Night In A Waste Land (Hell Theory #2) - Lauren Gilley Page 0,47

Washington are of a tragic nature. We’re always sending the military off to…well, to handle things. It’s rare that we hear of actual miracles.”

John’s face smoothed. He folded his hands together in front of him. “I wouldn’t say miracles…”

“Oh, but you should,” Sybil said. “There’s no other word for what you do.” The adoration shining in her eyes was repellent to Rose. “My arm,” she said, thrusting it toward them for inspection. “I burned it terribly. Dr. Watts couldn’t do anything! But, then, John…” Here she blushed, and bit her lip.

John touched her shoulder, and she shifted so she could press more firmly against his palm; his fingers flexed.

Rose knew, then, that he wasn’t merely helping these people. She traded a glance with Gallo, whose brows jumped once, suggestively, a smirk teasing at the corner of his mouth. She rolled her eyes.

“You’re under no obligation, obviously,” Lance said, “but I wondered if we could maybe talk somewhere a little more private. The three of us. This world is a battered place. If possible, I’d like to see if powers like yours could be used to help rebuild it – rather than burn it to the ground.”

John tilted his head, so the light glinted in his eyes, a quick pulse of a blue glow, there and gone. He seemed pleased. “Of course. Whatever I can do to help.”

~*~

They went into the mine shaft.

That fucking mine shaft.

Only a little way, beneath the swaying lanterns, still within sight of the wide, pale rectangle of the opening.

But Rose’s chest felt cinched with steel bands. The air was damp, and cold on her face, a poor comfort against the stress sweat sliding down her temples, and beneath her clothes. Her pulse pounded, and her palms itched, and if pressed she couldn’t have said what was wrong, only that she didn’t want to be down here.

She’d never felt this way, and she hated it.

Gallo and Lance seemed unbothered, though.

“This was where the collapse happened?” Gallo asked, gaze trained on the rocky ceiling.

“No, that was deeper in, at the first offshoot,” John said. “But I can take down one of these lanterns and we can see it.”

“No,” Rose said, before she could stop herself.

Lance shot her a concerned glance over his shoulder, before he put his smile back in place for John. “No, we believe it occurred, there’s no sense hiking all the way back. I’m curious, though, how you managed it.”

John’s brows went up, his smile small and almost embarrassed. Are you really going to make me say it? his expression asked.

“I’ve met conduits who can heal flesh – and who can render it to liquid,” Lance elaborated. “Who can wield fire. I’ve never met one who can lift a ton of rock and dirt off of a group of miners. I’m impressed, is what I’m getting at.”

“Yes, well, we aren’t all the same, you know.”

“I know. Of course.”

You’re frightened.

The voice seemed to come from behind her. John’s voice, though he was still actively speaking to Lance.

Rose whirled around, flashlight beam swinging wildly across a dirt floor, and a rock wall, and nothing else.

“…inanimate objects,” John was saying.

In the blank space in front of Rose, John’s voice said, You are, aren’t you? I can feel it.

His voice, she realized, going cold all over, was coming from inside her head.

She turned back, but slowly. Gallo caught her gaze and mouthed you okay?

She nodded, and tried to control her expression.

“You lifted the debris back into its original place and fixed it there?” Lance asked.

“Not exactly,” John said. “It was more a case of making it as if it had never happened.”

That caught Gallo’s attention. “You can reverse time?”

John’s expression turned pained. “Not time as a whole. I can alter the particular timeline of an object. Or of a person. That’s what happens when a conduit heals someone. The damage isn’t stitched; the body reverts back to its previous state.”

“That’s not true,” Rose said, earning startled looks from all of them. “If it was, Gallo would have his old hand back. It would have regrown.”

John stared at her a long moment. “You have experience with miracles yourself, I see,” he said, smiling.

Gallo, the voice said inside her head, and she realized her mistake with a lurch.

“Dr. Galway,” Lance said, sharply, shooting Rose a glare, “was involved in an accident not long ago. A conduit was able to provide advanced motor function for his prosthetic.” He turned back to John, trying to recapture his attention. “But it seems like your