Then they stepped outside.
Tessa squinted against the bright sunlight.
A narrow, tattered awning provided just enough shade for her and Jared to shelter in, not that he needed it. The older the immortal, the more sunlight he or she could tolerate.
A parking lot full of vehicles stretched before them.
She glanced to the right. Large trees provided shade for several picnic tables. In three hours, employees would gather at those tables and engage in laughter and enviable camaraderie while they ate lunch and enjoyed the cool weather.
Jared touched her shoulder. Half a second later, she stood beside those tables, safely ensconced in shade.
Tessa glanced up at him. “I could’ve made it on my own without burning,” she said softly enough that the vampires wouldn’t hear if any roused. “Gershom transformed me with Aidan’s blood, so I can withstand more exposure to daylight than other young immortals.”
“Apologies.” He offered her another of those slight bows. “I forgot and didn’t wish to see you harmed.”
Nodding, she sat backward on one of the picnic benches, facing away from the table. Tessa was so used to the high-quality everything inside network headquarters that the tired, rundown exterior always surprised her. The one-story structure boasted no windows, just a nondescript wooden door. It looked like something a warehouse delivery service might use to sort and store packages.
When she’d commented on it once, Cliff had explained that Reordon wanted to make sure the place appeared so uninteresting that anyone who inadvertently got lost or wandered out this way would have no desire to investigate it.
Mission accomplished. The place looked boring as hell.
Tessa tried to relax now that she was outside. But Reordon’s insistence that she not venture out alone continued to irritate her.
“It isn’t distrust,” Jared mentioned softly. “It’s concern.”
“What is?”
“Chris’s reason for wanting me to accompany you.”
She frowned at him. “Are you reading my thoughts?” After all the damage Gershom had done up there, she did not want telepathic immortals to ramble around inside her head.
“No,” he responded, unperturbed by the heated accusation. “It’s simply what I would think in your position, that he wanted someone to watch over me because he doesn’t trust me.”
“Oh.” She pondered his words. “How do you know it isn’t distrust?”
He shrugged. “I know.” Coming from someone else, the response would’ve made her roll her eyes. But Jared had lived thousands of years and seen so much that the claim carried weight.
“What’s there to be concerned about?”
He hesitated. “The sun is high in the sky. Accidents happen.”
She wondered if Chris might be more worried about non-accidents happening. Did he think her so troubled that she might walk into the sun and let the light sear away both her troubles and her immortality?
Tessa shook off the unsettling thought, determined to enjoy herself. She hadn’t been outside during the day in…
Well, she couldn’t remember how long it had been. Not since the morning after she’d transformed, she supposed. Doubting Gershom’s claims that the sunlight would harm her, she had stepped into it and learned—to her pain and eternal dismay—that it would.
A cool breeze buffeted her, tugging her hair back from her face. Closing her eyes, she drew in several deep breaths.
So nice.
When Jared sat on the other end of the bench, her end rose minutely.
She smiled. He was a big man. Two or three inches short of seven feet tall, he carried enough muscle to ensure he weighed at least twice what she did.
For once, he didn’t speak.
She had noticed that about him. With everyone else, Jared talked incessantly, always asking questions, perpetually curious about the lives he had watched from afar while he’d remained in seclusion with the rest of the Others.
Tessa thought it sad that—for thousands of years—he’d had no contact with humanity and no interaction with anyone other than the dozen or so powerful males like himself who believed that interacting with mankind and influencing them in any way would kick-start Armageddon. He seemed perpetually hungry for new experiences and was as eager as a teenager to discover what a “normal” unencumbered life could entail.
And yet, he was often quiet in her presence.
“I know Chris does everything he can to provide employees with clean, healthy air,” she murmured, “but it just can’t compete with this.”
“No, it can’t,” he concurred, his voice a deep rumble. Several minutes passed. “I wish you could’ve experienced what Earth looked and smelled like in the early days of civilization, long before the industrial revolution.”
Opening her eyes, she turned and found him studying her.
He looked away, focusing on the meadow she had admired from the faux window in her apartment. “Even here, surrounded by so many trees that filter the air, it isn’t the same.”
She nodded, sharing the same wish. With her gift, it would’ve seemed like a Utopia.
Another breeze encouraged the blossoms to dance.
“Mortals often can’t detect the fragrance of each individual wildflower,” he disclosed conversationally.
“I could,” she said, “even before I transformed.”
He cast her a curious look. “Because of your gift?”
She nodded. Tessa had been born with the ability to make plants grow and flourish with a touch. And even though she’d lacked the hyperacute senses of an immortal, she had always been able to detect more floral scents than her peers.
Will had been the same way.
Flashes of her brother lying several feet away in a pool of blood, screaming in pain, erased the beauty of the meadow.
Tessa squeezed her eyes shut, as if that could banish the horrific memory. Curling her hands into fists, she clenched her teeth. Tears rose, but she ruthlessly forced them back.
How long would this continue? How much time would have to pass for her to stop seeing her brother’s suffering every time she thought of him and instead remember the happy times they’d shared?
Opening her eyes, she rose and toed off her shoes. The grass was soft and cool beneath her feet as she strode toward the edge of the shade.
Behind her, Jared rose.
Halting, Tessa stared at the grasses and sporadic flowers that waved at her.
Her parents’ home rested in the center of several acres of land. And from spring through fall, she and Will had kept the rolling hills covered with a wealth of fragrant blossoms.
More images of Will’s last moments bombarded her.
More tears welled.
Kneeling, she buried her hands in the grass, wiggling her fingers until they reached the soil. It was still moist from recent rains and cold to the touch as she burrowed her fingertips into its depths. Energy thrummed through her as Tessa called upon her gift. Building in her chest, it flowed down her arms and entered the soft earth. Wildflowers in the meadow burst with new blossoms. Seeds dropped by the plants sprouted, the roots driving deep as stalks emerged, grew, and produced a wealth of fresh blooms. Dozens and dozens, then hundreds arose, rippling across the meadow like the white froth carried to the beach by ocean waves until they formed a dense, colorful, fragrant carpet.