Redemption (Enigma Black Trilogy Book #3) (31 page)

Ian brushed his hand over mine as his eyes remained fixed on Nicholas, who began speaking again after a brief pause. “We will have a couple of people stay back and operate the laptop if we regain power, as there will be those of us equipped with cameras, capturing the fighting the way it really is and not the way Brooks wants it presented. If we have power, the images will be live-streamed to the laptop, where we will attempt to hack into Brooks’ broadcasting channel, prompting teleprompters around the country to spring into action. Across the country, members of the other units have stayed back and are planning a simultaneous attack on the substations to restore and keep power flowing to the people, so they can have the opportunity to see what’s going on and to know there are people out there willing to fight so that they don’t have to live in fear.”

“Or that their fear has been misplaced,” Ian said.

“Quite,” Nicholas said, giving Ian a small smile. “It’s important to show them all that they haven’t crippled us by taking Marshall away and that our resolve remains true. And though we will do everything in our power to fight for his return, even if we fail, our rebellion will still live on without him—and without us, too.” Though he tried to remain composed, even strong, a certain despair had grabbed hold of him, weighing him down as he spoke. “But tonight we rest. So I suggest you enjoy each other’s company, gather up your gear and weapons to have ready for tomorrow, and know that, no matter what, what you are doing tomorrow will matter in some way to someone.” He stood up from the table to excuse himself before adding, “Our attack will begin at noon. Good luck and God speed to you all.” One by one, everyone at the table began to clap as Nicholas nodded and turned to walk away with the knowledge that his words would do little to comfort those whose lives would be lost tomorrow.

“Come on,” Ian said, standing up. I pushed my bowl to the side and stood up, excusing myself from the table. Jill nodded, giving me a blank stare as though her mind was light years away. Ian walked over to our shelving unit and climbed up to our compartment, holding the tarp open for me to climb through it. From this height, we were level with the windows of the warehouse, which revealed that nightfall was fast approaching, heralding what may be our last few hours together. Below, others were clearing the table as they left to make the most of the few hours they had remaining. Few even laughed as some of them joked around, mainly at Drake’s expense. I wondered how many of us would be around this time tomorrow and whether there would be any jokes left to exchange. “Hey,” Ian said, diverting my attention back to him.

I climbed into our compartment, noticing that he’d done some redecorating at some point during the day. Instead of clothes, two thick blankets lay in the middle of the compartment, making up our new bed. Another blanket, tattered and dirty, hung from another side of the compartment, fully concealing our space and providing us with complete privacy. For pillows, he had found duffel bags, which appeared to be stuffed with something to give them enough mass for us to rest our heads on them comfortably.

“Someone went dumpster diving,” I said, giving him an appreciative smile.

“Actually, you need to give me a little more credit than that because they came from the vacant apartment complex across the street, so I’d like to believe everything is completely sanitary.” He turned around, producing three small candles in jars, which he set down a couple of feet away from the bed and lit with a match from a book of matches he pulled out of his pocket. The light from the candles produced a glow that made even the confines of our compartment seem charming.

“Why, Ian Grant, is this how you wooed the ladies back home?”

“Nah, who needs romance when booze will do just fine,” he said, grinning up at me.

“You and I both know that’s not true.”

“Yeah, but that’s between you and me.”

“Always.”

“I hope so,” he said as he situated himself on the blanket, patting the spot next to him.

I made my way over to him and sat down, realizing that there was more than just a blanket underneath me. “You found an air mattress, too? Oh, Ian, I love you,” I said, gasping as my own words hit me.

“Yeah, I know, women love me for my air mattress,” he said, laughing. “Lie down. It’s not perfect. There’s a small leak in it somewhere and the air is slowly leaking out from underneath us, but I figured we’d make do.”

“It’s perfect,” I said, lying down next to him.

“It is.” He kissed my ear as he positioned his body firmly against mine. His arm wrapped tightly around my waist.

