Word and Breath (29 page)

The door slid open.

Largan was immediately confronted by an armed guard, but the guard let him pass as soon as he recognized the captain.

He took the long, dim hallway from the basement to the old bunker that almost everyone had forgotten about.

Largan hadn’t forgotten. And he’d found, on more than one occasion, that it was the perfect place to hide something, while still keeping it easily accessible.

There was another guard at the entrance to the bunker, but the man stood aside to let Largan in.

The girl on the cot in the corner sat up as soon as she saw him. She was small and fragile-looking, with brown hair like her sister’s and clever blue eyes. She was a nice girl who didn’t deserve to be used the way she was. Largan had gone out of his way to make sure she was comfortable and hoped this project wouldn’t conclude with a less pleasant eventuality.

“You again,” she huffed.

She was also kind of sassy.

“Have you made any progress?” he asked, gesturing toward a sheath of paper that rested on the table next to the cot.

“No. I told you before. I can read the Old Language a little, but I can’t understand this nonsense at all.”

Largan believed her. He’d even needed a Breather down here to verify she was telling the truth. He’d thought it was worth a try, but it wasn’t why the girl was here anyway. Her role had always been leverage to get her sister to cooperate.

Jannie had been too young when Marshall Cole had died.

Largan picked up the pile of paper and straightened it automatically. It wasn’t something to take lightly—an unlawful photocopy of a precious book that only a handful of people knew existed.

“Don’t worry about it,” he said. “Your sister will be here to help you tomorrow.”

Connor felt strange without his glasses.

He’d gotten contacts a couple of years ago, thinking they might occasionally provide some additional flexibility as he worked below the Union radar. But he hated them. He was conscious of them every time he blinked, and they made his eyes feel too big for his skull.

He’d also darkened his hair—with one of the cheap, wash-out dye jobs—and had put on Jenson’s tweed jacket.

He hoped Riana wouldn’t find out what he was doing. She’d have his head after the way he’d lectured her on the trip to the Archives she’d made with Mikel.

Connor straightened his shoulders and walked into the front entrance of the main administration building of Union affairs in Newtown.

It felt like any moment people would start pointing at him for being an infiltrator and a fake, but no one even gave him a second look.

When he approached a bored-looking man at the front desk, Connor showed him Jenson’s Union ID. The man glanced at it and looked up at Connor. Apparently, the appearance was close enough because he waved Connor toward the pass gate.

Intent on looking casual, Connor slid the scan bar of the card through the slot on the gate and waited, hoping no one could tell how fast his heart was beating.

This was the riskiest moment of his trip. He’d tested the barcode of Jenson’s ID online and it had worked fine—it always took a couple of weeks for administrative services to catch up with things like employee deaths. But Connor could only hope that the ID wasn’t tagged by Union security—as Riana’s certainly was.

The pass gate slid open without any problem, and Connor walked through with a discreet exhalation.

“Building and Grounds?” he asked the guard on the other side of the gate.

The guard pointed toward the elevator. “Fourth floor.”

Connor went up to the fourth floor, smiling self-consciously when the dark-haired woman on the elevator kept slanting him flirtatious looks. When he got off, he walked through a couple of hallways before he found the office he needed.

There was a middle-aged woman behind the desk, wearing too much jewelry and overly big hair.

Although he was still on edge, Connor walked confidently up to her desk. Showing her Jenson’s ID, he said, “I’m from the Office of Readers. I’m supposed to get architectural schematics of the Office of Public Safety building.”

The woman gave him a faintly quizzical look. She smelled strongly of a too sweet perfume. “Why?”

Connor snorted and gave her his best look of sympathetic frustration. “It’s a pain in the butt, but you know how they are.” He didn’t specify who “they” were, but her expression made it clear he didn’t have to. “I’m trying to verify a document that came across my desk.”

Noticing she was starting to look interested, he pulled out a document from his briefcase—one he’d spent an hour creating earlier that afternoon. “It’s a plan of that building. It looks right to me, but my boss insisted I come here to verify it.”

