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. Thenhisson 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. OldNational Geographicmagazines.
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.”
