Chapter 3
THREE
The door sealed behind Archer and Rome with a heavy click, cutting off the base and dropping them into a world that was cold, dark and forgotten.
Archer didn’t slow as they moved through the narrow service corridor, his steps sure. He didn’t need to see it anymore. He knew the distance between walls, the turns, the open spaces—everything was locked in from walking it over and over in the dark.
The corridor opened into the remains of the ski resort above the base, a place built for a lot of people and ski equipment. A place for fun-filled family vacations and the upper-middle class.
Now it sat hollow, stripped to the bones of what it once was.
A wide lounge area stretched out in front of them with tables scattered across the floor, some tipped on their sides. Others looked like whoever used it last had just walked away, leaving chairs haphazardly pushed in. A glass vase with a single dead flower sat in the center.
A long bar ran along one wall, empty racks where bottles had been. Even though it was dark and hard to make out these shapes, Archer knew they were there and moved without hesitation.
Behind him, Rome slowed. “You know where you’re going?”
“Yeah.” He’d been up here every night since he arrived on Sierra’s base. “The library’s this way.”
He also knew there was an entire shelf of romance books.
He’d seen the look on Jolie’s face—the quick flicker when he asked her what kind of books she liked.
Archer knew that look. His sister Ellory used to hide paperbacks in her room, tucked in her drawers out of sight, because if one of her three brothers caught a glimpse of a cover, they’d tease her mercilessly and never let up.
Archer hadn’t joined in much, but he hadn’t stopped it either.
Now he wondered if Jolie had been teased about reading romances too.
They turned a corner and the darkness deepened. Archer pulled in a breath, slow and controlled. Though he visited this lonely place a lot, the emptiness was too close to the one Cipher held him captive in.
The shadows closed in around them, leaving only his other four senses, and a sixth sense that had been honed to a sharpness no military training could match.
“You know this place pretty well,” Rome said from a step behind him.
He kept moving, adjusting his path as they passed what used to be a seating area with armchairs circa 1965. “You get used to it.”
He didn’t tell his teammate that when he couldn’t sleep, he came up here, walked the halls like a ghost and learned every shape. He knew the number of steps between walls and the distance to every opening. The same way he’d learned to exist in the dark before, he adjusted now.
They didn’t turn on lights because Blackout Sierra didn’t want any unwanted visitors, and a light in a window would draw attention they couldn’t afford.
Behind him, Rome’s steps faltered. Archer continued another few paces before realizing he wasn’t on his six. He stopped and turned his head.
“You good, man?”
“Can’t see shit. Can you?”
Archer looked into the blackness, already knowing how many steps it would take to reach the library door. “Yeah. I spent a lot of time in the dark.”
When he was held prisoner, any little noise would wake him because it meant danger was a breath away. It was a little fucked up because the same cocoon of blackness that woke him with nightmares was also the thing that drew him up here.
It had been the same back on the Black Heart Ranch. He’d wandered those halls like a ghost, and when that wasn’t enough, he wandered the grounds outside. Long ago he’d given up trying to understand the psychology behind his behavior and just worked at mastering the dark and himself.
Rome fell quiet again, footsteps closing the distance between them. They continued on together until the space opened wider. The ceiling pitched higher and the air filled with the smell of paper.
They stopped in the middle of the big room. Archer turned slowly, taking in the scale of the space.
“I haven’t quite worked out everything about the base being under an old ski lodge. What’s the story?” he asked Rome.
His teammate pitched his voice low even though they had no need for it.
“This room was the apres-ski lounge where parties were held.” He moved toward a chair and touched the back.
“The old ski resort was seized by DEA because of drug trade happening here. The original owner gave the business to his son to run in the eighties. Then his son ran it into the ground and started running drugs. You’d be surprised how many Blackout bases are procured this way. ”
Archer probably wouldn’t. The government was good at repurposing people and things, as he had learned when he was pulled from the FBI and sent undercover to track down Cipher.
He scooped up a big book off a coffee table and brushed a palm over it to remove the dust. He flipped it open and caught images of snow-covered slopes and bright blue skies. He set it aside and reached for a magazine off a stack. Old National Geographic magazines.
