Second Guess (The Girl in the Box Book 39)

by Robert J. Crane

  “Is anyone else struggling with this long-lost grandmother thing?” Augustus asked, keeping his eyes on the road. Traffic had coagulated, and we were sitting on westbound 494 only going about thirty. I could see the Richfield Walmart ahead, which meant we were still miles from the official boundary of Eden Prairie. “I mean, you live your whole life and suddenly you've got a grandma you didn't know about? That seems weird.”

  “Because I told her to stay away,” I said. “So that I could grow to become my current, amazing self by going through my challenges solo. Ish. Well, with you guys. Some of the time.”

  “I don't understand how you told her to stay away if you hadn't met her yet,” Jamal said, making a face.

  “It was a time travel thing,” I said. “In 1999. But last year, for me.”

  “Beg pardon?” Augustus asked.

  “Say what?” Jamal's lips puckered. “You can time travel now?” I hadn't told either of them this story yet, not in the limited amount of dreamwalk conversations we'd shared in the past year.

  “Time travel is an actual thing?” Augustus asked. “Because if so, can I go back in time and meet–”

  “No,” I said. “Time travel is only a thing for the metas that do it. One did – for me. But he's not taking requests, especially not so you can meet...wait, who do you want to meet?”

  Augustus tensed up. “No one.”

  I leaned forward in my seat, unable to control the smile breaking across my lips. “Oh, okay. Lemme just...tap these telepathic powers–”

  “Brigitte Bardot!” Augustus shouted. “Stay out of my head!”

  There was a moment of extreme silence.

  “She's...really beautiful. And graceful,” he said, like he was making apologies. “Y'all can all go to hell if you're judging me.”

  “No judgment, pal,” Reed said.

  “A little judgment,” Jamal said. “Not too bad. Not like you said Nathan Bedford Forrest or something weird like that.”

  “Oh, I'd like to meet him, too,” Augustus said, “but then I'd probably create a paradox by making the earth swallow his white sheet-wearing ass whole.”

  “Right, no time travel for any of you,” I said. “And also – little ground rule – I'm hiding my powers at present. Except for the ice one.”

  “Yo, did anyone like, raise an eyebrow about you suddenly having ice powers?” Augustus asked. “I feel there should be a formal investigation anytime you bust out anything new, because we know it resulted in the death of a person.”

  “Do you know that?” I asked. “Do you, really?”

  He turned to look at me, no real hazard since we were now down to a near-complete stop. Jamal turned, too, which is what I'd been waiting for.

  I raised my finger and let a generous spark of electricity loose from the tip. It crackled across the gap between me and Jamal's nose making him jump as it grounded out on his skin.

  “'Ey!” Jamal shouted, rubbing the tip of his nose. “What are you doing?”

  “Conducting electricity to a guy who absorbs it.”

  “Aw, man, who'd you kill for that one?” Augustus asked.

  “No one,” I said, and pointed at Jamal. “That's from him.”

  I could see Reed watching me out of the corner of my eye. “You can use powers from people you don't kill?”

  “On a very limited basis, yes,” I said. “That spark I just used? That's about half what I can do with electricity. And I can only do that because the first time I met Jamal...”

  “This is because you damned near took my soul, right?” Jamal asked quietly.

  “Yes,” I said. “There's a shadow of you, a piece...in me. If I focus really hard on it...” I lifted my finger and another spark zapped between us.

  This time he didn't flinch. “Maybe you can use it to jump start a car at some point.”

  “Maybe,” I said, “since I won't be flying anytime soon, apparently.”

  “I don't understand that,” Augustus said. “Why can't you just let your meta flag fly?” He shrugged expansively. “Wasn't that what this last year was about? Getting that Network off your back? Getting loose of the government so you could just live like a normal person?” He paused, thinking. “Well, as normal as you can be with your soul-sucking, people-killing self.”

  “Let's just say that having these powers is starting to become something of a liability,” I said. “Like you pointed out, anytime I get a new power, they should conduct an investigation. And I'm sure it's just a matter of time before they draft a law to make absorbing souls illegal.”