The woman nodded, as if she understood the burden a demanding boss could be. “You can’t take the schematic with you.”

“Believe me, I don’t want to. I’m just going to glance at it. I’m hoping to get done with this quickly so I can get off a little early—for once.”

Chuckling, the woman disappeared into the back room and returned with a roll of oversized paper.

Connor unrolled it on the desk and looked over each sheet hurriedly, so he wouldn’t make her suspicious.

The last sheet was the plan for the basement level, and he spent a little extra time studying that one.

He found what he was looking for in less than thirty seconds.

“Thanks,” he said, rolling up the pages again so the woman wouldn’t have to do it and then stuffing his homemade document back into his briefcase. “That will have to be good enough.”

The woman laughed sympathetically. “Have a good day.”

His mission accomplished, Connor left. He went back down the elevator and through the lobby, waving at the front desk on his way out.

It had been stupid to come here like this. If Jenson were still alive, he would have laid into Connor for being so reckless, reminding him he was too important to take these kinds of unnecessary risks.

Of course, Jenson had hardly been one to avoid risks himself.

Connor glanced down at Jenson’s picture on the ID. His cousin’s wry smile seemed to taunt him.

Connor had been foolish. It wouldn’t have been that complicated to assign someone else to access the schematics—probably in a safer way.

He knew exactly why he had done this, and it did him no credit.

Their plan to find and rescue Jannie Cole the following day was a good one—as good as they’d be able to come up with on such short notice. They’d started with Mikel’s ideas, combined them with Connor’s organizational skills and eye for detail, and included other nuances from the rest of them. It was as sound a plan as they could come up with, but it would involve a significant amount of risk for those involved.

Mikel would get to be the hero.

It did Connor no credit at all. In fact, he hated to admit to that part of himself.

But sometimes he didn’t want to always be careful, calculating, and research-oriented. The quiet leader in the background.

Safe.

***

Mikel was busy all afternoon and evening, getting ready for the next day. It was late when he stopped by Tava’s apartment again.

He shouldn’t have stopped by at all. Riana was probably asleep, since she needed to be rested for the following day. But he was worried about her, and he wanted to make sure she was all right.

She felt like his to take care of. He’d never felt that way about another person—not once in all his life.

She wasn’t asleep. Tava had already turned in for the evening, but Riana was still up, evidently just sitting around and worrying.

He sat next to her on the couch after she let him in. She wore a pair of Tava’s pajamas, and her hair was loose, hanging in a rumpled fall down her back. “I can only stay for a few minutes,” he said. “You need to get some rest.”’

“There’s no way I can sleep. I can’t stop thinking about everything that could go wrong tomorrow. And then Jannie…”

He reached out to massage the back of her neck through her thick hair. “Shh. Stressing about it isn’t going to help.”

“I know. But how am I supposed to not stress?” Her tone was wry and made him smile.

“I can help you sleep, if you want.”

She made a face. “Thank you. But with Jannie still… It just feels like a cheat or something.”

He forced himself not to stiffen defensively. “It’s not a cheat. Haven’t you been around someone who always makes you comfortable, who you can always relax with?” When she nodded, he continued, “This is just like that. I was trying to explain earlier today. What I do isn’t artificial or unnatural. It’s just human—revved up a bit.”

She smiled at his choice of words.

“So, will you let me help you? You really do need to get some rest.”

“Okay,” she agreed, her eyelashes dropping almost shyly. “Thank you.”

She was sleeping on the couch anyway, so she just pulled a blanket up over her and stretched out. Mikel repositioned her until she was settled with her head in his lap.

He stroked her hair. He hadn’t even opened a connection yet, but her body was already softening.

“That feels good,” she murmured.

Mikel swallowed and kept caressing the length of her silky hair. He started to comb his fingers through it on each stroke until they touched the skin at the back of her neck. He opened faint, glancing connections as he did, breathing in traces of her worry and her appreciation of him. When he felt the anxiety, he pulled it out.

She sighed, relaxing even more.

“Talk to me, Mikel.”

“About what?” He spoke as softly as she did.

“I want to know what you’re feeling too.”

