Driven

by Robert J. Crane

  Miranda didn’t hesitate long. “Yes,” she answered with only a little reservation. “Most likely.”

  “How forgiving are cartel folks?” Sienna asked. “Just … based on what you’ve read of them, since I’m guessing you haven’t had any firsthand experience?”

  Miranda looked right at Angel, and her expression chilled Angel’s bones. “They … do not forgive.”

  “Right,” Sienna said quietly. “They like to make examples of those who oppose them. Judges, police officers, random citizens …They do a little less of it on this side of the border, but if this Jorge already sent people to kill Angel …”

  Miranda slumped. “He’s not going to give up just because he got thwarted once.”

  “Yep,” Sienna said, and now she looked at Angel; Angel, for her part, felt nauseous. “So I say we draw Jorge out … and make a little example of him. Make the cartel behind him want to cut their losses.” She smiled. “Trust me. I’m good at this kind of thing.”

  “But it sounds … so dangerous,” Miranda said, looking up at her.

  “More dangerous than waiting for them to descend on you?” Sienna asked, heading for the door. She’d clearly already decided. “Besides—Angel and I will protect you.”

  Miranda stiffened slightly, looking right at Angel, brows knitted close in concern. “You … are going to protect me?” She smiled, ever so slightly. “I mean … no offense, but …”

  Angel felt another slight churn in her stomach at her cousin’s look. “There’s, uh … one other thing I need to tell you … about what’s happened in the last day here …” And she took a deep breath, trying to figure out how to do it without just blurting out, “I’ve got superpowers!” or something similarly stupid … “Uhm … well …”

  Of course. She’d frozen again …

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  Sienna

  Now

  “Get her out of there … and finish her off.” The squeal of tires in the distance jolted me back to consciousness, a harsh wakeup in the sweaty summer night. I was drenched, sloppy with perspiration, my clothes sticking to me, and blood slipped down my upper lip and to my cheeks. The AR-15 was sideways across my lap, caught between me and the dashboard, which seemed to have gotten closer to the seat than it had been.

  I held in a grunt of pain, because some stuff was broken in my torso. I did slit my eye open slightly, trying to get the lid to relax so it didn’t look all squinted, then lolled my head so I could get a look around.

  There were shadows moving around in the light of the car’s hood fire in front of me.

  Hostiles. Tangos.

  My right hand was numb, but functional, I discovered as I clenched my fist. Workable motor ability in the finger that mattered—the trigger finger.

  The guys moving around in front of me were speaking Spanish and laughing. Not cops, plainly.

  I drifted my hand over to the AR-15, checked to make sure the barrel was unbent and whipped it up, using the mangled dashboard as a rest, and put a quick end to their giggles.

  There were five of them, and they reacted almost immediately to my movement, but “almost immediately” was not enough. I drilled every single one of them, pleased to find that the crash hadn’t damaged my weapon, and watched them drop where I popped them. They were all armed, by the way, just to ease your fragile conscience.

  A sixth figure just stood there, slightly shadowed, and then started clapping. I whipped the barrel around, looking for a weapon, but they didn’t have one, and raised their hands in surrender the moment I swung the AR around.

  “Whoa,” a female voice said, stepping forward into the light of the dancing flames from what was left of the Miata’s hood. Adoncia’s eye beam had ripped it cleanly apart, leaving only a very little to burn, probably some residual gas in the fuel line or something. “Not me, please.”

  I stared at the woman. She was African-American, and wore a glittering smile with eyes that found mine and didn’t let go. “Do I know you?”

  She smiled. “No. But I was about to kill all five of them if you hadn’t done it.”

  “Oh yeah?” I asked, staring at her down the side of the AR barrel. “Why would you go and attack your fellow employees?” I eased back but only slightly.

  “Other than them being annoying?” She wasn’t all that tense for having a gun pointed at her head. I saw why a second later as she seemed to melt into the darkness.

  “You have shadow powers,” I said, looking around, trying to control myself, keep from going frantic. I was still stuck in a burning car, after all.