  “Makes sense,” Jamal said, closing his laptop. “They've already started making laws about every other facet of metahuman powers. You're probably going to go under the magnifying glass before too long.”

  “I'm lucky right now,” I said, “inasmuch as the president is now flush with gratitude for me saving his life. But he's up for election in six months, and Charlotte Mitchell...well, I don't know her. She hasn't said anything about metahumans in her campaign speeches, so who knows how she feels. And all it'll take is one good meta incident to put us in the forefront during election season.” I shrugged. “Anyway. I did just use these powers to cause...let's call it 'great havoc'–”

  “That's a hell of a colloquialism,” Jamal muttered.

  “–So it's probably better if we give it a little time and distance before anyone finds out I can fly and burn people and...all that,” I said. “Lest people connect some dots to things I'd rather not...connect to.”

  “I agree with Jamal,” Augustus said. “There are better ways to describe it than 'great havoc.' Like 'going full Godfather'–”

  “Part one or two?” Jamal asked.

  “Both, really,” Reed said. “Michael settles all the family business at the end of each.”

  “Hey, uh, guys,” I said, “can we not, um...”

  “That's true,” Augustus said. “I was thinking Part II, because I feel like it kind of escalates there, you know? But really, it's both.”

  “I don't think this is...”

  “It is like both of them,” Jamal said. “I hadn't thought about it like that, either, but she settled all their hashes. Every last one of them clowns.”

  I cringed. “Um...can we not...talk about that? Like, at all?” They all looked at me. “We're talking about indictable offenses. I may have gotten the president's blessing to roll up the Network – and they were bad people, trying to kill the president and all–”

  “And thoroughly untouchable by conventional legal means, to hear you tell it,” Reed said coolly.

  “Yes,” I said. “Still...not a thing I want to really discuss. Or...ever do again, if possible.”

  Reed traded a look with Jamal, who then looked to Augustus. All three let out dry chortles, bordering on giggles. None said anything, but they didn't have to.

  “Well, I'm going to try not to,” I said huffily. “It's not my fault really quality villains keep crossing my path, either being too high level for the court system to touch them or too dangerous and committed to give up before I have to take 'em out.”

  Reed nodded slowly. “That's good. It's good that you're going to ease up a little.” He looked straight ahead. “Especially because...we really don't have the sanction to operate like you've gotten used to. Not around here, anyway.”

  I frowned. “What are you talking about?”

  He hesitated. Then he looked down, not answering.

  “What he means is,” Augustus said, “the State of Minnesota got real uppity about metahumans in your absence.”

  “Yeah,” Jamal said. “You might say they've got Sienna PTSD or something. The Minnesota legislature and Governor Shipley have tried to pass a dozen or so bills to make our lives harder.”

  I gave Reed a sidelong look. “You're kidding, right?”

  He shook his head slowly but didn't say anything.

  “How did I not hear about this?” I looked at Jamal. “What have they been doing?”

  Augustus shrugged. “
You were busy, and nothing's passed. But they're trying. Shipley's trying.”

  “Figured we'd tell you when there was something to report,” Reed said. “Besides...you had bigger problems.” And we settled into a slightly guilty silence.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  Scout Cole

  “So...now we know,” Isaac said, his breathing unsteady. He was blinking at the ceiling at the surprise they'd both had. Not that it had mattered, in the end. He'd overcome it, compensated...

  ...and now they both lay in a motel bed, spent.

  “I've been wanting to do this for sooooo long,” Scout said, fingers tracing lines over the sheets gathered around her body. She held the soft cloth over her self-consciously, like a blanket between her and a cold world. She hesitated before placing a hand on the sheet covering Isaac's body, like it was somehow verboten.

  Hah! After what they'd just done? After what she'd just finally gotten enough courage to let him do?