He massaged her neck, finding the worst of her fear and relieving her of it. He felt it himself before it dissipated, but better he bear it than her. His mind was full of her—all of her spicy, untouched sweetness and strength—and he wanted to just enjoy it, take comfort in it.

Trying to talk about how he felt would be hard.

“Mikel?” she prompted. She sounded sleepy now, but she wasn’t asleep. He started to sense glimmers of disappointment and rejection because he refused to talk to her.

They were stronger than he expected. She had more faith in him than he deserved.

Not wanting to let her down, he forced out, “I like doing this for you.”

He felt her relax, both her body and her spirit. “Have you done it a lot?”

“Almost not at all. I usually use my gift to intensify feelings rather than relieve them. Or I try to pull out one thought or memory specifically. I honestly haven’t spent a lot of time trying to help someone else.”

“You’re helping me.” She shifted on the couch, getting more comfortable. “I haven’t helped a lot of people either.”

“Of course you have. You help your sister every day. You’re much more generous than I am.”

“I don’t believe that’s true.” Her eyes were closed now, and he could feel her mind getting a little blurry as he went back to stroking her hair. “You’re a better person than you think.”

“I won’t argue with you on that, since it works in my favor.”

She chuckled softly.

“After we rescue Jannie, we can get away from all of this,” he said, feeling more comfortable now that he’d started to talk. Not as vulnerable.

“Where will we go?” she asked in a groggy whisper.

With one hand, he kept caressing her hair. With the other, he pressed his fingers against her hand as it rested on the sofa cushion so he could open another connection.

“We can go to a free island.”

She liked that idea. He could feel it. “It’s too expensive to live there.”

“I have plenty of money saved up. We can live on the beach.”

“I’ve never been to a beach.”

“You’ll love it.”

“I always wanted to get married.”

He knew she would never have said such a thing had her guard not been completely down.

When he didn’t answer immediately, she added, “I know it’s out of style, but that’s how I was raised.”

He sensed a note of embarrassment but pulled it out before it could fully take shape. “I’ll marry you if that’s what you want, Riana. I’ll give you anything you want.” He’d always thought that only old-fashioned saps still got married. It had never even crossed his mind to consider the possibility for himself. But he wanted to be close to Riana in any way she would let him, and it didn’t matter to him whether that meant marriage or not.

He felt her pleasure and appreciation at his words, and they left him breathless.

“Just one more day,” he murmured, his voice far too thick. “Just one more day and this will be over. We can leave all this stress behind. We won’t have to worry about anyone but ourselves.”

“And Jannie.”

“Of course, Jannie.”

Because he still had the connection open, he felt something new. Something worried, almost guilty. Her thoughts were too muddled for him to sort it out, but it seemed centered on Connor’s face.

“He’s trying to drag you into something dangerous, Riana.”

“He needs my help.” Her new feeling coalesced into something recognizable. He tasted it as responsibility, and that eased the faint stirring of jealousy he’d been feeling.

“He’s gotten along fine without you all this time. It’s not your responsibility. We aren’t idealists like him, and you shouldn’t have to sacrifice everything because he asks you.”

He felt her questioning his words, testing them out. Then he felt her let go.

She sighed again, clearing her mind of everything except comfort and sleep.

Mikel relaxed too, although his chest ached strangely. He kept the lightest of connections open until she fell asleep.

Even then, he kept stroking her hair.

***

The next day, Mikel walked into the Office of Public Safety with an unconscious Riana draped over his shoulder.

She was genuinely unconscious, her body limp and unresponsive. Her warm weight as he strode through the halls and up the elevator felt like a reproach.

Everyone stared, from the security guards in the lobby, to the secretaries peering around their computers, to the tired woman mopping the floor on the sixth floor where he got off.

Had she been awake, Riana would have been mortified to be the center of so much attention and in such an undignified position. Her braids hung down his back and her rear was positioned just next to his head.

Feeling more and more uncomfortable—in a way that had nothing to do with his increasing breathlessness from hauling an unconscious woman so far—Mikel sustained his stoic expression as he entered Largan’s office.