Second Guess (The Girl in the Box Book 39)

by Robert J. Crane

  I made my way over to the kitchenette and found the coffee pot sitting there, almost empty. I drained it into my cup then tossed it into the sink, filling it with water and giving it a pump of the liquid soap on the sink's edge. “Hey, so...I know where all the girls are, being out on assignment and everything...but where's Scott?”

  “Should be on his way now,” Reed called back. “He was coming in from lunch with his dad.”

  I slipped out of the kitchenette, my cup refilled and my soul caught between at the glory of having caffeine and dying because of the terrible lengths I was going to in order to keep myself caffeinated. I was going to be regretting these choices soon, I figured. Probably the next time I took a sip. “Is that it, then? Four girls, four boys? And we don't do co-ed teams anymore?”

  Reed chuckled. “I'll send whoever I think is best for the job. Angel and Olivia got New York because it looked like a physical threat meta. They do punch damage, so...” He shrugged. “California got Kat because she's there and Eilish because she can control men and it sounded like a dude problem.”

  “Almost all our problems are dude problems,” I said, taking that long-promised and long-feared sip. I did regret it instantly, but I'd made my peace with being a caffeine slut by now. I'd do anything for the hit.

  “Speaking of dude problems...where is Harry?” Reed asked.

  I almost spit out my coffee, and not because of the terrible taste. “Nice,” I said once I'd recovered. “He's coming back from St. Thomas, but he had to take a boat. Then cars. Maybe a bus, even, I don't know. He was a little cagey about his travel plans.”

  “Why?” Augustus asked.

  “Because he envisions a dystopian future in which he doesn't want to be in any government databases during the period he refers to as 'The Culling,'” I said, completely deadpan. Then I took a sip.

  Everyone could hear me slurp my coffee. “Yo, is he serious?” Augustus asked, looking like someone had slapped him across the face with...oh, I dunno, the solidified version of my coffee. Which might actually have been solid by now. It was hard to tell.

  “Kidding,” I said. “But seriously, he doesn't like to be in databases. He doesn't have a driver's license or passport, and he avoids cameras wherever possible, so...I dunno. Pretty sure he took a flight there, so I'm not sure what taking a boat back is going to accomplish, but...” I shrugged. “He sees the future, not me, and he's not exactly generous of spirit about sharing his reasons for things.”

  Reed's face turned stony. “That doesn't bother you?”

  I took another sip of coffee, and another little piece of my soul died. By the end of this cup I was going to be an even more soulless, stone-cold killer than I already was. “Oh, it absolutely drives me up the wall. But I'm the same way, so I understand it.”

  The door clicked open out in the lobby, and I turned. Everyone did, actually.

  There was silence for a long moment, and Reed finally called, “Who's there?”

  Soft footsteps echoed quietly down the short hall between the bullpen and the foyer. I tried to gauge them for weight, but whoever was coming was muffling them, possibly intentionally. Smart, if they knew they were dealing with a room full of metas.

  “Who is it?” Reed called again, then immediately shifted positions by about ten feet, wind gust carrying him off the floor and away from where he'd been standing a moment earlier. Augustus and Jamal moved, too, putting some distance between themselves and where Reed had been standing. Smart, in case someone chucked a grenade in using his voice's last known location as target.

  But by this point I was pretty sure I recognized the tread. I had a cup of weaponized coffee to toss just in case I was wrong, so I didn't move from my spot.

  Reed whipped through the air into place just above the entry, while Augustus and Jamal darted, both bent nearly double, through the warren of cubicles to flank either side of the hallway that fed out from the entry. I tried not to laugh, not to smirk, as a tall – well, taller than me – figure stepped out into the bullpen–

  Jamal crackled with electricity to her left, Augustus had set his feet to her right, and Reed hovered just above her.

  My grandmother saw all three within a quarter second and reacted so fast I didn't have the time – or the inclination – to stop her.