  There was a click as my seatbelt released. Shadow lady was there, standing, calmly, above me. Hand out, palm open, no threat intended. “You’re a little late to the party on that one,” she said.

  A thought occurred. “You were the driver of the SUV that Angel sent into the helicopter.”

  She clapped her hands. “Very good. I did a little shadow dance and slipped out before it exploded. Lots of shadows coming off an explosion, you know, and … not a lot of need for me to go down with that ship. I’m Kristina, by the way.”

  “Formal introductions are not going to spare your life,” I said, trying to justify cold-blooded murder and not having a lot of luck with that, absent a truly hostile move from her. “I’m on a first-name basis with lots of people I kill. Like Adoncia, for instance.”

  “She’s gone,” Kristina said. “Took your friend and left the rest of us to kill you. I guess you must not be as high on her list as that Angel chick. Hard to believe; I always heard you were great at pissing people off.”

  “Bad move on her part,” I said. “Should have struck while I was out.”

  “Well,” Kristina said, smiling, leaning in on me as I kept a wary eye on her, “she might have prioritized that if I hadn’t … fibbed a little about your state of being.” She straightened slightly. “Cassidy played middleman and hired me. For ‘Adoncia.’” She used air quotes, smiling all the while. “Said to tell you … ‘You owe her … again.’”

  I didn’t take my sight off Kristina. “So … she hired you to help kill me … but you’re not going to help kill me.”

  She shook her head. “Cassidy hired me to cooperate with the cartel up to a point … and that point was you, on the edge of death. At that point, my objective changed—I was to preserve your life.” She waved a hand toward me. “And here you are, alive. Look at that. I’m just the damned best at my job, aren’t I?”

  “Through no fault of your own, I’d argue.”

  She frowned. “Not so. I could have delivered the coup de grâce any time while you were sleeping. I was the one who pulled your friend out of the car there. None of the others had the guts to get close. I spared your life, and I brought you Cassidy’s message. Now … my contract is fulfilled. Baby gonna get paid, darling.” She actually snapped her fingers in front of me.

  “Cassidy,” I muttered, almost a curse. She was definitely off my Christmas card list, but she might have spared herself my shit list, for the moment. “Where did your employer head off to … with my friend?” I finished lamely.

  “Cassidy said to tell you that they’re basing themselves out of a quarry in the middle of Maple Grove, wherever the hell that is,” Kristina said. “That they don’t know the value of what you’ve got in the back seat there,” and she nodded, presumably at the safe deposit box. I did not turn my head or take my eyes off of her to confirm it was still there. “That the quarry will be a tough nut to crack. She had to hire fifty mercenaries to guard the place for them, in addition to some of their own cartel soldiers. Oh, and they didn’t get the contract rider to spare your life. You show up, they will full-on try and kill your ass.” Her right eyebrow moved slightly in amusement. “Apparently Adoncia took the losses you’ve inflicted on her since this began with … well, she took them poorly, let’s just say. She started throwing a lot of money into bringing your friend in.”

  I shook my head, keeping my eyes open and fixed. Shaking off concussion-worth
y hits was so much more difficult these days. “Let’s say I believe you on all this … what’s your play now?”

  “My contract’s up now that I’ve played teacher for you,” she said, lowering her hands. “I’m off to spend my money. Best of luck, Sienna. Get on ‘em, girl.” And she seemed to evaporate into the shadows crawling across the ground of the parking lot, disappearing into the night.

  “Oh, Ima give ‘em hell, all right,” I said, crunching the door as I forced my way out of the mangled car.

  “I know you will,” Kristina’s voice drifted back to me, on the wind, like she was saying it from considerable distance. Which was probably smart.

  “By the by,” I called to the empty parking lot, “if you ever try to kill me again—”

  “Spare me the threat,” Kristina said. “I’ve yet to try and kill you. And I wouldn’t.”

  “Because you know better?” I asked the empty parking lot, AR clutched tight in my hands.

