Second Guess (The Girl in the Box Book 39)

by Robert J. Crane

  “Hah,” he said, utterly without mirth. “No. I had in mind a different nocturnal activity.”

  I tilted my head at him and cocked an eyebrow.

  “Not that one, either,” he said, looking like he was losing patience. “The oil well fires.” He pointed at me, then himself. “If someone flew me out there, I could snuff them with earth, one at a time. If someone were to turn down the flame, it'd probably go even quicker.”

  “Ah,” I said. “Less fun than what I'd originally imagined you were talking about.” I frowned. “Less fun than the bar fighting, actually, but...”

  “If we don't do this, it'll take them months to put these out,” Augustus said. “Lives are going to be lost, too. Firefighters. Putting out oil fires is dangerous work.”

  I nodded slowly. “Count me in. We'll need to wait for nightfall, though.”

  “Sundown's at 9:40 tonight,” he said. “You might want to get some sleep.” His eyes slid down to my phone, and it was his turn to cock both head and eyebrow. “What are you doing there?”

  I lifted my phone to look at it, flushing in the cheeks. “What, this? I...uh...”

  He chuckled. “You look like you just got caught looking at porn.” He caught my hand and lifted the phone. “A Socialite account. Really going through with it, huh?”

  “Keep in mind the founder of Socialite caused me enough problems last year that yes, I am perhaps just a little embarrassed by this,” I said. “I mean, who in their right mind would put themselves out there for massive amounts of public scrutiny?”

  “Everyone on the planet with an internet connection has a Socialite account. Welcome to the revolution,” he guffawed. “You're the last one here, though, so...” He turned his attention to his phone. “Start it off with this.”

  My phone beeped, and I lifted it. He'd sent me a photo, and when I opened it...

  It was an artistic photo of me, looking pensively out the window at the billowing smoke clouds in the North Dakota sky. I wasn't exactly a selfie person, so it looked...well, really good, actually. My hair wasn't too much of a disaster, and the way I was framed was kind of nice. “Thank you,” I said.

  “Good luck with the people on the internet,” Augustus laughed, opening the door. “You know you don't have to argue with everyone, right?”

  “Wasn't planning on arguing with anyone, actually,” I said. “I have this rule: don't read the comments.”

  “Good rule.”

  “So I'm just going to throw things out there and ignore the feedback,” I said. “Good or bad.”

  “Well, that's one way to handle it. As long as it keeps you from arguing with fools, I guess it's good.” He waved. “See you after dark.” And he was gone.

  I threw myself back on my bed, fiddling with my account activation. “Notifications...off.” I could imagine getting buzzed away at all hours of the night to people talking shit on my new photo that I hadn't even uploaded yet. I'd learned well during my years on the run that there was always some asshole that was going to drop a “looking gud” or worse on one of my videos in the middle of the night when he was lonely and hadn't talked to a real, live woman in three to six years.

  “'Accept messages from non-contacts...?'” I thought about it a second. “Nope.”

  Make profile public? “Sure.”

  You're just a step away from activating your Socialite account and joining the billions of people worldwide who use it to connect!

  I took a deep breath as I scrolled through the privacy policy. I didn't read it; I knew what it said – they owned my ass, thoroughly, could take my firstborn child, probably the secondborn, too – damned lawyers.

  I clicked Accept, and there I had it, a blank profile except for my name and the info I'd just entered.

  Popping up, I looked in the mirror and stared at myself for a long moment. I'd already washed my face with the provided soap, tamed my hair back into place with the provided comb (which took some doing, because the hotel comb was cheaaaaap). I looked about as good as I could without having a full makeover.

  I backed myself up to one of the beige hotel walls and turned the phone's selfie camera on, lining up my shot. I wanted to look serious, but not too serious. I wasn't the type that could get away with a big grin, and I didn't have the lips – or the inclination – to go with duck face.

  I snapped a profile picture that would leave no doubt it was me. But it still looked...

  Off.

  I took another. Then another. Then yet another...