  She grabbed Augustus by the collar and heaved him up. His feet swung high as she spun him vertically as though she'd drawn him like a sword. His foot smacked Reed in the mouth and his eyes went wide, then he wobbled–

  But Lethe wasn't done. She slammed Augustus into his brother and a sparking mass of electricity zapped through them both as Jamal released his energy in surprise at being nailed by 200-plus flailing pounds of his brother. Augustus's scream was high and girlish, and I really tried not to laugh at it as the two of them tumbled, still sparking wildly, onto the carpet.

  Reed dropped as my grandmother stepped back, neatly dodging him as he crashed into the carpet at her feet. She looked utterly undisturbed, these three badass dudes scattered around her like cut flowers, floored by a millennia-old lady.

  “What the...?” Reed said, woozily. He tried to push up and failed, elbows giving out as he smacked into the carpet. She'd rung his bell, and good.

  “Ahhh – ahh,” Augustus said, little blue sparks still dancing off him. He pushed up on his elbow and threw a look at me. “Yo, what are you waiting for? Get 'er!”

  “Guys,” I said, sipping my coffee coolly, “I'd like you all to meet Lethe. You know...my grandmother.”

  Their looks as they realized they'd all just gotten their asses kicked by grandma? Absolutely priceless.

  CHAPTER NINE

  “So you're Lethe,” Reed said, holding a Ziploc bag filled with ice against his jaw. His words were muffled from the hit he'd taken when Augustus's foot had cracked him across the face.

  “I'm Lethe,” she confirmed, standing straight and tall, arms folded in front of her, giving me a sidelong look.

  No. Wait. She was looking at my coffee.

  “What?” I asked. I held the mug closer to my chest, self-consciously. The aroma wafting off of it was somewhere between motor oil and old diapers.

  “I know I haven't been in your life very long,” Lethe said, “but if you don't stop drinking that, I'm going to organize these boys into an intervention for you right now.”

  “I ain't intervening on anyone,” Augustus said, a low groan undergirding his voice. “I just took enough voltage to power Minneapolis for a year. Every hair on my body is still standing straight up.”

  “Dude, I saw you at the pool party last summer,” Jamal said. “You wax your chest and legs and shave your head. What's left to be standing up?”

  “Don't be hatin' on my beautiful black Adonis looks, okay?” Augustus said, giving him a glance of pure acrimony. “I didn't just bury you in the earth then criticize your grooming habits. It's called manscaping, and it's very common and modern. And attractive to the ladies.”

  “How is Taneshia, by the way?” I snuck in a sip of my coffee on the premise that no one would care now that the threat of an intervention had fallen apart. I was wrong; Lethe noticed, and I cared, because part of my liver died immediately from processing whatever toxins had festered in these misbegotten dregs.

  “I don't know, we broke up,” Augustus said, still holding his head. The electricity must have been giving him a headache. He shot a look at me, though. “What? You were gone for years. Did you expect everything to be just as you left it when you got back?”

  “I've dreamwalked with you a dozen times over the last twelve months,” I said, straightening up, coffee splashing – or possibly crawling – in the bottom of my mug. “You never said anything.”

  He waved me off. “Because we always played pool and talked about other things, like the state of the Braves' pitching.”

  Reed turned his head to look at me. “What do you know about the Braves' pitching?”

  “It could use some work,” I said with a shrug. Brianna was a baseball f
an, not me. I indulged her by keeping up with the latest stats and watching the occasional game, though. Small price to pay for her being the quietest soul I'd ever “roomed” with. And having ice powers at my disposal.

  “Hey, is anyone here?” a voice asked as the office door opened and closed. Footsteps thudded through the entry and the hallway.

  “You going to line up to attack him?” Lethe asked.

  Reed just stared daggers back at her. “No, because he announced himself. As polite people do.”

  “I'm not polite,” Lethe said, moving not one centimeter. She was like a statue, standing there, forbidding as all hell. Seemed vaguely familiar, that manner.

  Augustus looked right at me. “So it's a genetic thing. That explains it.”

  I rolled my eyes, broke off any planned argument against that point (there really was none, to be honest), and walked over to Scott Byerly as he came through into the bullpen. I put down my mug of frigid hell on the nearby desk and greeted him with an enfolding hug.

