“He’s the one who endangered everyone in the building, you mean!”
The Councilor managed to raise his voice over Reyes without increasing his volume. “Yes, Alejandro, I know. And your quick thinking saved us from his irresponsible actions. But were you never a junior agent with more enthusiasm than sense?”
“No, sir.” Reyes’s denial came quickly, flat and final.
“I value enthusiasm, Agent Reyes. I’ve already said I think an enthusiastic agent should be allowed a moment of redemption.” He turned back to Lucas. “Tell me, Agent Brayer, would you like a further opportunity to salvage this situation?”
Reyes was still. Disbelief flared in his eyes.
“I would, very much, sir.”
The Councilor nodded firmly. “You’ll have it, then. Do what you must to get what we want. You have full authority.”
Hernandez nodded his agreement. The Councilor clapped his hands once. Reyes made a suspicious survey of the other three men, lightning fast, before dropping his gaze back to her. He seemed confused and angry. Had he fallen from favor? Good.
The Councilor’s gaze raked over Lena once more before he left them, his satisfaction evident in the angle of his chin and the gleam in his eye.
Reyes managed to catch her eye. He held her, staring down as if trying to impart something to her without words. She wasn’t interested. She returned his gaze, feeding him all of the rage and betrayal that she felt in one hateful look. His lips parted. He took a step back, then turned and walked away to a corner of the room, outside her field of vision.
Lucas, smug, tracked him. “What are you doing?”
Reyes’s low voice rasped out. “You want to salvage. So salvage. Don’t worry about me.”
“You’re not leaving?”
His brief laugh slashed across the room at the younger man. “No. I’m not leaving, Lucas. I’m witnessing. And I’m waiting for the inevitable fuck-up.”
If not for the current creating burning static through her body and her mind, Lena might have laughed.
Lucas curled his lip. He turned his back to Reyes and breathed in through his nostrils. After a moment, he reached into his pocket and removed a small folded packet of papers. After tearing off a square, he carefully refolded and pocketed the packet. He crossed to one of the agents guarding the door and passed him the slip of paper. “Go to this address. Ask the woman there to accompany you back.”
Reyes snapped, “Whoa, whoa, whoa. I thought you were going to salvage the situation, not compound it.”
Hernandez spoke up, too. “Agent Brayer? What are you doing? We have everything we need here.”
Lucas turned his head back and spoke to the Councilor’s Director of Security coolly. “The Councilor gave me his authority. I’ll be doing it my way. Do you understand?”
Hernandez blinked his displeasure, but shrugged and crossed his arms. He said nothing. Lena held tight to the threads of her concentration. Why was Lucas allowed to speak to a superior like that? Why had he been given another chance? She didn’t think Reyes knew, either.
After the agent who’d been sent to retrieve the mystery woman had gone, Lena tried to work through the puzzle of who could be coming to assist Lucas, but her mind began to fuzz out again.
Lucas put his hands into his pockets and wandered back to his place beside Lena. He looked down at her with a broad smile. “Look at her,” he said to Hernandez. “She’s already recovered. They have incredible recovery from pain, even more than the average Spark. It would be amazing if they weren’t such monstrosities.” He shook his head and glanced over at the larger man. “Your current may be keeping her from zapping us. But it won’t work again to hurt her. She’ll adapt. She’s trying to figure out how right now, if she hasn’t already. She’ll make herself immune to the pain.”
Hernandez’s eyes narrowed. His hand moved on the slender handle before him.
Current sliced through her again. She was ready. She couldn’t focus enough to talk to their Dust, no. But she could get her own to act, even if only sluggishly through the interference in her head. She’d already moved thin insulating layers of Dust between her skin and the eight pads. Electricity still arced through her, heated pain pouring through her flesh and blood and bones and then out into the surface behind her. She could bear it. It wasn’t even a grounding.
The current abruptly stopped. Hernandez ground his teeth together loudly in the silence that followed.