock of his head. “C’mon. Let’s go.”

She stood and turned to the door. Reyes went instead to the corner. He knelt in front of the bucket.
Was he…?
She averted her eyes.

His soft chuckle had her turning back again. “I’m not using it. I’m moving it. The passage to the store is through the basement, and it’s under the bucket.”

She tilted her head to look past his shoulder. Sure enough, he had popped a section of the floor up and slid it to the side.

“Well, I’ll be damned,” Lena murmured. “A bolt hole.”

Reyes propped his wrists on his knees. His brows knit. She wasn’t sure if his scorn was playful or real.

“Did you think there wasn’t one?”

“Well, I didn’t think to look under the piss bucket.”

“Isn’t that the idea?” His voice was droll. He gestured gallantly. “After you.”

She wiped damp hands down the sides of her skirt. Was she really going to do this? Blindly follow Reyes and hope he led her where she wanted to go?

She stepped around him to tread down the narrow stairs winding down into darkness.

Yes. She really was.

Chapter 11

Reyes disappeared over the lip of the surface above her as Lena climbed the rusty, pitted rungs of a ladder up the inside of a very old sewer access point. He’d already told her the tunnels from the safe house were the longest they had. Instead of having to make their way through the arroyos and canyons surrounding Relo-Azcon to their departure point, the tunnels would deposit them near their destination. It was still risky to be making the trip during the day, but according to Reyes, it was infrequently patrolled. Old Town had long been stripped of anything valuable and was not of interest to scavengers or the Council.

She tilted her head back, looking to see how much further just as he leaned over to offer her his arm. He hauled her up the last three rungs, her feet dangling in the air for a moment, before depositing her on the ground beside himself.

He had one finger pressed to his lips for quiet. He gestured with his head down the street and then held up two fingers. He pointed to a nearby opening. The doorframe had been pulled free and leaned down, almost touching a pile of broken cinder blocks piled haphazardly at the entrance. Desert sand had blown in to form a long, sloped drift on the far side. She quickly darted over and took a knee, leaning down behind the drift.

Reyes moved the sewer grate back into place. He joined her, glancing over his shoulder in the direction he had cautioned her about before tugging her sleeve and leading her the opposite way. He followed the contours of the buildings, hugging the walls when practical then darting out to move around the debris-based sand dunes when necessary.

He didn’t take her far. Only four smallish buildings away, they crossed a wide open area of broken cement. They dodged inside the building, Reyes leading the way toward his goal. He dropped down into a drainage grate at the back of a long, narrow room. She joined him.

He led her through the dark sub-levels until they reached a large metal door. He popped open a security box, leaned in, and placed his eye on a small tube that extended from the wall. Reyes straightened after a pulse of green light, already palming the security box to reseal the little tube. She leaned in closer as the tube withdrew, trying to get a better view of the lock keyed to his eye.

Before the tube had even tucked back into its hidden hole, locks from within the metal door clicked and ground. It hissed and slid out from the wall. Reyes reached for it with a grin and hauled on the handle in front of her, completing the door’s movement away from the opening. Her eyes widened. It was almost as wide as she was tall.

Where were they going?

Reyes entered through the wide opening, and she followed. Lights began to click on in the cavernous space. She continued across to the metal railing of the entry platform. She was dimly aware of Reyes closing them in and the sound of hissing air and cycling locks.

They were three levels up from the floor. Below, a train rested upon a track. She’d only seen trains from a distance, and they were the bulky steam engines the Council ran from zone to zone. They were nothing like this sleek machine. Its track headed into a darkened tunnel.

She turned to Reyes, eyes wide in spite of herself. He grinned like a little boy.

“Surprise.” He tugged on her hand, pulling her toward the stairs. “C’mon. Let’s get outta here.” He trotted down the stairs.

Lena followed, her mouth agape. The implication of power and resources boggled her mind. Who were these people Reyes worked for? She didn’t know what they wanted from her, but they had the resources to give her what she wanted.

She stopped in the entry to the train. Reyes crossed to the controls and powered it up. Her mind flashed to the scene in the Council room, when he had hidden out of sight in the corner. Even though she understood why he’d waited, and she knew that he’d worked hard to get her out since then, the memory was enough to leave her hovering outside.

