Secret Worlds (483 page)

Lena shrugged and huffed a laugh. “You can ask anything you like. In this case, I don’t happen to have an answer. Don’t know what it is. Don’t know why it happens.”

“Don’t know if it’ll happen to the rest of us?”

She shook her head. “Nope.”

“It seems like it’d be a distinct disadvantage outside, especially at night.” She stopped and turned in front of Lena. “But it is arresting. Beautiful. Terrifying.” She grinned. “How long does it last?”

“Little more than a couple of hours?” Lena wanted it to fade before she had to walk in front of the collected men of Fort Nevada.

“Hmmm. Should be long enough.” It seemed Rose had a different idea. “If I were you, I’d use it to my advantage. A big meeting requires a big impression. We, men and women both, have ceremonial gowns we wear to address our people. Do you have anything like that?”

She didn’t, and it took them some time to agree on what she should wear. Ultimately, Lena was out-voted. After the girls woke, they’d brought them back to her room. Eventually, all of them were gathered there.

She looked around at the girls in their borrowed clothes. Thomas had provided Ward uniforms for the girls after their baths the night before. They were all so thin that their bodies were swallowed up in folds of material. They’d belted and folded where they could. The girls would need clothes made to fit them, Lena told Thomas before he’d left for the night, and soon: just the first of her demands on behalf of the girls.

She hoped she wasn’t making a huge mistake. She stood before the girls, the glow emanating from her skin magnified by the buff-colored clothing she wore. Rose had wrapped her in a long length of natural linen and tied it around Lena’s hips. She’d then wound a long shawl of pale, raw wool around Lena, crisscrossing it behind her to knot at her waist.

The girls looked at her in awed silence, the light of her reflected in their wide eyes.

She felt ridiculous. She moved her shoulders restlessly.

“Stop fidgeting,” Rose told her. She made a final adjustment to the crisscrossing section over Lena’s breasts and stepped back. She wore a satisfied smirk. “Now, you
glow.
You’re a vision. Intimidating from the moment you walk in.”

Lena took a deep breath. “Thanks.” She hoped she could pull it off. She looked at the ring of expectant faces. She had to make it work. “Before we go, you have to prepare yourselves. There’s going to be…a lot of energy in there. And it will all be directed at us. It’s going to be—”

“We know,” Phoebe told her. “We can feel it.”

“We’re used to it,” Marin added. “Our guards were Sparks. They liked the way we felt.” She shrugged and looked down at her hands.

Constance and Charity shifted, moving closer together.

Lena’s stomach turned over. Her furious gaze snapped to Rose. The woman stared back at her in silent confirmation. Her shoulders were back, tight and squared, and her hands fisted at her sides.

Hania had been looking off into space, her upper teeth scraping over her lower lip again and again. Now she brought her gaze directly to Lena. “Will they do that to us here?”

She felt a fire burning in her chest, white and pure as the root of a Sparked flame. “No.” She answered Hania’s hoarse, plaintive question. She wanted to say more, to reassure them all, but her gaze moved over them. Their treatment had been depraved. Words would mean so little. Even Marissa, the youngest of them, watched the other girls with knowing, pained eyes. Perhaps she hadn’t been touched herself yet, but she knew.

A knock made them jump. After a polite pause, the door pushed open, revealing Alex. He searched the room, counting the girls. When he reached Lena, he stopped. Everything about him became still.

“Well,” he finally said, “that’s an effective look.”

Rose snorted her agreement.

“Are they ready for us?” Lena’s words were clipped. It was all she could do to remember that this man, this Spark, had not been to blame for what had been done to her girls. She had to remind herself he was one of the good guys, fighting for their safety.

He held onto the knob, twisting it. “I doubt it, but they are all in there waiting.”

She nodded. The girls picked themselves up off the floor where they’d settled. She moved through them, touching hands with each of them as she went. When she stood before Alex, she ignored his weighing, cautious look and told him, “Lead the way.”

They followed him out and through the warren of halls. Lena could feel the heaviness of male energy growing as they got close.