  You know what? It went on for half an hour or so. In this one I showed my teeth, which I thought maybe looked a little too scary. The next I discarded because I got the camera too far down and it was like a satellite picture up my nose.

  I finally just got fed up, picking one that was good enough for now, and uploaded the damned thing. Profile picture solved.

  When it finished refreshing, I noticed I already had...three followers?

  “How the hell does that happen?” I muttered. I'd planned to announce my arrival to the platform at some point, but I suspected it'd have to wait. Providing some exclusive pictures might make it official for me, but for now I was pretty content to just start building the thing out. I had more important things to worry about at the moment, anyway.

  Whatever. I needed to catch a nap before Augustus and I went to work tonight, so I pulled up his picture of me looking out the window at the fires and uploaded it. Feeling the pull of sleep and not wanting to deny it, lest it disappear, I hurriedly captioned it, “I'm on it.”

  Then I hit the bed and let the pull of my eyelids drag me into sweet, sweet unconsciousness.

  CHAPTER FORTY-ONE

  The phone was ringing when I came to, my head fuzzy and bleary. I snatched it off the nightstand and answered it with a muffled, “Hello?”

  “Where are you?” Lethe's voice was mixed with the buzzing of the road behind her.

  “Grandma?” I asked, sitting up. I saw myself in the mirror, and my hair was no longer tame.

  “Yes,” she said. “I got my rental car and I'm in Fargo. Just need to know where you are and I'll head that way.”

  “I'm in a town called...Tioga, I think?” I yawned.

  “Were you sleeping?”

  “Yes,” I said. “I was going to head out with Augustus tonight and put out some fires. Thought I'd get a little kip before I did.”

  “Good strategy.” She sounded distracted, like she was warring with technology. Sure enough, a moment later. “Argh! These damned phones. Wait. Hey, what the hell?”

  “What?” I asked, blinking the bleariness out of my eyes. They were still watery from the smoke, though it was less pronounced inside the hotel than it had been out of it.

  “You're six hours' drive from here!”

  “Oh,” I said, because what else was there to say? “I didn't know.”

  I thought I detected a minute growl on the other end of the line. “Seriously?”

  “I came in at a small airport,” I said. “I forgot the Dakotas are a big damned place, and everything's far apart. Sorry. Was probably a little distracted when you – or Scott – called earlier.”

  There was a long silence. “Speaking of,” she said. “Scott – he's an ass man, isn't he?”

  “Yeah,” I said, yawning wide. “Why?”

  “Kept catching him looking at it.”

  “He does that. Speaking of asses, I ran into our villain pack earlier. Four of them. One's a succubus.”

  “Oh?” She sounded less than cool about it. “Describe her.”

  “Skinny,” I said, “terminally skinny.”

  “Probably not our branch of the family, then. And not someone Scott would be interested in, in case you were worried.”

  “Only for his safety,” I said, yawning. “Since apparently he's into the soul-sucking types.” I paused, thinking about how she'd responded to that question. “Wait. Do we have other family I should be aware of?”

  “No,” she said, but I felt like there was
more to it and she was breezing past a world of unsaid somethings.

  “Okay,” I said, though, not wanting to try and dig into it on the phone now. I checked the time; I was due to meet Augustus in the next twenty minutes or so. Outside the curtains, the light had faded. “I gotta get ready so I can put out these fires.”

  “How does one 'get ready' to put out fires? Especially when one has no luggage?”

  “How'd you know I have no luggage?”

  “Just a guess, given how fast you ran out on this thing. You know, since you didn't even have time to call your grandmother, I assumed you didn't have time to pack a bag.”

  “Is this guilt?” I asked, cracking a smile in amusement. “Is that what someone guilting you feels like? I only ask because I haven't had anyone try it on me since Mom died.”

  “Yes. And if you're going to visit your Mimaw you might want to get accustomed to it, because it's her primary means of communication.” She paused, and when she spoke again, the tone was pure worry. “Be safe, kiddo.”

  “It's just fires,” I said. “I'll keep my distance. Hell, I'll probably be hiding in the clouds the whole time.”