  Scott blushed bright red, but hugged me back. “Hey. Didn't expect to find you here yet.”

  I broke from him, beaming. “I'm free and it's only a couple days drive from Washington. Where did you think I'd go?”

  He shrugged. “I don't know. You've been a fugitive for a couple years, then prisoner to the Network and unwitting servant to the government for the better part of another. Thought maybe you'd enjoy the road trip with...” And here his eyes found Lethe, standing just past me, remaining statue-still and less than welcoming. “...Uh...grandma...is this...?”

  Lethe inclined her head slightly toward him, though she seemed to break statue pose, at least a little, at the sight of him. “You must be Scott.”

  “I am,” he said, his voice a little deeper. He strolled past me and bowed his head a little, which was weird. “It's a pleasure to meet you. I was not expecting...” He stuttered a hem, then a haw, before finally coalescing this mess: “Well...you...ah...you look...really just great...”

  “Don't let the youthful good looks fool you, Scotty,” Reed said, nonplussed, “she'll put a hurting on you if you cross her.” He cringed. “Or look like you're going to cross her.”

  Lethe's eyes twinkled amusement, either at Scott's reaction to her or Reed's compliment to her meanness. Being of similar stock, I could see her enjoyment coming from both. “At least one person around here has the manners to greet a guest.”

  Scott blushed at that, then looked at me. “So...where's your fella?”

  “I don't know exactly,” I said, picking up my phone and giving it a self-conscious glance. “I should probably check in.” I looked to Reed. “Mind if I use your office for a sec?”

  “Because that's going to provide privacy against the hearing of an entire room of metas...?” Jamal asked.

  “Good point. Maybe I'll step outside.” I waved the phone in front of me and swiped my coffee as I went past, heading for the door. “Nobody set up an ambush for me while I'm gone or I'll have to show you how I'd have taken you apart. Spoiler alert: it would have been less gentle than what Lethe did.”

  “I'm an absolute kitten,” Lethe said, deadpan.

  “That word has different connotations around here,” Reed said, eye slightly twitching.

  “Poor Reed,” I said, spinning around to favor him with a smile as I walked away. “Your head will feel better soon, and then everything will be 'totally kittens.'”

  His jaw clenched, his eye twitched even deeper. “Please don't say that ever again.”

  “Someone's going to have to explain the kittens to me,” Lethe said as I pushed my way out the front door into the office hallway beyond.

  “Oh, we will,” Augustus said, “and then you'll be sorry you ever said it...”

  “Stop drinking that swill!” Lethe called to me as the door slammed.

  I rolled my eyes, already halfway through dialing a number I knew by heart, and took a sip of my coffee. Not just to spite her, but because by now I was committed to seeing how much internal damage this stuff would do by the time I finished it. I pictured it burning through my stomach lining and belly, scourging through my skin like the pure acid it was at this point.

  “Okay, now you're at spot number seven,” I muttered as the phone rang in my ear. “Just above that time I lost a hand to Gavrikov's fire.”

  Harry's voicemail picked up, the default, feminine voice reading off his number and telling me to leave a message. Which I did, even though I'm not much of a suggestion follower.

  “Hey, Harry, it's me,” I said, noticing my voice was an octave higher than its usual register. “Haven't heard from you in a few days. Hope the boat ride's going all right. Hope you're on land again already and just...too busy hitchhiking or something to pick up. Um...I made it to Minneapolis. I'm at the office catching up but probably heading out in the next few minutes.” I laughed weakly. “I'm sure you know all this already just...thought I'd check in. See how you were. Call me when you...can.” I paused, feeling strangely insecure trying to find something new and interesting to say to my future-seeing boyfriend. I didn't find anything after five solid seconds of dead air, so I rallied with, “Catch ya later. Bye.” And hung up.

  No, I didn't say I loved him. Because that was not a thing Sienna Nealon much cared to say aloud, to nearly anyone.

  Reed? Sure.

  Everyone else? No.

  I stared at my phone for a few seconds, then pressed the power button to kill the screen. It faded to black and I paused outside the office door, taking a deep breath before opening it, readying myself to face my long-lost friends once more.

