Page 9

Tomoe

D ust filtered through the air in front of the windows of Reina’s lab. The scent of chemicals stung my nose as I leaned across the thin wooden counter to crack the window open.

“At least they thought to capture the important shit,” I mumbled as I sat back on the wobbly bar stool.

“Consider me ecstatic that it’s helpful to your research. Tell me more.”

Reina ran her fingers through her hair and out her face. She sat staring at some sketch with a blank expression. It’d been marked up in handwriting I didn’t recognize, notes of recommended changes scribbled off on the sides.

“You’re the one on some war path to help Abel.” I slammed closed the tome in front of me and coughed up the dust. Ever since Reina moved out of her quarters, she’d stopped cleaning as much. I understood no one lived in the back anymore, in her old room, but I thought she’d at least keep up the shared space. It was unusual of her. If I had the energy, I’d bring it up, but I didn’t. “And this is for you. Understanding the Pansie situation is every bit as important now as it was a few months ago.”

“What do you think I’ve been keeping extensive data of, Moe? Injuries.”

She slid the next set of records across the table and I narrowed my eyes in annoyance. “That’s your job, isn’t it?”

“You know what I mean.”

A knock on the door startled us both. Reina gasped at the sudden brisk sound against the thick, glass door. “Need some company?”

Deep, Moore blue eyes lit up at the sight of the man leaning against the door frame. Bronze arms crossed over a simple dark gray t-shirt. I followed the sharp, bulging veins up the slender muscle in his arms up to the cocky smile and hazel eyes of someone I swore I recognized yet, failed to place. My cheeks burned under the scrutiny of his gaze. A more intense, observant leer I wasn’t quite used to outside of Riley or Alexi. Memory teased me. Tomás. The brother of Alexiares’s fallen friend.

“Hi!” Reina said, scooting her rolling chair away from the table and rushing toward him with a hug. “How are you? Never mind, you’re good. I can feel it.”

He offered her an awkward one-armed hug, not expecting the embrace. A reluctant pang slammed through my heart. Since when had Reina decided to be so open about her gifts outside of our group? Everything about our powers was out in the open now, including Riley. Consequences of war. But still, it wasn’t as though we all walked around, advertising.

“You the Seer ?” Tomás asked, eyes not falling off me.

“Sure,” I said, glancing back down at what I’d been researching. “You the twin?”

“Sure.” A smug crackle of a laugh escaped him and I shot him a glare.

“Alexi ditch you again?” Reina asked as though they were familiars. Confusion continued to linger as my scrutiny shifted back toward her.

Tomás shoved his hands in his pockets, crossing the room and leaned against a metal counter stacked with vials. “Nah. Figured I’d check back in on your progress with the arm and see if I could be of value in my down time.”

“Let me guess, you’re no good with idle hands?” I mumbled sarcastically.

“Oh no, I’m great with my hands—idle or not.” He winked, eyes wandering over my body for far too long. “But it’s kind of shitty to not offer help these days when everyone could use some. Wouldn’t you agree?”

My stool nearly toppled over at the pace in which I strode across the floor and shoved two heavy tomes into his chest. “You take last names H and I from The Expanse arrivals.”

He propped his elbows against the counter and tilted his head down to meet Reina’s eye for a clue in. Tomás only stood a few inches taller, but his presence consumed the entire room. Reina’s smile made me want to slap her. She was up to something, and I knew whatever it was, I would absolutely hate that shit.

“Hm. Yeah, what to address first?” A pale finger tapped against her pink lips. “No progress on the arm. Abel wants to see how things go without it so my tests have halted. Just doing some drafts on improvements for when he’s ready. Moe’s going through our archives for Pansie data. Trying to figure out when communication patterns were established with the Pansies and how they evolved. A general timeline on their evolution can help us break down what means what. Got it? You can ask Moe if you need any help, she’s a fantastic teacher. Very eager.”

Tomás shook his head slowly, clearly amused by the situation. “Guess I’ll ask a question when I have one.”

“Cool,” I said, finding my way back to my seat. “I prefer working in silence so if you don’t mind.”

Tomás sat down in Reina’s chair at an extremely forward distance, edging closer to the splintered counter. “Trying to get some better light.” He excused himself and ignored my persistent challenge of a stare down.

The kind that said move the fuck back or else. My boots slammed into the ground as I scratched the floor with the movement of my stool. I stopped once my back hit the corner wall. Even an inch between us would be better than sitting arm to arm.

The proximity of a man … someone outside my family … unsettled me. A sin. Like the universe was punishing me with the false sense of closeness. Taunting me with the possibility of what else was out there though there would never be another Seth. And Seth was all I wanted. The old Seth. The one that loved me as much as I loved him. The sweet Seth who spent years keeping his distance until I was ready for our story to unfold.

Seth Moore, the man who held me at night when the visions of Jax’s death haunted me in both my dreams and my waking moments. Seth Moore, the man who was responsible for killing my hope for the future.

Memories. It was all just fucking memories and visions on what almost was. I killed him. I did that. Boldly. Fiercely. Our story ended because I chose myself. My family. There were consequences to the choices we made. Spending forever alone was mine. Tomás and his flirting may be harmless, but I didn’t want any part of it. I didn’t deserve the flushing of my cheeks or the pitter-patter of my heart under the attention of a man who is just my type. Confident. A little arrogant. Strong. Charming in an unsettling way. All the ingredients for a catastrophe, waiting to ignite. Misery was due to me and I would happily welcome it with open arms.