  “Even so...be safe.”

  “Will do.” We hung up, and I was left staring at my bedraggled reflection for a few minutes before I finally willed myself to move.

  CHAPTER FORTY-TWO

  Scout

  “...And then she says to me,” Francine was chuckling as she delivered the line, “'No, you shut up!'”

  AJ just cackled at that, laughing like Francine usually did. She joined in with hers, but it was less sharp than usual. AJ was having to restrain his AK-47 from falling off his lap.

  Scout just smiled politely. It wasn't her type of story, and seemed mostly to hinge on Francine being cruel to her little sister. She was hardly surprised to hear that sort of talk from Francine, who'd happily charged into the fray earlier.

  AJ's laughter died down to weak chortles, and he adjusted the gun across his body. They had a small fire, which Francine had started with kindling and lightning, and it was roaring pretty good. They didn't want it to get too big for fear it'd give their position away to any searchers. Every sound sent Scout's head swiveling around, looking for the source. Crack of a twig, hoot of an owl, didn't matter. She was looking for the trouble that was bound to come.

  Was it going to be like this from now on? Always and forever?

  Maybe. Probably better they get to the end of this, wherever that lay, as quickly as possible, because Scout had no idea how she was going to sleep tonight.

  “What about you?” AJ asked, and it took Scout a moment to realize he was talking to her. “What was your family like, Scout?”

  Scout thought about it before answering. “Weird, I guess?”

  “You grew up in LA, didn't you?” Francine asked. She stirred the fire with a branch, kicking off sparks that fluttered, alive, outside the fire before they fell to the dirt and died.

  “Orange County,” Scout said.

  AJ nodded. “I been there once. Checked out UC Irvine when I went on my college tour.”

  Scout tried to hide her surprise. She must have failed, because AJ was looking right at her and scowled. “What...what were you going to study?” she asked, trying to cover for whatever her face had said to give offense.

  “I don't know,” AJ said, looking away, now sullen. “Environmental engineering, I thought. That's what my brother did, then he got a job in Louisiana, inspecting the refineries.” He looked into the night. “The stuff he told me would make you sick.”

  “What?” Francine leaned forward, eyes glinting in the fire, seeking fuel for her hate.

  “Those companies?” AJ pursed his lips. “If it costs more to fix a problem than to pay the fine? They pay the fine. There's so much money in oil.” His lips turned in disgust.

  “It's going to change,” Francine said. “We're going to fix this, you know.” She reached a hand across to him.

  AJ seemed not to notice. “I hate them so much. When I think about how they put their profit first and the planet last...” He clenched his AK tight. “I wish we could kill all of those pigs.”

  “Maybe we can,” Francine said. The light was back in her eyes. “I mean, there's some flexibility, right? It's not a tight plan.”

  “We only know what we're doing next,” Scout said, turning her gaze to the burning fire, the leaping, licking flame. “Not what comes after it.”

  “Isaac knows,” AJ said, with the faith of a child.

  “Isaac has a list,” Scout said, trying to correct him. “That's not the same.”

  “Didn't I just say we had flexibility?” Francine asked. “That's the cool thing about this. We think of something new we can do? We add it to the list or just go do it.” She settled back next to the fire. “We're taking our destiny in our hands. We get to choose what comes next. No one else decides for us. It's not like school, where you shuttle back and forth between the same seven classes all the time. Here, we figure out who the next worst problem is, and boom. Off we go to solve it.”

  “Yeah,” AJ whispered. “Taking direct action...feels damned good.”

  “Guess what's not going to feel so good?” a voice came from above them, jarring them all.

  It was Isaac, though, and Scout relaxed as she watched him descend, a long, metal pole clutched in one hand.

  “Isaac!” Francine's voice sounded...relieved? Well, it was good to see him. He was their ride, after all.

  “I'm back,” he said, a glint in his eyes. “And I come with a gift.” He lifted the pole.

  It looked like the pole from a chain link fence. Concrete residue clung to one end, white in the fire's glow, like bone. He spun it, once, like a baton.

