Second Guess (The Girl in the Box Book 39)

by Robert J. Crane

“Sienna,” Reed said warningly. “Don't–”

  “This is beyond the border, Reed,” I said, smiling bittersweet. “I'm going to have to break the laws to stop the bad guy, and there's no point in any of you coming along for the ride because there ain't a damned thing you can do.”

  “I thought we said I was going to be in charge here,” he said. He sounded...hurt, actually.

  “I guess we found the border on that, too,” I said, “because it's time for me to do...what I always do.” Drawing on my memories of Aleksandr Gavrikov, I lifted off the ground. “Whatever it takes, no matter what.”

  And I left them all there as I launched out the window into flight, leaving only a sonic boom in my wake.

  CHAPTER ONE HUNDRED TWENTY-FIVE

  Scout

  “What's that old song about having the power?” Scout asked, the wind whipping at her face at epically high speed.

  I don't know, AJ said.

  Never heard it, Francine said.

  “The Power” by Snap! Isaac said.

  Figures the old man would know it, Francine cackled. How old were you actually, old man?

  I can't believe we all thought he was our age, AJ said. Liar.

  Isaac didn't answer. Scout didn't make him, either, though she sensed she could have given him a push.

  “We're doing this,” she said with a smile. She wondered if the new powers were activated yet. “Can you imagine?”

  You're about to begin to reverse years of damage to the planet, Francine said. Imagine removing the carbon footprint of an entire city at a time.

  You're going to save the world, AJ said. She could almost see him nodding in satisfaction. You're going to do the thing we set out to do. Keep it from ending.

  And all for the low, low price of billions of people’s lives, Isaac's voice came from somewhere within her.

  That was a sharp pang for Scout, but it was replaced by anger at the jab a moment later.

  “You were a profiteering shit suck,” she spat.

  You were scheming in this for the stupid money, Francine said. We don't need to hear from you. The sound of a slap came from inside her head. Isaac made no noise, and Scout wondered if he'd felt whatever Francine had just done to him.

  Don't listen to the hypocrite, AJ said. You're going to fix everything. And we're with you all the way.

  “There's just one thing left,” Scout said, smiling.

  What's that? Francine asked.

  I know! I know! AJ said.

  “That's right,” Scout said, “it's time for the final battle...against the bad guy. Or in this case...” And she smiled. “...the bad girl.”

  CHAPTER ONE HUNDRED TWENTY-SIX

  Sienna

  Flying high over the fields and towns of southern England at somewhere nearing Mach 2, I somehow felt lower than I had since rediscovering my flight powers. The dark shapes of church towers and English villages, the boxiness of the occasional farmhouse all passed beneath me at high speed, blurring together in one large landscape of darkness as I raced to make the coast before sunrise.

  Did you really have to do that? Brianna asked.

  “I guess it was always going to come down to this,” I said. My cheeks were cold, wet.

  You're doing the thing that you just got back from doing, man. It's like Odysseus getting home and then deciding to set out again the next freaking day, you know? You could have at least waited a few months.

  “I would have loved to have waited months,” I said, wiping at my face with my sleeve. The tears were definitely, entirely a product of the high velocities I was traveling at, and certainly not a product of any emotions that might be warring within me. Like regret, regret, sadness, a little more regret, wist, and, oh yeah, some more regret. “But it wouldn't have mattered. Villains like this don't color in neat little lines. They don't play like traditional criminals, knocking over a bank, murdering a few people. They go right for the big-ticket destruction, and Scout's really punching above her skinny-ass weight class in that regard. Going straight to the city-killing capability is a bold strategy. So...no, I guess I couldn't have waited, because these turds never wait.”

  Brianna sighed. I mean, I guess it doesn't matter much to me, being along for the ride regardless, but it just seemed like...

  “Like I might finally get what I wanted?” I asked, mopping my cheeks again. “Yeah. I felt that, too.”

  And the EU is definitely going to...?

  “Oh, they'll hit the damned ceiling,” I said. “It'll be an international incident. And I'm pretty sure the US has an extradition treaty with them so...” I shrugged. “Scout thinks we're evil, and she's now got the power to destroy whole cities. And if it hadn't been her that pushed me to it...it would have been someone else, a month from now, a year from now.” I blinked, and fresh chills coursed down my cheeks as I fought against the raging wind coming out of the south. “It was inevitable.”

