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 told 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.