As they approached the filled hall, the buzz of voices augmented the energy. The energy rippled through the walls, pushing at them. Lena glanced over her shoulder at the now-alarmed faces of the girls and gave an angry push back at the male energy. The sound through the walls muted immediately. Her push had been felt.

Alex hesitated before opening the wide doors.

He opened his mouth to speak, but before he could, she reached out, grabbed the handle nearest her and pulled back. The muted sound became a total hush. She strode in ahead of Alex and lifted her chin.

Thomas stood toward the center of the open floor area, but forward. He’d been talking to a group of Guardians seated above him in the raised seating. His eyes widened as he took in her light.

She wished she hadn’t brought the girls. It was too much energy. Even as she focused her will and pushed back, she knew she couldn’t handle it. She didn’t know if she’d be overwhelmed or intoxicated, but her time in this space would have to be limited.

Lena looked back over her shoulder and held out a hand, motioning for the girls to stay back.

Rose nodded her agreement, and she reached out to Hania’s shoulder to reinforce the twins’ hold on the fragile girl. They filed back along the wall beside the doors.

Jackson appeared beside them. He’d been standing at the back of the big room, but he moved into a protective posture now so they wouldn’t have to stand alone.

Thomas walked across to meet her in the middle and greeted her with a solemn nod. She could see he, like Alex, was worried over what she was about to do. Still, they had honored her wishes and gathered everyone anyway.

Alex touched her on the arm, holding the contact. “Lena.” His face was serious and his voice low. “Thomas and I worked a very long time to build what you see. We don’t begrudge you the need to do this. Please don’t tear it all down when you do. Remember there are only two of us—four damn hands—holding it all together.”

“It’s a delicate job,” Thomas agreed softly, “and there’s only so much damage control we can do at a time.”

She shook her head at him. “No. There are six damn hands now. And honestly, I’m surprised the two of you didn’t spend the last couple of hours figuring that out for yourselves.”

The men exchanged a look. Thomas took a deep breath.

She wished they’d hurry. She felt battered. She stood straight and tall before them all. Mentally, she felt as if she leaned against a broad barrier of energy she had to make herself, her arms extended, palms pressed flat to keep it in place, back and legs braced. And she was slipping back.

The men parted, each moving to stand to either side.

She faced a thousand people alone. Thomas and Alex were still there with her, lending their support and, in effect, their agreement. But what she was about to do, she did alone. Could she?

Someone toward the back, high up above her, coughed. The sound echoed down to her. Her vision swam as she swept a look over them all. She blinked to clear them, and her eyes fell on a familiar face in the front. Guardian Wils.

He wasn’t looking at her, though. He had reserved his calculating interest for her girls. The avaricious gleam was unmistakable.

She cleared her throat and projected as much as she could, straining with the pressure both to make herself heard and keep herself upright. “I know word travels fast,” she said. “You all know I have joined you. And by now, you all know we have retrieved others like me. We—” she indicated the men beside her, drawing unexpected strength from them “—have gathered you here so there are no misunderstandings.”

She turned and indicated her girls, wincing as she felt the energy pulse away from herself as attention shifted. She spoke quickly, drawing it back to herself to spare them. “We all feel the Spark within us. There’s a pressure, a reaction that builds upon so many of us living and working together. The stronger we are, the stronger the weight. The stronger the pull on our attention and focus. But there are more of you than there are of us, at least for the time being. We need you to be mindful of that. I’m here now asking you to help us deal with the pressure and curb the demands on our time and attention as we settle into a routine.”

“And how long exactly,” Guardian Wils’s voice rang out, “are we expected to wait to have…access?”

“These are my students, Guardian.
My Wards
. And as such, they will be left alone to learn. There will be no sneaking around to catch a glimpse or dares to get their attention.” She let her stare strafe across the students. “There will be no…dinners to get to know them. No whining about access. It’s simple: there will be none.”

Now she had Wils’s attention, but only for a moment. He snapped a look back to the girls. To one girl. She couldn’t see which he’d selected, but it was clear that he’d already made a decision to have one of the girls she’d sworn to protect.