  CHAPTER TEN

  “Hey, how's that phone working out for you?” Jamal asked as I came back in to an office that seemed bathed in tension. No one else was speaking, and the only people who were even looking at each other were Scott and Lethe.

  He looked away the minute I entered, though, which told me a little something about what was going through his mind. She didn't, but the hint of amusement in her eyes only confirmed what I'd been picking up.

  There was not a chance in hell I was going to chide my ex for thinking my grandma was hot, though. I'd have sooner dragged myself through a mountain of broken glass and then down into a sea of lemon juice without my healing powers than even let on that I'd seen it. Whatever. She looked to be in her late thirties/early forties and not dramatically dissimilar from me except in terms of height.

  Scotty had a type. It was flattering, really. Or at least that was how I chose to look at it rather than being skeeved out that he was hot on my grandma.

  “Phone's great,” I said, waving it in front of me like a shield.

  “Stop drinking that shit,” Lethe said again, eyes flicking to my coffee cup. “It won't cure any residual self-loathing you feel, it'll only make it worse because you're indulging it.”

  “It's just coffee,” I said, making a face. “It's not a metaphor for my psyche.” I took another swig of that...awful, awful stuff, and just barely kept from grimacing. “Let it go, Sigmunda Fraud.”

  “Can I see it?” Jamal asked, gesturing for my phone. He'd actually followed me across the room. “Just want to make sure there's no FBI malware in it.”

  “It's not an FBI phone,” I said, unlocking it and handing it over.

  “You get it after you got loose, then?” Reed asked, still pushing the icepack against his jaw.

  “No, I got it during the...incident,” I said. “From Cassidy.”

  “Whoa!” Jamal went from clutching it like normal to holding it out from his body like it was the world's smelliest gym sock. Or radioactive. Or like it was my coffee. “I need to get this thing contained, like, now.”

  “You took a phone from Cassidy?” Reed asked, pulling the ice pack away from his face in surprise. “Cassidy Ellis? What were you thinking?”

  “That I needed a phone that couldn't be surveilled by the FBI and Jaime Chapman.” Duh.

  “Talk about out of the frying pan and into the fires of hell,” A
ugustus said.

  “I remember when we used to say 'the Pits of Tartarus,'” Lethe whispered, voice taking on a dreamlike quality. “'Hell' sounds so much less elegant.”

  I peered at her, wondering if she was bringing this up to dissuade Scott's interest, or if it was just a random memory of the way things were, floating to the surface. No one called her on it, so neither did I.

  “Hey,” Lethe said, snapping out of it and turning her attention to me. “What's up with that ringtone?”

  I froze, coffee cup midway to my lips for my final sip. “You...you heard that?”

  “Heard it. Recognized it, even, from the opening strains.”

  “I changed your ringtone on the way there, knowing I was likely to use it as a distraction,” I said. “I wanted something that was distinctly...me. Something that would clue these boys in about what was going to happen next.”

  She gave me a good, solid glare, then relented. “I hope that's all it was.” She flashed a look around at each of them in turn, for whatever reason. Pride, maybe.

  “So...” Augustus said. “Can I ask...what now?”

  As if on cue, my stomach rumbled. “Dinner, I hope.”

  He chuckled. So did Jamal. “I meant in general. What happens from here? What are you doing now, Sienna Nealon? You know, now that you've beaten the rap, escaped from incarceration, crushed the Network, and retired from government service?”

  I looked at Reed. He looked unamusedly back, ice pack still clutched to his jaw, the content already about sixty percent water. I raised a hand and re-froze it, and he lifted it to give it a look before rolling his eyes.

  “What now?” I asked, rhetorically, giving myself a moment to think. “Now...we go back to business as usual, before all that other bullshit. I come back here, full time. Pick up the pieces of...everything.” I smiled. “Rebuild my house, and no, that's not a metaphor.”

  Reed cringed; so did the others, except Lethe.

  “What?” I asked. “What is it?”

  “While you were gone, they...well, the City of Minneapolis sold your house,” Reed said. “The lot, anyway. Someone else is already building a new one on it.”