Within These Walls

Life After Dark: 21 (WTW Sequel)

"You should have talked to us about this first," she reprimands him. "We make decisions together, remember?"

"I told Pablo," Jones mumbles.

Pablo snorts. "If that's what you want to call it. He's been acting like a certified nutjob since we got here. Saying stuff under his breath, almost pissing his pants anytime someone gets close to him. How was I supposed to know he'd stab us in the back?"

"I didn't stab anyone in the back! I'm trying to save us!"

Janie sweeps her hair up into a ponytail and pulls her black leather gloves back on. "This is a sign we shouldn't be trying to take on a freaking Ancient. Let's find Adam and Alec instead. At least we know what we're dealing with. At least they're human."

"Alec killed Sam," I remind her. "You know we can't trust him."

"Well, the enemy you know and all that." Her eyes shift over to Marcus. "Marcus?"

I look over at him to find him already watching me, this time with a lot less aggression and something that looks like a question. His puzzlement hardens to resoluteness. "Janie's got a point," he murmurs. "It's too dangerous."

"When is it ever safe?" I say, frustrated. "We had a plan!"

"Plans change."

"Come on, guys." I take in the team around me. "This is the closest we've ever been to finding answers. We can't turn back now."

"Answers?" Willow asks. "I thought the point was to save the Blanks."

"Of course it is," I answer quickly, thinking of Carson and the hundreds of humans we found in that cave. Saving lives trumps anything else we might be trying to do, but there's more to it than that for me. I can't shake the feeling that the answer I've been searching for, my connection to the crystal cave and the last of my missing memories, are tied to whatever is going to happen here in this city. That Ancient holds the key to a lot more than any of us know.

"Big mistake," Jones is muttering to himself. "Big mistake, big mistake . . ."

Janie points jabs an index finger at him. "That is so not winning you any points, April."

"What do the odds say?" Willow asks Pablo.

"There's a chance we'll do what we came for and make it out alive." He scrubs a hand through his longish dark-brown hair. "It feels close to 50-50. It could go in either direction, but I say we stay here and kick some alien ass. No more running, am I right?"

"Forget it," Marcus counters. "The only reason we're here right now is because we didn't have anything else to go on. But now we do. If Adam is here, it means he's working with Gardiner. And he'd never do that unless he had a good reason."

"They could be blackmailing him," Willow points out.

Janie shakes her head. "It didn't look like that from where I was standing. He and Alec seemed pretty cozy."

"So he betrayed us," Pablo scoffs. "Isn't that what your buddy Alec did, too?"

"Adam is nothing like Alec," Janie says curtly. "No offense, Willow."

"Marcus," I say, ignoring everyone else. He's the only one who calls the shots. In the past, it meant he and I would discuss plans, and then he'd carry them out. But I've lost a lot of clout with this group, and it all falls on him. "We could end this today. Right here. We might finally win. Isn't that what we've always wanted?"

His gaze holds mine, and for a moment it's like we're both slipping back through the months, to a time when we moved on the same wavelength and conveyed more with one glance than most people could with an entire conversation. It's because of this that I finally understand what's going on. The sudden change of heart.