Tears crept into my eyes, and I did everything I could to suppress them, knowing that there would be plenty of time for them to fall tomorrow, and there was no place for them here tonight. My hand made its way to Ian’s draped around my waist and my fingers intertwined with his while my gaze trailed up to the pallet above us. “Ian,” I said, gasping. Displayed on each individual slat of the pallet, for as far as my eyes could see, were stars drawn with what appeared to be white chalk.

“I figured you’d want to sleep under the stars,” he said, his breath warming the back of my neck.

“You—you’re incredible,” I said. The tears escaped from my eyes and fell down my cheeks. “And damn you for making me cry.” My hand slapped his arm playfully as I sat up to take it all in.

“I try,” he said, rolling over onto his back. He remained silent as I took in the scene above us. “So, how about that wager we made?” he said after some timed had passed.

“Of course, how could I forget? What do you want, a foot rub? World peace?”

“You,” he answered matter-of-factly. “And not in the way you’re thinking right now.” I raised my eyebrow at him, smirking. “Okay, not
only
in the way you’re thinking right now,” he conceded. “I’m trying to keep my intentions honorable here.” He sat up next to me, staring up at his handiwork along with me. “Look, we don’t know what’s going to happen tomorrow, how everything is going to play out, or whether we’ll even get to see what the day after tomorrow has in store for us. But we do get tonight, and if it’s the only night we’re going to get, I don’t want to squander it. So let’s forget about tomorrow and live in the present.”

“I’d like that,” I said, resting my head on his shoulder. “So what are your most honorable intentions for tonight, Mr. Grant? What is it about me that you want?”

“Well, Ms. Stevens, for starters, I’d really like to know your middle name.”

“Guess,” I said.

“Marie. Every girl’s middle name is Marie, or so I’ve experienced.”

“Not even close.”

“Really? Wow. Okay, Celaine not Marie Stevens, I concede defeat.” He laughed as he brushed his fingers through my hair.

“It’s Elizabeth,” I said, directing my gaze at him. The light from the candles played in his eyes, making them sparkle more than usual.

“That was going to be my next guess.” He smirked. “Okay, no, it wasn’t. I wasn’t even close.”

“What’s yours?”

“William,” he answered. “After my father.” He brushed the back of his hand against my cheek. And at that moment, as I looked into his eyes, I could see my entire world changing as though he’d awoken a part of me that had lain dormant since my parents’ and Jake’s death, a part of me that not even Chase had been able to revive.

“Why a bar, Ian?” I asked. “You’re smart, you’re talented. Surely, there could have been other places for you to have found a job.”

“Now you’re giving me too much credit,” he said, laughing. “I don’t know. For a while, I took classes at a local community college and used the money I made in tips to help pay my tuition, but eventually, when I couldn’t afford to attend class anymore, I just decided that maybe mediocre was all I’d ever be. So, I guess, I just kind of gave up on the whole college thing, but couldn’t turn my back on the money thing because, you know, I’d starve and all.”

His revelation deepened my disdain for his mother and her non-existence in her son’s life. And I couldn’t help but wonder what his view of the world would be had his father not died. Had he actually had someone in his life who cared about him and encouraged him, making him realize that he is more than just simply mediocre.

“What did you study in school?”

“Photography.”

Duh, Celaine
.

“But I was also taking business courses because I eventually wanted to open my own studio and figured they would come in handy. You know, in a perfect world.”

I closed my eyes, taking in the feeling of his hand against my skin. “If we lived in this perfect world, one where we didn’t have to fight for our lives, where would you see yourself?” I asked him, catching him off guard.

“In that perfect world,” he said contemplatively. “Well, I guess I would be traveling the world with my camera, taking photographs to sell to magazines and living day to day with the woman I love by my side, waiting for the day when I became good enough for her to marry me, eventually have kids, and all that other stuff.” He grew sullen all of a sudden, his eyes trailing down toward the floor. “Of course, we all know that’s a dream, right?”

“Hey,” I said, tilting his head back up towards me. “Tonight, remember? We’ll worry about tomorrow later.”

“Right, tonight,” he said, his mood brightening.

I traced the outline of his lips with my index finger, finding myself entranced by their curvature. “Here’s one for you. Now, this may take you a while because it’s a pretty complicated question, but one that we all must answer in our lives at some point in time, nonetheless.”

