Page 153 of Almost Midnight

That explained the hum, at least.

Nick didn’t see any people in there at first, only rows and rows of green-metal terminals, blinking and humming with activity where they sat in a sharper, green-tinted light. It struck Nick that the machines themselves might be what emitted that light. His eyes searched all the way around that oddly symmetrical space. He searched for movement and sound apart from the machines and their blinking lights.

His gaze stopped when he saw another glass-like wall on the far side of the room.

Beyond that glass, he could see it.

A light-filled fissure writhed and sparked in front of the rock.

Just seeing it made Nick’s heart jackknife in his chest.

Memory again slanted out his vision of the surrounding room. Him and Dalejem sprawled on the rock floor, their only illumination coming from that same blue-green-gold fissure, which writhed in the space in front of them. He remembered Jem’s distinct smell, his heavy breaths as they stared into that misty, mesmerizing portal.

Neither of them moved or spoke for what must have been a few minutes.

None of it felt real.

It didn’t feel like they’d been gone long enough to be anywhere truly different.

But Nick remembered seeing and feeling the instant Brick had been torn away from him, and suddenly it felt like they’d traveled a lot further––

“Nick.” Wynter’s fingers wound into his. “Come back,” she whispered, softly.

He shook his head to clear it, and glanced at her.

He squeezed her fingers reassuringly.

“I’m here,” he promised.

“There are people down there,” Morley said, breaking the silence. “Behind that glass wall. They’ve definitely seen us.”

Nick’s eyes jerked back to that transparent partition.

That time, instead of looking at the portal itself, he looked at the people clustered around the thick pane of glass. He didn’t recognize any of their faces, but he recognized some of the clothing, especially the uniforms.

A number of them wore dark-green lab coats.

A second group wore actual uniforms, with insignias Nick had been intimately familiar with for the past hundred years.

They were H.R.A. uniforms.

Specifically, they belonged to members of the Leash.

Seemingly the instant Nick determined that much, a voice erupted from overhead, coming out of speakers that ringed the edges of the room.

“There’s nowhere left for you to go, Midnight.” A hard, male-sounding voice came from a harder-looking, square-jawed face. “Cooperate, and we won’t kill the beings who have been helping you. We’ll let them live.”

Nick glanced at Wynter.

She looked up at him.

Then she took his hand, and gripped it tightly in hers.

She didn’t speak, but then, she didn’t need to.

The man was right.

There was no where else for them to go.

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