She marched up to him, planted her hands on her hips, and tilted her head back. “You could have told me, Reyes.”
His lips twitched, and his eyes sparked with humor, but he mostly managed to keep from laughing. “First, enough with this ‘Reyes’ garbage. If you can call Jackson by his name, you can use mine. Second…” He paused, clearly trying a little harder not to laugh. “That is not the kind of thing you’d have wanted to hear from me of all people.”
“Is that right?”
“Yes. It is right.” He was laughing. “Pretty sure the last thing you want to hear from the guy who ruined your life is that you’re irresistible.”
“Irresistible.” Lena crossed her arms over her chest and shook her head. “Ha. I remember you resisting just fine when you thought I was propositioning you back in the safe house. And you could have mentioned it then. Or when I started glowing and we were discussing my power.”
The smile faded from his face. He cocked his head. “My ribs were broken. And I could not have mentioned it then. That glow was almost my undoing.”
She pulled away a little at the intensity in his face. Her breath caught.
Then Reyes blinked, and it was gone. He tilted his head back and smiled again. “We never did find out what caused that, did we?” The question was light. “Remind me to ask Sam if he knows.”
She reminded herself to breathe. “Sam?”
She was willing to be distracted. She had managed to convince herself that Reyes was nothing more than the weapon he’d made of himself. She was pretty sure it wasn’t safe to do otherwise.
“Mm hm. That’s who we’re going to see. If you’re ready?”
As Lena preceded him out the door, she could have sworn he made a small sound of frustration, or perhaps relief. When she turned back to him in the hallway, he was all business. He led her back the way she’d gone with Thomas the night before, making light conversation the whole way, telling her about the repairs to the damage she’d caused to the Council building and the ongoing search for her in and around Azcon.
They crossed into the atrium again, and the sunlight dazzled her. She looked longingly out at the garden, but Reyes…Alex…crossed the atrium lobby and through a locked entry point into a corridor behind it.
The corridor here was unlike any other in the fort. Thick, wall-to-wall carpeting stretched from one end of the floor to the other. The air felt cool and dry, unlike the humid underground air pumped through the main complex. The lights were recessed into the ceiling.
“What is this place?” She didn’t know why she whispered, but it seemed appropriate in the hushed atmosphere of the hallway.
“Well, officially it doesn’t exist anymore. If it is ever spoken of, it’s remembered as Barracks Hall 13. The guys who lived here—” Alex made a little shrug and smiled “—they called it Sunny Acres.”
She frowned. “Sunny Acres?”
Alex nodded. He gestured her forward with his head and padded down five paired doorways to one on the left. Once she joined him, he put his hand on the knob. He didn’t turn it. He stared down at her for a moment as if trying to gain some measure of her. Finally, he gave her a bemused smile.
“You’re about to meet Sam.”
She nodded. “Yes. Sam. Who is…?”
“Sam’s a friend of mine. He was one of my teachers. Later, he became…let’s call him a mentor.” He took a deep breath and laughed softly. Was he laughing at himself? “He was a light to a boy who didn’t think light existed anymore. He was a light to a lot of boys.”
She felt her brows rising. “Wait. You were a boy once? You had a friend?”
He rolled his eyes. “Cute. You’ll see. Sam is going to blow your mind.”
The room was hushed and comfortable like the hallway. Quiet, humming machines clustered around an empty bed. The wall closest to them was lined floor to ceiling with shelves bursting with books. The view directly across from them, however, captured her attention.
It was a garden. Or at least, it had been painted to look like one. A tree painted into the corner leaned out over the rest of the scene, sheltering it with thin, arching branches covered in pale green leaves. Grass moved out away from the wall, and hedges of flowers appeared to bloom as far as the eye could see. Birds seemed to hover, captured in mid-flight.
An ancient man hunched in a wheeled chair facing the wall. He stared out. His scalp shone through thin wisps of white hair, pale skin mottled with age spots like craters on the surface of the moon. His hunched back bent him forward, and his body bobbed with constant movement. Even his hands, misshapen fingers curled upon themselves, moved on the arms of the wheelchair, silent tap and then retreat. Tap. Retreat.
She felt her breath catching in her throat. She remembered Erwin’s quiet voice the day before. The oldest of them began dying sixty years ago. The oldest of them began dying. What about the youngest?
Alex moved across to him. “Sam?”