  “Because I like a challenge,” she said, way too impishly for my taste, “and assassinating people unseen? Too easy.” She laughed, a little silvery thing, and was gone, the giggles cut off in the middle like I’d snuffed her with my AR.

  “Creepy,” I muttered, dragging myself out of the car. My right leg nearly failed as I put weight upon it, and I gritted my teeth, forcing myself up, slinging the AR back over my shoulder. Smart of Harry, putting a sling on it. Almost like he knew I’d come to this very moment and need it.

  Reaching into my pocket, I pulled out the ruins of the burner phone Jamal had used to communicate with me. It was a shattered mess, a complete writeoff, and if I’d purchased the insurance plan, I’d be heading to the store to get a new one tomorrow. Since I hadn’t (it’s a waste of money for most people, honestly), I pocketed the SIM card and tossed the phone’s remains into the fire beneath the Miata’s engine.

  Putting a hand on the wreckage, I leaned against the car and ripped the back passenger door open when it refused to swing normally on its hinges. Tossing it aside, I breathed a very light sigh of relief to find my go bag and the safe deposit box more or less where we’d left them.

  But Angel …

  Adoncia had her, and my gut feeling was … she was not going to give her an easy time, nor a merciful death.

  The only hope I had, really, was that Angel would hold out, not breaking, not telling Adoncia a damned thing about what she wanted to know—which was most likely related to Miranda and the treasure trove of goods we had in our backseat. I muscled the safe deposit box out of the car, and slung the go bag over my shoulder, pausing only to change wigs, throwing the old one—which was hanging off the side of my head anyway—into the fire.

  This … was my last disguise, I realized. There was a change of clothes, too, and other than a last few items that had a very specific purpose … that was the end of what Harry had packed for me. Taking great care, I slung the bag onto my shoulder after removing a couple of tools that were now near the top of the bag. A slim jim for unlocking a car to steal, and a set of lockpicks. Not meant to be used in combo but seeing them together gave me a pretty good idea of what needed to happen next.

  I was banged up beyond the capacity to wage a one-woman war on the Cartel, at least for the moment. I needed a few hours to recuperate, to let my body do at least a modicum of healing. That meant I needed somewhere to lie low, somewhere out of harm’s way, where the cartel would presumably not look for me. Somewhere that wouldn’t get anyone—like my friends, AKA known associates—in trouble with the law.

  I’d had an idea about that, one of those “In Case of Emergency, Break Glass,” ideas, one that would keep the person involved from actual trouble … but would throw a lot of hassle their way. It was my last ditch play, but … it seemed I’d come to the last ditch. Go to Reed or any of the others and ask to lie low at their house, and I’d be seriously risking felonies and jail time for them.

  No, I reassured myself, limping away from the wreck, very slowly, toward a recent model Chevy Malibu parked just down the roof from my wreck, this was the only way forward. As evidenced by Harry including the lockpicks where he had in the bag. It had not escaped my notice that I was basically down to a few weapons and these last items.

  This adventure seemed to be drawing to a close.

  “Good,” I muttered as I thought my way through that possibility. If all that was left after this was a bunch of guns, then we were definitely about to enter the “Sienna kills everybody” portion of my contest with Adoncia and her goon squad ambush. This was where I really tended to rack up the points, because let’s face it, the swimsuit and Q & A portion of the competitions were totally loaded in favor of the beauty queens and slick talkers.

  But in this fictional contest, I was Miss Murdering Fucking America, and it was time to reclaim my crown from Adoncia, that upstart.

  Slipping the Slim Jim tool down the gap between window and seal, I unlocked the Malibu’s door. A minute or so later, I’d defeated the car alarm and stripped the ignition, and she was purring. I recalled my destination’s address from memory, and started down the ramp, avoiding the cartel SUV parked in the middle of the road. Yeah, I could have stolen it, but it might have had GPS or a lowjack or something.

  And I didn’t want these bastards to track me … or see me coming.

