Page 24 of Her Magic Light

Dammit. The crunching sound hadn’t been them. I sighed and straightened in the seat.

“Will you take me home if I don’t put the glasses on?” It couldn’t hurt to try, right?

But he laughed, although not unkindly. “Those aren’t my orders,” he said. “You need the glasses because I’ve been told to keep all lights dimmed around you, and the glasses are the easiest way to achieve that.”

“You need to dim the lights? What the hell are you even talking about?” None of this made any sense. “You have thewrongperson. Whoever you’re looking for, it’snotme. When will you figure that out?”

But Locke’s face was as expressionless as it had been for the whole ride, and he didn’t say anything. He waited.

And I caved. Because who wanted to spend the whole night in the car with a crick in the neck and a pain in the ass like Locke.

So I placed the glasses on my face anyway. Compliance had never really been my thing—people only needed to look at my hair to know that—but here I was, doing everything anyone asked of me. I stomped the floorboard.

“Good.” He nodded his approval. “I need to check you into the facility now.”

“Thewhat?” I glanced around this strange underground parking lot, visions of the warehouse above filling my mind. I was ata facility? “What the hell does that even mean, Locke? Is that synonymous with prison?” I clenched my hands together and squeezed to keep from screaming again. “Are all of you this insane?”

But he chuckled softly. “If only it were so simple.” He leaned forward and pressed a button, and the door at my side made a thunking sound. “It’s unlocked now.” Another unnecessary statement.

I tugged on the handle, and the door popped open, allowing me to climb out. I glanced at the ramp, mentally calculating the distance.

“I wouldn’t.” Locke stopped next to me. “Even if you outrun me, there’s Paulson to contend with out there. You think you want to take him on?”

I shook my head, and my shoulders drooped. That man was clearly very proud of his machine gun. And I already believed he liked screaming. I had no desire to face him or be shot in the back by him as I tried to escape. It wasn’t a smart risk.

Letting loose a sigh, my mouth twisted. “Take me to check in, I guess.” I lifted my hands and rattled the cuffs. “Not like I can run very far with my new bracelets on, anyway.”

He smiled sadly before leading the way to the same elevator Coop had stepped into. “This will take us upstairs into the building.”

I nodded. I’d surmised that much for myself.

The motion was the smoothest I’d ever felt, barely like we were moving at all, but the doors slid open again to reveal a long corridor in front of us. I stepped forward, uncertainty making me stumble as I groped at the wall to regain my balance in the dim light. I reached up to remove the glasses, instinct driving me to see, but Locke clamped his hand over them.

“They must stay on,” he muttered. He grasped my elbow and righted me. Then he drew me forward, never making me walk faster than I could manage.

When we slowed, I twisted my head. The corridor opened out into a waiting room with chairs, some of them occupied.

“Hey.” Locke approached a desk, already talking to the lady sitting behind it. “Got a new transfer for ya.”

I snorted. A transfer? Really? “Yeah, right, Locke,” I murmured, and he half-looked at me over his shoulder.

“There.” The woman behind the desk might have nodded in a direction or even pointed, but either the sunglasses worked extra-great in here, or the lights were already dim.

“What time is it?” I whispered, tiredness suddenly making my head foggy.

A guy in one of the chairs yawned. “Late enough that I’m missing my beauty sleep.”

Locke led me to sit down, and I settled onto a hard, plastic seat. It wasn’t comfortable, but it wasn’t designed to be. The only plus side of these glasses was the ability to be able to study people as best I could from around them without anyone knowing that I was actually staring. Though, it didn’t work so well in this dimly-lit whatever-it-was-called room.

I squinted through the gloom the glasses created, but as I got used to the vision they left me with, I started to make out details of the people in the strange waiting room with me. Almost like the more I focused on it, the more my eyes were able to adjust to the light level. Locke sat to my right, alert and tense, like he expected me to bolt for the door any moment. Or perhaps he was worried I’d take the glasses off again.

But I wouldn’t. Running through unfamiliar corridors wouldn’t get me out of here. I scanned the other figures. None of them paid any attention to me. Would anyone but Locke care if I knocked the shades to the floor?

“Can’t she see?” The guy across from us looked at me. He was so pale, his skin almost seemed to glow. Like he was made of ivory or something.

“She’s wearing sunglasses, Jude.”

“It’s night.” The guy sounded belligerent now.

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