Reyes glanced back over his shoulder. “C’mon.” He jerked his head to urge her to step in. His smile froze when he saw her expression, though, and he turned to face her. “You know, we will protect you. I promise.”

“You’ve made a lot of promises. You’re asking for a lot of faith.” She swallowed, but she stepped through. She didn’t know who his people were, but if they could give her what she needed, then she was committed.

Reyes touched a button. The door hissed shut behind her as the train lifted. He turned back to the controls. They pulled away from the station, entering the dark tunnel. Regularly placed, long lights glowed high up in the tunnels. As they gained speed, the lights seemed to melt into each other until they were one long, continuous glow.

“How fast are we going?” Lena asked.

He grinned. “Fast.”

She nodded. “Where are we going? Am I allowed to know now that we’re on the way?”

He glanced at her sideways. “It was never a secret. Not really.” At her snort, he protested, “It wasn’t!” He shrugged. “We’re going to a place we call Fort Nevada.”

“Fort Nevada? I’ve never heard of it.” She chewed her lower lip then asked the obvious question. “It’s in old Nevada?”

At his nod of confirmation, she shook her head. “That’s weeks away.”

“About thirty minutes, actually.”

She looked around the little train in appreciation.

Reyes chuckled. “Don’t get any ideas. This train will only respond to those who have been keyed to it.”

She raised a brow. “So I can’t leave when I want?”

He kept his focus on the blackness of the tunnel before them. “You can leave. Once you’re safe. I told you that.”

She fell silent. Misgivings rose. Had she made the wrong choice? Trusted the wrong side? Reyes had saved her. He had helped her, all along the way. Was it all a sham? Maybe she’d been alone so long she didn’t know how to read people anymore. Or was he really that good?

He glanced at her sideways, his eyes crinkled. “You still don’t trust me?”

“I don’t know you.”

He barked a short laugh. “There are only two others alive who know the real me better than you, Lena. I’m not sure what more I can do to reassure you.” A frown dipped his brows low and then disappeared.

What, because he’d told her about his childhood? And shared some poetry? What kind of life did he lead if that meant she knew him?

And who are you to question his life choices, Miss Desert Hermit?

She mulled it over, chewing her lip, fingers moving restlessly over the edge of the control panel in front of her. Reyes left her alone, immersed in his own thoughts. All too soon, the train slowed. The blur of lights began to thin and separate. A light grew ahead of them.

The tunnel opened into a huge space much like the one they had left behind. Multiple levels of metal-grated floors were connected by stairs. This area, however, was not empty. People moved around with purpose. Lena took them all in. Reyes had an army.

The train eased to a stop. Reyes’s fingers tapped on the panel, and it powered down. The train sank beneath them, and a humming eased and then stopped. The door on the side of the cabin opened.

“You ready?” He waited for her, hip propped on the panel, the picture of relaxed ease though barely tamped energy rolled off of him.

She took a deep breath. She’d made this decision. She’d roll with whatever came of it, as she always did, and she’d take what she needed to make it all right. She shrugged one shoulder.

“Ready.” Her answer earned her a smile.

He turned and gestured her out. She walked alongside him as he talked.

“It doesn’t look like much down here. But I promise there’s more to us than sewer tunnels and a gutted building.” He waved at a young man who rose from a desk at the end of the platform. The young man nodded and saluted.

Saluted?
Military
.

Reyes responded and then placed his hand on the small of her back, guiding her down a short flight of stairs toward a set of double metal doors along the back wall. He went to the wall, palmed a small box with a button atop another. When he took his hand away, the top button had lit.

“Are you hungry?” he asked her. “Do you need a bathroom?”

“Yes, and
yes
,” she answered.

The doors in front of them slid open to reveal a small room. He walked in. She hovered, hanging back as she looked for the exit.

He had turned and smiled, but his face showed the edge of nerves. “It’s an elevator. It’s like stairs. It’s going to take us up.” He pointed up.

“Oh.” Lena walked inside the box. The doors closed behind her.

Reyes leaned around her and pushed a numbered button. Eighteen. He took a long, slow breath as the box shimmied slightly.