  “What's that all about?” AJ asked, slinging his AK as he got up.

  “This is your ride,” Isaac said, holding it parallel to the ground with both hands, then lifting off a few feet. “Grab on.”

  “You serious?” AJ stared at the fence post. “We're going to Texas on that?” He brushed his hands against his chest. “We'll freeze, man.”

  “You're all metas,” Isaac said with a shrug that moved the pole. “It'll be tough, but you'll survive the cold. We'll take breaks every hour to warm up, and I'll make sure I keep us supersonic so we can cut the flight time to a couple hours.”

  “Let's do it,” Francine said, immediately leaping on like a gymnast. Isaac didn't move when he absorbed her weight onto the impromptu bar, but the bar did.

  “Scout?” Isaac favored her with a little smile.

  Scout felt dazed. She eased onto it, though, letting the bar find a place under her armpits. Hopefully this wouldn't ache too much, because she didn't want to fly dangling from it like a trapeze. “Okay,” she said quietly.

  “I don't know, man,” AJ said, staring at the three of them and their strange new travel arrangement. “What if we fall?”

  “Just let me know if you're getting tired,” Isaac said, “and I'll stop. We won't be flying too high, so I'll be able to get us to the ground pretty quick.” He smiled. “Don't worry, AJ. The revolution requires some discomfort. Some sacrifices. Riding this thing? Well, it's better for the planet than taking a plane, right?”

  “Right,” AJ said, but he did not sound certain. “But...it's dangerous, man. And uncomfortable.”

  “You sound like a fatcat,” Francine laughed. “You want to burn fossil fuels and pollute the air just for your comfort?”

  AJ's shoulders pushed back like someone had stuck a knee in his spine, and he leapt onto the pole without another word.

  “Hang on,” Isaac said, and they started to lift into the cold night. “Think warm thoughts – like what we're going to do when we get down to Texas.”

  Scout did think about that, as they rose into the cold night air. And it did, indeed, keep her warm through the frigid flight.

  CHAPTER FORTY-THREE

  Sienna

  “Hell of a mess,” Augustus said for about the fiftieth time tonight.
We'd put out innumerable fires already and were now heading south toward a piping orange flame on the horizon. The suffocating smell of burning oil still dominated everything, and I wondered if I flew south at top speed, if I'd be able to clear that burning stink off my taste buds if I decided to have pancakes in Arizona. I kinda doubted it.

  “Yeah, and the cleanup is going to be years,” I said. “Decades, maybe.” I pursed my lips. Augustus's thick biceps swayed in my arms as I carried him across the dark, cold sky. I wasn't going too fast, probably a little over a hundred miles an hour. Thanks to our meta hearing, we didn't have to shout like idiots to make ourselves heard to each other.

  “So here's a question – why does a band of eco-terrorists decide to harm the environment in order to save it?”

  I cracked a smile, then felt the actual cracking of my lips, which were hideously chapped after several hours of planeless flying in the cold air. I summoned Wolfe's memory to mind and the pain diminished, though I vowed that I would lick my lips no more, a vow I broke about two seconds later. “They want to show the extremes. Cause a mess to prevent worse ones.”

  “I gotta admit, I'm always impressed with your encyclopedic knowledge of the shit bad people get up to,” he said. “So you think their idea here is just to break the system? Spill so much oil, cause so much damage to the air that people will be like, 'Enough of this shit!' and give up fossil fuels?”

  “Maybe,” I said. “I doubt it'll work, but if I had to guess their thinking, yes. Could also just be rage at the thing they hate.”

  “Why do you think it won't work?” he asked. He shuddered and I felt it, his whole body move, through my grip on his arms. I couldn't blame him for being cold, but neither could I do much about it other than return us to the hotel, which neither of us seemed prepared to do until the last fire was out.

  “I'm not sure I'm the right person to answer this,” I said, twinge of unease deep in my belly. “I'm just...I stop the bad guys before they do bad things, illegal things. Philosophy is for someone else, like lawmaking. And cheesemaking.”