  “You assholes messed with the wrong girl,” I muttered to myself, taking the curves of the ramp nice and easy, grimacing in pain with every bump on the way down. Glass glittered in the roadway from the gun fight, and when I drove out onto the street beyond, I could hear sirens just coming in the distance. Busy night for the police in the Twin Cities, I reckoned, and headed off to avoid them once again, mapping the destination in my mind and slipping into the night.

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  “Ariadne,” I whispered into the darkness. A sleeping figure lay before me, stretched out on a bed, alone, as I lurked over her.

  This was arguably the creepiest thing I’d ever done, but here I was, nonetheless, standing over Ariadne Fraser, waking her up by whispering her name over her sleeping form. Not exactly my proudest day, but in my defense, it was very akin to coming into my mom’s room at night because I’d had a really bad dream.

  Or bad day, in this case.

  “Ariadne,” I whispered again, and this time she stirred, coming out of her deep slumber. Sighing, I clicked her lamp, and Ariadne sat up, bolt upright.

  She looked like she might have screamed if she’d been able to put together everything in reasonably quick order. She took me in with a long look—bloody, torn up, my last wig now back in my bag (I’d taken it off after I’d quietly picked her front door lock and slipped in). I was easily recognizable now, and she did recognize me, at least as the famous criminal, and I held up a finger over my lips to keep her from screaming.

  But Ariadne was never much of a screamer. “What do you want?” she whispered, completely awestruck and probably thinking she was still dreaming.

  “Sorry to bother you in the middle of the night,” I said, and truly meant it. “I … kinda just got my ass kicked by a Mexican drug cartel and need a place to lay low for a bit, so … in the interest of keeping you from having to aid and abet a felon you don’t even remember knowing … I am now taking you hostage.”

  I didn’t have my AR in hand, but it was visible slung over my shoulder. Nothing I said carried the aura of a threat, but surely she was well acquainted with the fact that I, a metahuman, could have killed her with one punch. I kept my hands squarely by my side, but her gaze flicked over me, and a line of concern popped up on her brow. “You’re bleeding.”

  “Like I said … it’s been a day.” I gestured to her. “Let’s get you bound to a chair so I can work on staunching this blood loss … which … I will totally pay for the damage to your carpet after this is over.”

  She slid out of bed and grabbed a silken nightgown, wrapping herself in it and tying the knot around her waist. She was still as pale as me, her red hair dyed to avoid showing grey anywh
ere but the roots. She looked mildly concerned for her well being, and asked, “Are you going to hurt me?”

  “No,” I said, too tired to lie, and too fond of her to put on any kind of threatening facade. “I know you don’t remember me, but … you lost your memory about a year and a half ago. Before that … we lived together as … roommates or something. Surrogate mother and surrogate daughter … we worked together.” I shook my head. “Anyway. No, I’m not going to hurt you. I just didn’t have anywhere else to go. I’m sorry.”

  She nodded once and stood. “All right.” It was hard to tell what that meant by the look on her face, but I led her into the kitchen and grabbed a roll of duct tape out of the drawer, binding her to the chair. As an actual inhibitor of human freedom, duct tape is terrible stuff. Even a grandmother could break out of it if she knew how.

  Ariadne stared at the duct tape bonds taping her to the chair, and I realized she probably remembered my training on how to get out of it.

  “You’re thinking about how ineffective this stuff is and how easy it is to escape,” I said.

  After a quizzical look, she asked, “How did you know?”

  “I’m the one that taught you how to get out of it,” I said, “apply torsion laterally, because that’s how the tape is meant to be broken to shear off the pieces from the roll. Sound familiar?”

  She nodded. “Why would you have taught me to escape duct tape?”

  “Well, like I said … we lived together.” I finished “securing” her to the chair. “I was always a high value target to various people, and you were a leverage point for me, so I made sure you went through at least some basic anti-kidnapping stuff. Guns, knives, tasers, escape … we covered it all at one point or another, with regular recaps—you know, just to be sure. My mom was big on training constantly, and although I probably wasn’t as much of a lunatic for it as she was, it’s how I was raised … y’know?”