  “You should have said something,” Isaac breathed, turning his head toward her, nuzzling his nose in her ear. “It's so hard to tell what you're thinking.” He ran fingers through her hair, mussed as it was, partially trapped beneath her head. He ran them down to the tip of her nose, where he touched her gently – carefully, even – for but a moment before brushing the sheets lower, lower.

  There was cloth trapped between their bodies, a thick cotton sheet that seemed to barely breathe in the summer heat. And it was warm already, here in North Dakota. Or maybe it was just the exertions they'd put themselves through.

  Scout knew this, though – she felt alive. With Isaac, she felt alive, really alive, for the first time in a long time. Maybe ever.

  She held back from touching him, though, at least directly. She put a hand on the sheet over his chest, hesitant. She wanted to touch him, touch him the way he'd just touched her. To trace lines on his chest hairs. Run a finger down his jawline. Brush the edge of his ears. Go lower, down to...

  Isaac let out a contented sigh, and turned to her. “I'm sleepy. Are you sleepy?”

  “No,” she said, smelling the toothpaste on his breath. It was so...intoxicating. Everything about him was. Even the way he'd just...well, it was her first time, and he was so patient, so gentle... “I could stay up all night with you.”

  Wow. Where had that come from? She blushed; being bold had never been her strong suit. Doubts tended to eat her alive, which was why she'd never had a boyfriend. That and her looks, she'd told herself.

  His face split into a wide grin. That wide grin that she loved...

  Not that she'd say that. Not yet.

  “We have a long day tomorrow, you know,” Isaac said, looking at the ceiling. He closed his eyes. “We're going to make a statement.”

  “I know,” she said, pursing her lips but smiling at the same time. “I'm so excited.” Because she was. In all the ways. Being with him was causing a hunger in her.

  “Are you?” His voice trailed off. He sounded sleepy.

  “I feel like for the first time in my life I'm waking up,” she whispered, the musk of his sweaty scent defusing the aroma of his cologne. “Like hearing you speak woke me up from a long sleep.” She fidgeted between the constricting sheets. “Like I'd been trapped and alone before you came along. Before all of you came along.”

  “It's because you are awake now,” he said, turning his head only slightly, his open eyes only slits, pupils piercing through them to fix his gaze on her in the dark. “I can feel it in you, that desire to take these new powers and do something important with them. 'Awake' is the right word. Most people go through life in a coma, going through the motions. You...” He brushed soft fingers against the sheet, slipping lower down her body over the cloth...

  Scout moaned softly. It was like he knew exactly what she wanted, always.

  “...You are awake now,” Isaac said. “You've seen things that the plodding herds never notice in their steadfast urge to graze and keep their heads down. You know what has to be done.” His fingers worked soft, steadily against the sheet. “You are awake...”

  He threw off the sheet dramatically, and smiled, tilting up onto his elbow.

  A part of her wanted to ask what he was doing – he'd been about to drift off only moments before – but she knew in her heart, and she wanted it, too. Instead she giggled, then flushed at the silliness – the girliness – of it. She was a woman now, she should act it.

  But she giggled again, and couldn't help herself, as Isaac once more set about waking her up, in one of the ways that she'd begun to worry she never would.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Sienna

  We breezed into the offices of Nealon, Treston, and Associates – not the actual name, but by God it should be – like gangstas during a power shot in a movie.

  Okay, maybe that's just the way I came in.

  No receptionist, empty bullpen, absolute quiet. It wasn't quite like I remembered it.

  “You want some coffee?” Augustus asked, voice an octave or two above normal.

  I smiled. “Yes.”

  “How do you like it?”

  “Like I like my men,” I said. “Ice cold and at my fingertips the minute I want it.”

  Augustus stared at me for a second, then burst out laughing. “Well, I can pretty well promise it'll be cold since it's from this morning. Going to take me a second to get it, though.” And off he went toward the kitchenette.

  “You like the new digs?” Reed asked, folding his arms in front of him.

  “I was here last year, remember?” I asked. “Briefly. With Angel.”

  “Hm.” He grunted like Henry Cavill. “I remember.”

