Night In A Waste Land (Hell Theory #2) - Lauren Gilley Page 0,84
the wings, and the eyes, but there was a steadiness, now. Not obsession, not the fevered madness of a goal nearly achieved. His energy was all very carefully contained; he looked nearly peaceful – save for the way he gazed at her now, assessing her faith in him.
She sucked in a breath, and couldn’t have said why.
“Beck, I just got you back,” she whispered. “I don’t want to walk into a shitshow and lose you again right away.”
The line of his mouth softened. He cupped her cheek, claws teasing at the soft skin behind her ear. “Sweetheart,” he purred. “You won’t lose me. Not ever again.”
~*~
The rain beat steadily on the pavement. Faint bluish-purple light glowed in the windows on the center floors of the building. Up top, white-gold light beamed out into the night, another sign of Shubert’s excesses.
Rose stood beneath the umbrella of Beck’s spread wing and took a steadying breath.
From Beck’s other side, Lance said, “If you’re trying to get us killed, there are easier ways to do it.”
“Nonsense,” Beck said lightly. He folded his wings up – the rain pattered on her helmet – and strode to the heavy, chained and bolted steel doors that allowed street-level entry to Times Gardens.
Gavin had bolt-cutters. He lifted them –
Just as Beck took the chain in his hand, and broke the links like they were nothing.
No, Rose saw, as she rushed up behind him – he’d sliced them. With his claws. The same claws that had brushed so gently across her skin less than an hour ago.
“Holy shit,” Gavin breathed, joining them.
The chain slithered through the door handles and hit the ground. Beck gripped one handle, and tugged – Rose heard the lock give with a grind, and a squeal, and the door opened, a steamy, botanical scent rolling out to greet them.
Beck opened the door wide with a gallant motion. “Ladies first.”
Lance barred her way with a hand – Beck grinned in amusement – and swept in first. Rose followed.
The ground floor housed generators and servers: the electrical and mechanical guts of the hydroponic greenhouses above.
“Should we take the stairs?” Gallo asked.
“No.” The door crashed shut behind Beck. “The elevator is more practical.”
They piled in the elevator, Beck’s wings carefully folded, though it was still a tight squeeze.
Rose leaned forward and ran her hand down the button panel, lighting all of them up. “They won’t know which floor we get off on,” she reasoned.
Beck chuckled. “Clever as ever.”
Lance muttered something she couldn’t make out.
The glided up smoothly, the elevator as well-maintained as everything else in the building. It came to a polite halt on floor two, on three, on four…Each time, the doors slid apart to reveal wide, open spaces bathed in blue and purple UV light, the air swirling with mist, plants hanging from the ceiling, white roots trailing down toward the floor like balloon strings at a party. Row after row after row.
When they stopped on the eighth floor, Beck said, “Let’s get off here.”
The misters were actively going, angled jets spraying the exposed roots of the bean and squash and lettuce plants dangling from racks attached to the ceiling. Visibility was low. The drone of the UV bulbs and the hiss of the misters beat down all other sound. Rose couldn’t hear her own footfalls, or the creak of her gear as she advanced slowly down a row, knives drawn, already beading with moisture. She didn’t want to start firing rounds like crazy in here: for the noise, yes, but also because she didn’t know where the pressurized tanks were for the misters, and hitting one with a stray round would be a very bad idea.
Lance was behind her, crowding her, really. She didn’t see Beck. Glimpsed Tris as only a shadow on the next row.
“Why are we here?” Lance hissed behind her. “Why this floor?”
The answer came boiling out of the mist in front of them: a thick-necked guard all in black, gun catching the light as it fell toward them.
Rose lunged forward, low and fast, and surged up, quicker than the guard had expected. She got inside his guard, inside the reach of his big arms, and she saw a fast, white flash of startled eyes before she drove her knife up to the hilt into the soft flesh below his chin.
She had to twist her wrist to pull it out as he toppled backward, spluttering and dying.