“Oh, I’m bracing myself for this.” His lips moved to kiss my finger.

“What’s. Your. Favorite. Color?” I asked, adding an ounce of drama to my voice.

“Oh, now you’ve gone too far,” he said, trying to suppress a laugh. “In fact, I’m so appalled by the audacity of that question that I don’t think I can answer it.” I laughed as Ian pulled me into his body, his lips touching my forehead. Stubble from his chin scratched the bridge of my nose. “It’s funny,” he said softly, “because if you would have asked me that a year ago, I would have said green. But it’s not green anymore, it’s brown.”

“Brown? I asked, my face contorted in disgust. “Why brown? That’s like the ugliest color of them all. It’s what you get by accident when the rest of the colors in the pallet all mix together and you have to throw it away and start all over again.”

His hand cupped my chin as he rolled his eyes. “It’s not just any shade of brown, Celaine Elizabeth, it’s the shades of brown in your eyes. Mahogany and sepia. Colors that both contrast with each other, yet play off one another so beautifully that they’ve left an indelible impression in my head that I will never be able to forget, no matter how hard I try. To me, that makes brown—your brown—the most beautiful color in the world to me, royally kicking green’s ass any day.”

Without hesitation, I touched my lips to his in a kiss that I wanted to last the entire night. Ian’s hand brushed through my hair until it reached the back of my head where he held my mouth to his as though echoing my thoughts. “I want you tonight, too,” I said, parting my lips away from his just long enough to speak. “Except my intentions aren’t honorable.”

He lowered me down onto the mattress, keeping me locked in his arms as he hovered over me. “Tonight,” he said.

“Tonight,” I agreed.

He pressed his lips to mine in a kiss that contained more passion, more need, and more hope than any we had shared before as we gave in to each other without fear of tomorrow.

I jolted up from the mattress, a commotion from off in the distance awakening me.

“What is it?” Ian asked, sitting up. He moved his mouth to say something, but stopped before the words could come out. He’d heard it, too.

I reached over the side of the mattress for my clothes and quickly threw them on, practically falling over my own two feet as I struggled to pull my pants on in the dark. Nearby, the commotion grew steadily louder, allowing me to make out the distant voice of a woman.

“Please, I need to find her,” she pleaded. “I need to know if Celaine Stevens is here. Please, it’s urgent.”

In the darkness, I could hear Ian fumbling around for his boots. Without waiting for him, I ran over to the edge of our compartment and began the climb down, jumping the rest of the way to the ground when I reached the halfway point. The moment my feet hit the ground, I took off in the direction of the woman’s voice who had spoken my name, knowing that it could only belong to one person. Behind me, I heard Ian’s feet strike the ground.

To my right, through the entryway we’d come when we first arrived at the warehouse, I saw a light and shadows reflected on the walls.

“What’s going on?” Nicholas asked.

“We found her snooping around outside,” Aron said. “She said she needs to speak to Celaine.”

“Please, if she’s not here, I’ll be on my way. I mean none of you any harm,” the woman said again.

“That sounds exactly like something Brooks would say,” Aron sneered.

“Let her go,” I said, running down the hall. At the sound of my voice, Kara whipped around, her eyes widening and tears falling down her unusually unkempt face. The front of her jacket and the knees of her blue jeans were smudged with dirt as though she’d been crawling over the ground. Most likely, she probably had. “Let her go now,” I repeated more sternly.

Aron released her after some reluctance, eyeing me suspiciously as Kara tore down the hall and collapsed at my feet.

Ian and I helped Kara along the hallway and into the warehouse where she collapsed on one of the pallets. I sat next to her, doing my best to console her. Her body shook heavily from fear, from worry, from relief, from the burden of words that so desperately wanted to make themselves heard.

“I—I never thought I’d find you,” she said, throwing her arms around me in an embrace. Dirt smudged her face, blending in with her smeared mascara. She rubbed the tears from her eyes, only smudging the combination of dirt and makeup across her face that much more. “When I saw the fire on the news, I knew this side of town would be my best bet. I just kept telling myself that you were still alive.”