“There’s physical damage to the machinery, likely deliberate—and some of the piping is destroyed.” She exhaled. “David’s replacing circuit components now, but we’re dead in the water, literally, until some PVC arrives. David says two hours of clean water left, if we’re lucky.”
Zach gave her a curt nod. “My team’s covering the utility sites now. You shouldn’t see them, but they’re around.”
His eyes swept the tree line, body coiled, like a predator waiting for something to move. “There are prints in the woods, Light. Too light for hauling tools—whoever did it probably hid a vehicle nearby. I’m going to track it out, though I doubt I’ll get much this late.”
She swallowed, unsettled. “Be careful.”
He paused, finally looking at her head-on, his stare unwavering. “You just keep David grounded. He’ll run himself ragged if you don’t keep an eye on him. Hydrate him. Treat him like a high-performance engine with no thermostat.”
With that, he vanished into the foliage, silent as a shadow. Gone in the blink of an eye.
Lena stared after him, heart still thundering, forehead sticky with mist, nerves humming from the confrontation.
How was this her life now?
She turned and ducked back into the sweltering water shed, blinking against the sting of sweat dripping into her eyes. The air inside hovered hot and humid, filled with the muted tick-tick-click of David’s tools and the underlying, uneasy silence of a machine not yet alive. Maybe she could figure out how to get the lights back on.
Wonderful, she was now the moral support-slash-tech assistant-slash-plumbing assistant-slash-hydration specialist for the resort’s secret weapon. Babysitting the boy genius. Only this genius was no boy and looked like he trained on a tactical obstacle course. Or in an electrical fire.
She sighed and wandered around searching for replacement bulbs for the overhead lights. Make that slash-electrician, too.
Chapter 19
Murky Water
Over an hour had passedsince Zach disappeared into the jungle, and David hadn’t stopped—not for water, not for air, not for anything. Lena watched from the corner of the room as he hunched over the exposed circuit housing, fingers nimble and relentless, surrounded by a chaos of wire fragments and half-gutted panels. His shirt stuck to his back, soaked through.
She grabbed a tepid bottle of water from the stash she’d discovered and snapped it open with a pop that echoed through the room.
“Hey, Genius,” she squatted beside him, holding out the open bottle. “Drink. You’re pushing too hard.”
David paused like someone coming out of a dream, blinking through the sweat tracking rivulets down the sides of his face. Then, a tired, crooked half-smile slid into place—unexpected and almost bashful.
“Welcome to crisis mode.” He took the bottle from her and drank in deep, urgent gulps, like he’d suddenly remembered his organs needed water.
Lena stayed crouched beside him, close enough to smell the sharp scent of ozone and skin, sweat and solder. His arm brushed hers as he pulled the bottle away and pressed the backof his wrist to his forehead. Without ceremony, he peeled off his glasses, fogged and streaked useless by heat and exertion. He scrubbed at his eyes and forehead with the hem of his shirt—lifting the damp cotton to reveal a flash of taut, sun-kissed abs etched with defined muscle lines Lena absolutely did not need to be studying right now.
She winced and forced her eyes upward instead, only to catch the edge of a knowing smirk.
He frowned down at his filthy glasses before tossing them to her. “Hold these.”
Lena caught them on reflex. The frames were smooth in her hands, lighter than she expected. She stared down at the lenses, then lifted them to her eyes. Her brows furrowed.
They were clear. Not vaguely, not slightly, but completely clear. No distortion, no magnification, no hint of prescription glass.
Her heartbeat picked up. Why would he wear them if he didn’t…?
Before she puzzled it out further, a jolt coursed through the shed. The machine in front of them gave a metallic twitch, like a sleeping dragon snorting awake. Next came the hum—low, powerful, steady. The lights on the panel flickered once before aligning themselves in an orderly, functional sequence.
“Yes,” David breathed. He straightened and rolled his shoulders with a groan that almost sounded human. His shirt clung to those muscles a geek shouldn’t have, his hair spiked in chaotic directions like some mad scientist. Sweat sheened across his face and neck, and something in her relaxed at the sight of him upright and grinning.
Lena let out a surprised laugh—half relief, half hysteria, all nerves finally unclenching.
“You are officially my favorite tech wizard,” she grinned as he reached for the glasses still dangling from her fingers.
He slipped them back on, the transformation back to geek anchoring. Normal.
“I’ll add that to my very prestigious resume,” he said dryly as he tucked a multi-tool into his back pocket. “‘Tech wizard,’ ranked just below ‘human lightning rod’ and ‘part-time goat wrangler.’ Though now I need to know—do you have another tech wizard? Should I feel threatened?”