He thumbed through one, the pages soft from age and filled with faded photographs of places that felt a world away from these mountains.
He grabbed a few copies. With these in hand, he wandered to a chair in the corner. On the side table next to it was another vase with a dead flower and a couple paperbacks. He glanced at the covers and added them to his loot.
When he turned, he made out Rome standing a few feet away.
“Find anything?” Archer asked him.
He held out the stack of old fashion magazines. “Think this will fulfill the mission?”
“I’d say it’s a success.”
“You get some too?”
“I think we can keep Jolie entertained for a while.” He didn’t show him the books and magazines.
Through the darkness, he was aware of Rome’s stare on him.
“What?” he demanded.
“I saw the way you two look at each other.”
Rome’s words slammed into him. Fuck. He thought he’d been imagining things—it had been a lifetime since he even thought about women other than Ellory.
“You know if you have a crush on Jolie, it goes nowhere, right?”
Archer met his stare. “I don’t have a crush.”
“There’s no future in it. You’re Blackout now—a dead man walking. There aren’t any girlfriends. No wives or kids. You don’t get to ride into the sunset on a snowmobile.”
Archer stacked the books in his bent arm.
“I was briefed when I signed my Blackout papers.”
He didn’t have a crush on Jolie either.
He did have some hero’s urge to protect her because he’d once been alone in a place he didn’t understand. But Rome wouldn’t get it.
“I’m giving her reading material. Not a promise of a future,” he said.
He adjusted his grip on the books and set off through the dark. Rome was on his six.
But the dark had always been something he handled on his own.
* * * * *
Jolie didn’t mean to be hovering near the door, but she found herself there anyway, waiting for someone to return with something to read. She wasn’t even sure she could focus, but flipping pages would keep her hands busy.
She’d cracked the door and closed it again. The sounds of the base felt unfamiliar. The rough male voices carried through the alien bunker—military base, she reminded herself—echoing and too loud, even if it was obvious they were joking around.
Everything made her feel more on edge. She was more at home with the shriek of alarms in the Chicago streets.
A brief knock made her jump, and she whipped toward the door. “Come in.”
Archer walked in carrying a stack of books and magazines. A feeling hit her so fast it caught her off guard.
She didn’t understand the sense of relief tingling along her fingertips at the sight of the man. She barely knew him. And yet…the second he walked in, everything felt more under control, including her emotions.
Confusion flooded in. She didn’t have any ties to this man. She shouldn’t be feeling anything but suspicion that he could take off his skin at night and phone his home planet using telepathy.
Unwilling to let him see all these thoughts on her face, she dropped her gaze to what he carried.
He crossed the room in those long, confident strides—muscles rolling on his spine and over the carved planes of his ass she shouldn’t be noticing—and set the pile on the table near the bed.
“You didn’t have to get so many. A few would have been enough.” She drifted closer to see what these men deemed girl books.
“I had orders.” A note of amusement in his tone made her look up at his face.
Which was a mistake because now her attention was fixed on strong features that were pretty damn perfect. He had the face of a model with a straight nose, angled jaw stubbled with a black beard and lips that looked as hard as the rest of him. And his dark blue eyes…
They held secrets that could draw a woman in, and suddenly she knew exactly why she was drawn to him.
Archer was a bad boy.
She’d always had a thing for guys like him, but she steered clear of them and focused on being a great sister and a good friend to Stina when she fell for the wrong type.
To cover her discomposure, she sorted through the stack—a couple coffee table books of photography and several worn magazines. Her fingers stilled on a paperback, the cover making her pause.
She stared down at the man in a kilt with broad shoulders and dark hair and entirely too much confidence to be standing there half-dressed like it was a personality trait.
She skimmed the model’s face—straight nose, angled jaw—and her gaze lifted to a face she’d studied only moments ago.
The man on the cover looked a little like the one who’d rescued her.
She swallowed. “How did you know I like romances?” she rasped.
He shifted his weight, brushing his knuckle over the pile of books. “I saw the look on your face and asked myself WWEL?”
“What does that mean?”
“What would Ellory do. My younger sister.” Those hard lips curved into the first smile she’d seen on him, and her heart performed a little backflip.