XXX

Elodie had followed. Aiden had been positive that she wouldn’t. That he’d feel the last bits of their relationship, however it was categorized and shelved within each of them, evaporate with the evening mist as the space between them grew.

But she was following.

Aiden had thought he’d come to say goodbye to the river, the murky artery that pulsed through the city, bisecting east from west. He thought he’d sit on a cool fountain bench for one last time and toss a whispered I’m sorry into the water. For what? He wasn’t sure. But remorse seeped into the hollow of his bones. Maybe it was because he’d dragged Elodie into a world she didn’t want to or have to exist in. Aiden knew all too well that stepping into the light of Eos would bleach out the shadows from the rest of the world. Was Elodie ready to leave the darkness?

Had he given her a choice?

They’d been walking for nearly ten minutes when Elodie cleared the silence. “Where are we going?”

Aiden’s boots scraped against the pavement as they crossed another street on their trek away from the river. It was a simple enough question, a fair enough question, but the answer was too big for mere words.

Each breath stuffed him full of anticipation. “You just have to see it.”

At the next intersection they waited for the MAX to clank past.

“I don’t like surprises.” The crisp white light of the streetlamp glimmered in Elodie’s dark eyes and illuminated the smirk pinning the corners of her lips.

Man, she was beautiful. What was it that they said? Beauty is in the eye of the beholder?

But that was only partially correct. There was a silently agreed-upon standard. There had been forever. There would be until the end of time. Participation wasn’t mandatory, but categorization happened nonetheless.

Elodie was striking, noticeable. But her true beauty surfaced as her layers of protection flaked away and she unfurled, bloomed into herself.

Aiden hopped off the curb and continued their nighttime adventure to the disregarded industrial outskirts of Westfall. “You don’t like surprises?” Aiden scratched his stubbled cheek. “You sure about that?”

The corners of her eyes creased as her smirk deepened and her shoulders hiked to her ears.

Elodie pinned her arms to her sides, her cheerfulness draining with the motion. “I’m not sure about anything right now.” Honesty thickened her voice as she focused on the empty, warehouse-lined street ahead.

Aiden understood her uncertainty. He harbored his own. He’d thought that the next time he saw Elodie would be at trial when the Key Council called her as a witness to his dealings with Eos. Even then, he wouldn’t have blamed her.

Her shoes scraped against the sudden rises and falls of the cracked and weathered street. “I do have a question—questions, actually,” she said.

He knew she would. He also knew he didn’t have the answers. “About Aubrey?”

She was silent for a moment before releasing the floodgates. “You said the Key was using her. For what? What kind of tests were they performing? Where is she now? Did Eos get her complete patient care chart? I’ll need to see it and whatever Eos’s doctors discovered. Do they have doctors, anyway?”

Aiden guided them into the dark alley between two unremarkable boxlike buildings. “Our doctors are Key doctors. Our people are Key people. Eos is kind of like Holly in that way—everywhere and nowhere.” He took a right at the end of the narrow strip of battered asphalt and headed toward a glinting metal stair rail. “As for everything else . . .” He slowed before reaching the stairs and kicked a rock with the toe of his boot. “I don’t have the answers, but I know someone who does. You aren’t ready to meet her, but I’ll get all the answers I can.”

The nondescript three-story gray building Aiden stopped in front of looked the same as the last, the same as the next, and the same as the row of buildings across the street. At first, he’d thought Eos had chosen it for that reason, but had come to realize the location was a matter of convenience, not stealth. Eos needed somewhere centrally located for all of its Westfall members.

Elodie crossed her arms over her chest. “We’ll get them together.”

Aiden’s lips quirked as he took the concrete steps two at a time before glancing up at the building stretched out like a cloud above him. “Might not look like much, but this is one of my favorite places.”

Elodie remained at the bottom of the stairs, the toe of her sneaker grinding against the pavement with each twist of her ankle. “It’s—” Her teeth grazed her bottom lip. “Nice?”

He looked up again at the front of the concrete square that spanned the city block and shrugged. “It looks like shit from the outside.”

Elodie snorted as she ascended the stairs. “And very loomy. All big and sinister and foreboding.”

Aiden considered this as he shuffled to the entryway and keyed his personal code on the panel outside the solid metal door. The first time he’d come here, he’d been so excited that there had been no space for nerves or second-guessing. And now that he knew what treasures grew within the warehouse walls, there was no way he could ever see the building as anything other than a beacon within the swirling red sea of the Key.

The deadbolt released. Aiden held open the door and motioned for Elodie to enter.

“Does your favorite place hold any of the answers we’re looking—” Her hands clapped over her ears as she crossed the threshold. “Ah! ” Pain folded her at the waist. An instant later she relaxed and looked up at him. She rubbed the spot behind her ear as she shook herself free of the sudden blitz. “What was that?”

Aiden winced. “I completely forgot about the tech shield. It neutralizes the implant in your head while you’re within its boundaries.” He grimaced. “Stings a little.”

“Stings a little ?” She twisted her neck and shook her head again. “Terrible thing to get used to.”

Aiden pressed his fingertips against the star of scarred flesh behind his ear. He did have a few more secrets.

Aiden guided her down an empty corridor that ran between the front door and another set of locked double doors, where he entered a different access code.

“That’s it for the sudden blasts of mind-numbing pain, right?” she asked.

“That was it.” Aiden’s heartbeat ticked up as his fingers curled around the knob, and he hefted the door open.

Heady sweet scents hit him before anything else. They lapped against his skin with playful newness before giving way to the spicy and intense waves of something deeper, something richer.

“That smell—” Elodie took a deep breath, her lids closing slightly as her chest filled. Her long lashes dusted her cheeks. “What is it?”

Black velvet drapes hung in front of them. Aiden brushed his hand across the soft edges as he found the opening. “Welcome to Wonderland.”