Her stomach dropped. Her hand flashed out to the wall.

He spoke, his words a little quick. “I hate the damn things, but it’s perfectly safe.” He nodded to reassure her, then continued, his voice distracting her from the strange sensation. “I’m going to take you to the dining hall. You can use the restroom, and we’ll get you something more substantial to eat. Then I’ll take you to your quarters, and we’ll figure out—”

“My quarters? I have a room? Already?”

Reyes nodded. “It won’t be much. After all, Fort Nevada is just a school.”

“A school?” Her brows knit together. Her stomach lurched, and it wasn’t because the elevator had stopped moving. “I thought this was like a military fort or something? That you were an army planning to take on the Council of Nine?”

The doors slid open, and he stepped out, his breath coming out in an audible sigh of relief. He turned back to her. “Well, yeah,” he said, “that’s the idea. But we’re also the school.”

The words barely penetrated. Behind him, painted on the wall, an eagle soared over words in some long-irrelevant language on a scrolled banner. Above the bird, large, black-framed lettering proclaimed, “The Ward School.” At the bottom, below the scroll, the curving words, “Out of Darkness, Light” closed the crest.

The elevator tried to close, and Reyes’s arm shot out to hold it back. “Lena?” He reached out to pull her toward him.

She shook him off. “The Ward School? You brought me to the Ward School?” Her voice was shrill in her ears. Her father had warned her about the Ward School. He had told her over and over that it was dangerous.

Reyes gave her a puzzled look. “Yes. I thought you understood. I told you we’d teach you the things you missed out on. Where else would I take you to learn?”

“Get me out of here.” She couldn’t catch her breath, even though her lungs rapidly pumped air in and out of her chest.

“What? Lena, what?” He stared at her. “What’s the problem? If you’re worried about safety, this is the one place you’ll be safest, and I—”

“No! This is the one place, the single, solitary place my father told me I should never go. This is the place he hid me from.”

A trio of young boys walked through the arch before them, arms laden with trays of sandwiches. The boys looked over at Reyes and Lena with interest, clearly wondering what her outburst had been about. He turned his head and gave them a blistering look. They picked up their pace and hurried down the hallway and around the corner.

Reyes turned back to her. He leaned in and lowered his voice to a persuasive murmur, lifting his hands to cup her shoulders as he had back in the safe house. “I don’t know what that’s about. I have no idea what your father thought he knew. But I can tell you that we will not harm you. It just won’t happen.”

“Then get me out of here. Now.” She turned and waved her hand over the buttons on the wall. Nothing happened.

Reyes reached out and caught her hand. He turned her around. “I can’t do that.” From the tone of his voice, the slow, heavy regret already tingeing his words, this conversation wasn’t going to end well.

“You won’t.”

“No. I won’t. I can’t and I won’t. Not until you have all the information you need to make a rational decision.” A muscle pulsed at the upper end of his jaw, just below his temple. “Tell me why you want to leave. Something besides, ‘Daddy sacrificed my childhood for reasons he didn’t share with me.’ Something that makes sense.”

“I don’t know his reasons. He didn’t share them with me. I was a child.”

“That’s right. You were a gifted child, and you belonged here.” He was losing his temper.

“Well, my father thought otherwise strongly enough that he made sure I didn’t come here.”

“He did. But you’re here now, and here is where you’ll stay.”

And there it was. She drew in a long breath. From his face, it was clear he hadn’t wanted to deal with this. Not yet. The memory of his excited grin from the train was almost enough to quell her, almost enough to make her want to believe what he’d said about safety and belonging.

“So I’m a prisoner?”

Reyes closed his eyes, but not before an answering hard anger bloomed in them. When he opened them, it was gone, replaced by a formal neutrality. He’d slipped back into the mask. He dropped her hand, and his cool, clipped voice was all agent. “Not a prisoner, no. You are an indefinite guest.”

He turned away and walked to the arched opening. “And as a guest, you should eat, make yourself comfortable, and then I’ll show you to your quarters. We have a surprise for you. One I hope you’ll appreciate for the effort it took to make happen.” He raised his arm and gestured into the dining hall.