Page 23 of Her Magic Light

“Oh. Wait.” I frowned at the fleet of vehicles, adding up the pieces of information I had. “So, then… We’re at HQ?”

Locke glanced at Coop in the rearview, but neither confirmed nor denied my guess.

It would make a kind of sense. Though, if it’s HQ of some secretive government organization, then I was back to being detained rather than arrested. I sighed. And they had the ability to kidnap people without the repercussions.

Parked in a cluster to one side were normal looking cars—civilian ones. Perhaps this place wasn’t entirely deserted after all. Those cars probably belonged to commuting employees.

Locke slid us smoothly into a wide space and turned off the engine. “We’re here,” he said, unnecessarily.

“Where is ‘here’ exactly?” My words had an icy, bitter edge, and I yanked at the door handle one more time. Then I shoved my foot into the back of Locke’s seat for good measure.

When Coop reached for me, I lashed out toward him, kicking in his direction, and pushing my hands forward. “No. Don’t touch me again.” Every time he did that, my traitorous body relaxed, and I needed to be on alert here.

Locke opened his door, and I opened my mouth before letting loose a scream. Immediately, Locke’s door thunked closed.

He half turned his head so I’d hear his words over his shoulder, but he didn’t look at me. “What are you doing?” His tone was measured and entirely too reasonable.

“Calling for help.” I couldn’t stop the smugness when I spoke.

Coop barely smothered a chuckle, but Locke sighed.

“I’d be very careful, if I were you, Meira,” he said.

I stilled at his use of my name. Neither of them had referred to me by name yet. The only thing Coop had called me was Rainbowlocks. I lifted my chin. “I’ll scream if I want to. Get as much attention as I need.”

Locke shrugged like he didn’t care. “And that much noise won’t bother either Coop or me. But you still need to be careful. There are other guards wholikenoise like that, and not all of them are friendly. You don’t want to make any enemies here if you can help it.”

His words chilled me, and my thoughts immediately jumped to Paulson and his excessive show of power. Perhaps he was the kind of guy who’d like to hear me scream. I shuddered. Of course Paulson was. And Locke and Coop were trying to warn me.

Sadly, Locke was right. Since I couldn’t predict the behavior of any of the others here, I’d need to be careful. Above all, I had to avoid Paulson like the plague.

nine

We sat in silence for the next ten minutes, remaining in the car until Coop and Locke seemed content that my shrieking outburst was over. I flipped through my thoughts, trying to conjure a plan B, but I hadn’t come up with anything yet. I needed to get the lay of the land, work out how to escape. It obviously wasn’t by screaming and drawing unnecessary attention to myself. The handcuffs glinted on my wrists. Maybe I could focus on getting somebody to take them off again. Two free hands might make the difference in a successful escape.

“Door.” Coop was first to speak, and I looked at him in surprise, but the instruction wasn’t for me.

Locke leaned forward and pressed a button, releasing Coop’s door so he could climb out of the car.

I had half a thought to lunge after him, but the man was quick and wormed his way through a tiny gap to ensure I had no way to follow. The door closed before I could make use of the exit, and Locke had pressed his control button again before I even moved.

“Door’s locked again.” He had a helluva gift for saying unnecessary things.

I slid over to the window to watch as Coop walked away. He stopped in front of a silver portion of the nearest wall for a moment. When Coop glanced up, the silver area slid open, and he stepped inside.

“Is that an elevator? Where’s he going?” I pressed my hand against the window briefly, trying to see inside, before the door in the wall closed again.

Locke shook his head and for a moment it seemed he might tell me. “He’s a busy man,” was all he said. Then he tipped his shades to the rearview mirror again. “You’re going to need to locate those glasses you kicked under my seat earlier. We can’t get out of this car until you have them on.”

“What? But they make it so I can barely see.” Losing my vision in this place—by any means—wasn’t an option but least of all by those stupid glasses.

He shook his head again. “They’re not so bad. I wear them all the time.”

“But I can’t see.” I tried to insist, but he remained seated.

“Then we’re not getting out.”

I sighed and bent to search the floor and reached under the seat, two-handed since I was still freaking cuffed. I had no choice. There was no lesser of two evils here. I could either sit in this car with Locke, and we wouldn’t go anywhere, or I could put the sunglasses back on and he’d take me somewhere I didn’t want to go. Though, I still didn’t know where we were. My hand closed around the glasses, and I pulled them out from under the seat.

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