  “I liked the old location better,” I said. “Too bad I blew it up.” I paused, in thought. “Wait, that was two locations ago. Who blew up the last one...?”

  “Rose,” Jamal muttered under his breath.

  “It's sad that we need to keep track of these things,” Augustus said, handing me a cup of sludge. I could smell the congealed grounds and twitched just sniffing it. He must have seen me eyeing it balefully because he shrugged and said, “We don't do fancy coffee. At least, not anymore.”

  “Any chance we're getting a payday from Minnesota for my fine work at the mall?” I asked before sipping it experimentally. I deemed it a failure of the sort that would have killed a non-metahuman lab subject. Or at least sent them to retching. I swallowed, but only because of horrific indignities I'd been subjected to in my life, this coffee barely scratched the top ten. I decided it ranked in at number eight, just above that time I got zapped to death in the LA subway.

  “Maybe,” Reed said. “They promised payment, but who knows if they'll hold to it after the result and our...civil disobedience in showing up to Mall of America.”

  “I'll tell you, guys,” I said, “it's getting weird out there. I fully understand the desire to not incarcerate people for things like possession of Mary Jane, but some of the other shit police departments are doing? Eliminating cash bail entirely? Not arresting people for flagrantly breaking laws like shitting in public and injecting heroin on the streets?” I shook my head. “Why not just eliminate the law if you feel that way about it? It's so dumb.”

  “It's getting tougher out there,” Reed said. “This is the first time Minnesota has hired us in years. I doubt there'll be another anytime soon.”

  “Sorry.” I shrugged, taking another sip of that coffee and probably rendering myself sterile in the process. “Bluhhh. If I'd known that the cops wanted the bad guy to get away after taking a hostage, I would have obliged.”

  Reed's lips stretched into a smirk. “No, you wouldn't have.”

  “Zero chance,” Jamal agreed.

  “We're just lucky you didn't toss him over the edge,” Augustus said. “I was sure that was going to happen when I saw you crawling your ass over that rail. I'm like, 'He's going.' Hardcore. Like he'd be safer in a barrel heading over Niagara Falls. So I thought you showed some restraint just pulverizing him like that.”


  “'Restraint' is going to be the key word here,” Reed said, pushing out of his lean to stroll across the bullpen. “We've got two teams out on jobs right now. Kat and Eilish in California, Angel and Olivia in New York. These are the first nibbles at a paycheck we've had in months. Since my job down in Tennessee, actually.”

  “Sudden run on meta services, huh?” I asked. Another sip. Another small death I felt inside. I brushed up against the shadow of Wolfe, trying to heal the taste of this shit out of my mouth. It didn't work. “Any idea what's prompting this?”

  “No,” Reed said. “And we won't, until our teams finish the jobs, I'm guessing. One sounded like an upward spiral of some loner with meta powers. That's LA. The New York one is in the city itself. Something weird. Something I guess they didn't want to bring Jamie Barton in on.”

  “She's a hero, not an investigator,” I said, sipping slow death, feeling my unnaturally long life end a decade at a time with each drink of this so-called coffee. “Better to outsource this stuff to the pros. Or us.”

  “We're pros,” Augustus said, bristling. “We take money for the jobs. That is the very definition of a professional.”

  “Well said, college boy.” I peered at him over my cold cup of poison. “Speaking of...aren't you graduating soon?”

  He took a long breath. “End of summer. I had to retake some classes after we went into hiding for...Scotland.”

  I grimaced. “Sorry about that.”

  “I'm almost done,” he said with a shrug. “And you did set things up so it'd all be paid for, even with this current money squeeze we're facing so...no worries.” He nodded at the cup in my hand. “Smells like you're getting low. You want a refill?”

  “This tastes like Friday cleaned the pot by teabagging it after his sweatiest workout ever,” I said, staring at the swirling room-temperature fecal mixture in my cup. “But I kinda need the caffeine, so yes...?”

  Augustus made a terrible face. “You can get it yourself. I ain't touching that pot after what you just said about it, because I could picture Friday doing just that.”