“You will not touch them, attempt to influence them, or act inappropriately in any way.” Lena’s glare bored into Wils’s face, demanding that he turn his attention to her, that he hear her words. “You will leave us alone. We don’t owe you anything, any more than you owe the unpowered the use of
your
bodies and skill. We are all working toward a new world where Sparks are more than tools to be used and discarded. We will achieve that vision. Do not presume to define our place in that world for us. The key to success is mutual respect.”

A derisive snort came from the front row. She looked at the man who’d made it. She’d been waiting.

“Or what?” Wils turned his attention from her girls to Thomas. “Are you going to allow this—” he swept an ugly look over Lena “—little girl to stand before us and talk to all of us like this? Our end goal requires one thing and one thing only from all of them.”

She could feel the flash of heat from Alex.

Before he could erupt, Thomas held up a hand. When Wils continued for a moment, Thomas’s voice lashed out like a whip. “That’s enough!”

Wils stopped talking, but he stood up, snugging down his shirt and curling his lip in disdain.

“We brought Lena here to learn and to see what we could offer her, not the other way around. She is an ally—a powerful ally.” Thomas stopped to spear Wils with a look of disgust. “Instead of treating her with honor, you made demands of her, whispered and plotted to gain access and favors. And then you have the audacity to be offended when she puts an end to it?” He shook his head. “Perhaps they require a demonstration, Lena.”

Her lips curved into a smile. “Guardian Wils,” she all but purred, “perhaps you’ll help me?”

A faint ripple of laughter, more expectant than amused, rolled across the Guardians and Wards. They wanted to finally see what she could do. They’d been waiting. The anticipation pulsed against her.

Wils crossed his arms across his chest.

“You teach the Wards control, do you not? So I invite you to do what you’ve wanted from the beginning. Control me.”

His brows bunched together. He had a moment of cockiness, both annoyed and confident for a moment longer before his sureness became concern. Concern flowed into panic. He reached out a hand and batted at the railing in front of himself, finally gripping it with failing strength as she took his breath.

“Stop me, Guardian Wils,” she invited, “whenever you’re ready.”

He fell to his knees, eyes bulging. His face had purpled.

“Lena,” Alex murmured.

But she wasn’t done. She waited until his eyes rolled back into his head before she allowed him to collapse to the floor. The sound of his sudden breath wheezing in and out of his lungs filled the otherwise silent auditorium.

She lifted her chin. “We are meant to work together. We are
made
to work together. I am your ally.” She tilted her head and regarded them, gaze moving over them, touching as many individually as she could before her focus snapped. She didn’t have long. “Until the moment you decide I am not. Please don’t make that decision.”

She stepped back. The barrier she had erected in her mind sagged, melted, and left her with nothing to use as a bar to the invading energy. She strode away, her heels cracking across the floor of the auditorium.

Rose’s grin of triumph turned into narrow-eyed alarm at Lena’s face. Jackson got the door open and Rose ushered the girls out ahead of Lena.

When Lena entered the hallway, she kept going, moving through and past them. She had to get as far away from the combined angry, confused, and excited male energy in the room behind her as she could.

She could feel Alex behind her, moving up fast. “Lena, stop.”

“I can’t,” she gasped out, “I have to get away. It’s too much energy.”

“Let me help you!”

Her feet couldn’t get her away fast enough. She’d cut it too close. The energy was inside of her now, building, burning into her own Dust, and she didn’t know what to do. How did she get it out? Not even grounding could make this go away. She’d be fried, if she even made it all the way to the Grounding Pad. Her heart throbbed in her chest, the panicked beat of it hard and fast in her ears as she built to overload. Heat flared across her cheeks. Cold sweat ran down her spine.

She couldn’t make sense of the sound of a scuffle behind her.

“Get back with them, dammit,” Rose shouted. “You’re part of the problem!”

The other woman appeared beside her.

Lena cringed away, hitting the wall. She didn’t know what would happen to Rose if she touched her.

“Look at me.” Rose stood before her, calm and certain. “You are my match. Remember? We were meant to be paired. You don’t know what it means, but I do. Let me help you.” The woman reached out for her.