Page 31 of Raze
The Tower looms overme as a monolith of steel and glass. It’s unlike any building I’ve ever seen before in its style. It’s not a tall or wide rectangle like they usually are. The front entrance is within a curve of the building, like a very soft and short U-shape that makes me feel like it’s welcoming me into its arms. The first few stories are stacked on top of each other, just steel and windows, but once I count ten windows up, it shifts.
Rather than going straight up, the left side starts to open with green courtyards. The first one is the largest, and then the next level up has its own courtyard that hovers above it but a bit shorter to not sit right on top of the other one. And on and on until the courtyard balconies get smaller and smaller, as does the enclosed floor of the building until it reaches the top.
I attempt to break in through a window, any window, but they're sealed on all four sides. I try the front door next, even pulling out my lock-picking kit from Jackson’s hoodie pocket—that I’m borrowing—to see if I can get inside.
This building has been shut down since GE attacked it a few weeks ago. There areClosed for renovationsigns posted all over the place, from the doors and windows to a sign out front. When Aiden had been ready to bring its residents back in, we’d learned about Vera being alive, and he’d stopped that plan. Apparently, this building pretty much runs on technology. From its security system, to doors opening, meal ordering, communications, everything. It’s too much of a risk to stay here when Vera could easily lock us all inside.
He’d cut the power to the building and then locked it up so no one would have access to it while it was unoccupied, but I didn’t realize how serious the locks on it would be.
My hand trembles with effort in trying to hold down a pin in the lock with my pick, and then it snaps. In the lock.
Shit.
I try to dig it out with my nails but can’t get enough of a grip on what’s sticking out to do anything. It’s staying there. Well, at least that means others can’t try to do the same thing, right?
“Do you go out of your way to be a pain in the ass for me, or is this just your natural state now?” a voice that’s smooth as cognac croons behind me.
I sigh and drop my head. “Despite what you think, my decisions have very little or nothing to do with you, Aiden.” I look at him over my shoulder while still crouched down in front of the door handle. “Did you follow me?”
His brown eyes, so dark that they look black more often than not, give me a hard stare. “Contrary toyourbelief, not everything is about you either.” Aiden steps up next to me and grasps the handle of thedoor I’d just broken. “I was already on my way here when I saw you trying to break into my building. Why is that?”
The pin that was stuck in the lock gets pushed out by his gift and tinkers when it falls to the concrete between us.
He stares down at me, and I feel small beneath him and that look. It reminds me of all the times he’d cornered me in the past to chastise me. Or that one time…when he’d finally kissed me in the library and took my breath away. I’d compared every kiss off the island to his, and they never came close.
Until Kellan and Jackson.
But theirs were different than Aiden’s and each other. Just as unique and panty-melting in their own ways.
Wait. Why am I thinking of kissing him?
I stand up to shrink that distance he has lording over me while I’m on the ground. It helps. Not a lot, but it’s something.
“I’m here to look for clues. See if GE left anything behind while they were here.” What I can’t tell him is that there’s a chance Gordon may have done exactly that just for me. Because in his delusional mind, he might think he still has some sort of control over me, and I’d actuallywantto go back to him.
The very idea makes me sick.
Aiden studies me, and I know he’s trying to read what I’m not saying. He used to be able to do that with me once before, but I’ve changed too much in our time apart. And so has he. Now, I’m little more than a stranger whose motives he hasn’t been able to figure out yet.
Unfortunately for him, he can’t read my body language as well asElias can. And he can’t see straight through to my soul like Jackson.
“The Guild floor was cleaned up weeks ago. If there had been anything left behind, it was either found, or it’s gone now.”
If Gordon had left something, I doubt it would have been recognizable as anything to anyone tidying up. Then it clicks what he just said to me. “You said it was found. Did you find something, then?”
Aiden offers me a cold smile. “There are two rules in life,” he starts, and my brows pinch with confusion about what feels like a change in topic. “Number one: never give out all the information.”
I wait for him to give the second rule, and his smile shifts to a smirk. He turns the handle of the door, and it opens without any resistance. His words sink in, and I scowl. What an asshole.
He holds the door open for me and waves his hand inward for me to enter first.
“You’re letting me in?”
“Better to be here and see what you’re doing than have you come back another time without supervision.”
Just what I need. Aiden breathing down my neck as my own personal chaperone. My skin prickles with goosebumps at the imagery that came with that, and I scrub at my arms roughly to knock that shit off. Him being so close to me is not hot or sexy. It’s claustrophobic.
The more he tries to keep me under his thumb, the more I debate running.