The room fell to blissful silence as our attention rested upon our individual archives. It wasn’t as though I ever doubted Amaia and Prescott’s insistence on keeping historical records of each of our residents. In fact, I’d always respected it. I’d maintained much of my own family history in The Before and had carried it with me to The After. What wasn’t remembered, was lost and when lore and legends were no longer enough for humans, we’d resort to was written.

Though the fascinating aspect of it all being—if you weren’t interesting enough to be worthy of a memory that outlasted time, then you were forgotten. And now, we had to search through it ourselves. Remember the finer details no one had ever thought to flag, to note.

There may not have been Pansies in the past, but our research regarding how they communicated now was dependent upon the data. There were the usual entry questions, the core three that Amaia asked everyone that arrived at our gates. Then there were those who’d arrived inconsolable, leading us to ask more. Questions that helped Prescott and the others understand the mental state of each victim of the outside world.

What happened out there? What did you see? Why can’t you speak?

The answers to those were what we’d find inside. So not everyone at Monterey Compound but nevertheless, a great deal. Everyone had trauma. Nothing new about that.

“Reina, you said it was something about acoustic signals and dolphins?” I pivoted around in my seat.

Reina sat cross-legged on the counter, a notepad in her lap as she ran through the profiles I’d pulled for her review. People she may want to talk to in person. Shit in their files that made me arch a brow and could be something , anything we could grasp onto.

“I say a lot of things, but yes, go on.” Her long legs dangled over the side and she hopped down. Reina hovered over me upon approach, the silver chained cross around her neck that once belonged to Seth cool against the back of my head. “Find something juicy?”

Tomás’s attention piqued, and he glanced over. His attention lingered on me as he waited for me to speak. “Could be nothing. But we had an arrival a couple of months ago specifically stating that the further they got from Covert, the Pansies clicks and groans became less rhythmic and more chaotic.”

“Interesting,” Reina said, tearing the page from the tome and parsed through it, jotting down some notes.

“Does it say where they came from?” Tomás asked, his hand fell over his buzzed, dark hair, his presence looming now that Reina had paced back across the room.

“Yeah.” My voice came out as a whisper, and I cleared it. “These are from the Transient Nation arrival stack. So everywhere. Why?”

“Okay, a few months ago, the closer they got to Salem the fewer originals they saw in the area. That’s a direct correlation to whatever Ronan had going on, yeah?”

“We already know that another species of Pansie was born about a year ago,” I said. “That’s what kicked this whole thing off—when Michael and Logan got bit.”

Something danced in his light brown eyes as he spoke. I hated it. “Have you considered migration patterns? Pansies are people. People are animals. So are dolphins. There’s less now than last week. It’s getting hotter. Bodies decay in heat.”

“Duh,” Reina chimed in with an exaggerated nod, jerking forward at the statement. “The decay is still slower than what you’d expect from you and me on the way to the afterlife, since they aren’t, like, actually dead, though.”

“Following. But, hear me out Ms. Scientist and Seer , what’s the typical behavior of a pod of dolphins?”

“Um, they’re smart as heck. Complex communication patterns, coordinated group movements in both hunting and migration …” Reina’s voice trailed off and her eyes glistened in distant thought.

Tomás sighed impatiently, sliding across the room on the wheeled chair and reached for the report. “And the Pansies are doing what …”

“Well hot damn.” Reina muttered. “They’re following the food source.”

“Who’s name is on that report?”

I shrugged and met his stare. It was unsettling, as though he was seeing through you but not in the creepy, cloudy way those around me described my gaze. Tomás watched people, as though their secrets were an open book to him, and he found humor in that. “Everything’s blending together at this point. I’m not even checking unless I see something significant enough to set aside.”

“That doesn’t seem helpful.” He teased.

I scoffed, tossing my hair over my shoulder. “And what do you do around here again?”

“What I do here is irrelevant to my po?—”

“Oh brother.” I groaned and rolled my eyes. “Reina, whoever it is, we need to go talk to them. Now.”

Mischief decorated Reina’s sharp features as she ruffled through the stack of interview papers in front of me. Her cheerful tone was a sickening giveaway that she was about to put me through hell and enjoy every second of it. “Sure, you lead though, since there’s a good chance they’ll tell you everything and then some.”

I glanced down at the page she set before me. Tomás inched forward, his eyes narrowing. “You know him or something?”

It was Hal’s interview. And we didn’t have to go far to get more information. Down the hall and around the corner in fact. My old quarters. I’d avoided him as much as possible. If it weren’t for Emma, we’d be no contact for sure. His wife, my fallen friend, Laurel dying hadn’t made us like each other all the same. Instead, we operated in a sense of understanding and respect for all the shit we’d been through since we last resided in the same space. Sometimes trauma bonds you. Other times, you couldn’t help but have a desperate urge to get further apart.

We both grieved too much. If we were left alone together, I feared we’d stay in a pit of each other’s sorrow and depression forever. Ergo the kids and my family. If we drowned ourselves in other things, then we could both pretend this was how life was meant to be. There was no alternative to this. Shit happened, and you dealt with the hand you were given. The universe worked however the fuck it wanted to, and we were all victims of the whims and wind in which it took us.

For those reasons alone I was glad to have left them my quarters. I didn’t want to go back. Riley’s old place with Abel felt good … it felt better. A place to start over. Again. Or deal with the time I had left.

If I wanted to talk to Hal though, there was only one place we could find him at this time of day. And it was the last place I wanted to be.