Lyse knew Arrabelle was convinced the place had once housed a secret U.S. military compound, and Lyse had to agree that there was something cold and clinical, and vaguely government-issue, about the facility.
"You know we're not far from where Area 51 is purported to be," Evan said, joining Lyse, Niamh, and Arrabelle's conversation. "Who knows what the government had in there before The Flood got their hands on it?"
The old mine shaft that housed the facility was in the mountains bordering Groom Lake, Nevada-maybe Arrabelle and Evan weren't too far off the mark.
"I'm gonna reach out to the Eagles if you guys are still all right with it."
Lyse nodded and watched as Evan took out his cell phone. There was little small talk. He quickly got to the heart of the matter, asking his friends to send reinforcements who would be prepped and ready to help care for the women and children Lyse's coven had rescued.
"I'm going to take a walk," Lyse told Arrabelle.
She needed some space to think.
"We're on it," Arrabelle said, and nodded.
Lyse turned to go, but then she felt Niamh's long fingers encircling her upper arm.
"I wanted to tell you that we did the right thing," Niamh said, a haunted look in her eyes. "Now no one else will die like my sister."
They'd arrived too late to save Niamh's identical twin, Laragh-who'd been kidnapped, tortured, and murdered by The Flood. Lyse knew that Niamh had been damaged in some visceral way by her sister's death and that the loss of the psychic connection between them-the same connection that had helped guide Niamh and the others to the location of the secret facility-was ripping Niamh apart.
"I wish we'd gotten here sooner," Lyse said, filled with guilt by the loss of the blood sisters they hadn't been able to save.
"Me, too."
Niamh let her go, but not before giving Lyse's arm a firm squeeze. It was as if she were saying . . . It's not your fault. But Lyse didn't believe her . . . or anyone else.
She gave Niamh a quick nod, then stepped out onto the uneven desert floor. She felt Niamh's gaze pinned to her back as she stumbled along the rocky terrain, but she didn't look back. Embarrassed by the tears that blinded her vision.
She was feeling unsure of herself, and she needed some space in order to think, to figure out what their next move would be and what the future might bring them.
She moved farther away from the others, taking one of the paths that led away from the mouth of the mine shaft toward the dusty brown horizon. She was so happy to be aboveground again she didn't even mind the heat as she walked, watching the blue sky shift into late-afternoon streaks of burnt orange and dark indigo. She was dirty, sweaty, and she could smell herself. She realized she had no idea how long she had been held captive by The Flood before she escaped and hooked up with the others, but the last time she'd showered was at least twenty-four hours in the past.
The rubber soles of her shoes offered little protection from the jagged stones she was trying to maneuver over, so she stopped and hauled herself up onto an outcropping of beige rock. She felt exhausted, both mentally and physically, her tired feet aching from too much time spent standing upright. Hopping over a crevice in the outcropping of stone, she saw flecks of greenery growing in the shaded dirt beneath the rocks.
Even when things look darkest, life goes on, she thought, then tore her gaze away from the growing things to gently make her way over to the edge. She plopped down on the warm stone, the heat radiating up through the seat of her black jeans, and closed her eyes.
She lifted her face, catching some of the dwindling sunlight. She tried to relax the kinks out of her shoulders and back, but it was no use. She felt tight as a knot, her whole body aching from the last few hours. She let her mind drift, remembering all the awful things she'd endured: She'd watched a man die-a man she'd been in love with. She'd let down her coven mates, especially empath Daniela and Dream Keeper Lizbeth. She'd allowed Desmond Delay-the man she was now forced to acknowledge as her grandfather (the thought made her skin prickle)-to escape without taking any responsibility for his heinous crimes.
She was a shitty coven master, and even though she hadn't asked for the gig, she still felt the weight of the position pressing down on her. Yet she was only one person. There was only so much she could do. For someone else, those words might have absolved them from guilt, but for Lyse, they did nothing. As far as she was concerned, they were a cop-out, and they did zero to assuage the anger she directed at herself for failing to be a better leader.