  “Respectfully disagree.”

  I launched into a hard barrel roll at the sound of the voice. Going from Mach 2 to near zero in the space of a few hundred feet was difficult but not impossible, and I felt it in the blood pressure change in my head as I executed the maneuver.

  My pursuer slowed, too, though he was riding the wind currents, so his move looked a little more fluid and graceful, because he was firmly in the middle of what propelled him. I moved like I had a rocket up my ass.

  “Damn you,” I said, staring at my brother.

  Reed stared back, a few lost strands of hair having escaped his ponytail and whipping around him. “Look, I know you think you have to do this alone.”

  “Because I literally have to do this alone, yes. Because our enemy is now a Hades, a mass soul-sucker who can drain you without touching you, Reed. She can drain an entire city at once, while writhing orgasmically up in the clouds.” I spread my arms wide. “Because she's decided to do this in a country where our very existence is verboten and showing up leads to arrest. There she is, beyond reason, beyond every line, calling us out for a last showdown so she can beat the villains that killed her friends before she saves the world.” Another lone tear coursed down my cheeks, which burned because dammit, I was crying in front of Reed. “So yeah...I have to do this alone. Again.”

  “No,” he said, stony, “you don't. You're choosing to, for reasons that sound good – hell, they may be good. But you are choosing it. And that's an important thing to remember.”

  I barely controlled rolling my eyes, and only out of abundant respect for Reed. “Tell me how riding yourselves into the open, waiting mouth of a fresh contender for the title of Goddess of Death is any kind of sensible choice, Reed. Please. Because I gotta admit, I'd love backup, but I'm not real keen on sending you all into certain death, and since I'm the only one who can survive against the power of a Hades–”

  “You're not, though,” Reed said. “Lethe is a succubus, too, remember?”

  I froze. “Lethe can't fly.”

  “Is that all that matters?” Reed asked. “Going into a fight like this?”

  “Logically, clear-eyed,” I said, “yes. It matters that you're capable of surviving what the enemy is going to throw at you, and that you can't be used as emotional hostages against me.” I floated a little closer. “What do you think it's going to do to my ability to fight her, to kill her, to watch you go pasty pale mid-battle as she grips your soul to rip it out of you?”

  “What do you think it would do to me to sit outside the field of battle,” Reed said, matching my raging intensity as his voice rose, “knowing that you're fighting this overpowered succubus who could zap you, burn you, crash into you in a fiery blast of heat you can't endure? How do you think I would feel knowing that even if you survived the fight, you might be so wounded that the French snatch you up, suppress you, and dump wherever they stick their captured metas?”

  I hadn't really thought about...any of that. “I don't know,” I said quietly.

  “Because you're so focused on the fight you can't see anythin
g but the head to head,” Reed said. “You get so into these showdowns, thinking you have to do it alone, do it your way...I'm starting to think that when you said I could be the boss, you really were just thinking the first time I didn't see it your way, you were going to rebel.”

  I tried to ignore the squirmy feeling in my guts. I failed. “Well...duh.”

  “This can't work like that, Sienna.”

  “And you can't withstand a Hades soul-suck,” I said, shrugging. “So...we're kind of at an impasse.”

  “There are ways, okay,” Reed said.

  “I think we're heading for a defeat here,” I said. “One way or another. We do this safely but ugly, like blow her head off at a distance? That's a PR fail, and not one I can easily clean up. It's step one on the path back to post-Eden Prairie Sienna, where everyone starts to circle like sharks at the scent of blood. Or we just straight-up battle and kill her – and we've still violated EU law just by showing up. Last option: we lose...self-explanatory.” I shrugged. “These are the choices, and they're all kinda shitty in some way.”

  “I am fully aware of the seemingly impossible situation we're up against,” Reed said. “But if there's anything you're supposed to have picked up from all my griping at you about leaving me – leaving us – out of what you've done the last year, two years – it's that of all the things we have to doubt in our lives...don't doubt us anymore.” His hands were clenched tight at his sides. “We're with you. We're in this together, now.”

  I was left hanging there in the pink sky, as a cloud blew past, no doubt influence by my brother's shepherding. “So...what you're saying is...the real lesson was the friends I made along the way.”

  He made a throat-based noise of frustration that dissolved into chuckles. “You would take it there...yes, yes, I guess that's what I'm saying. Hopefully minus some of the schmaltz that lesson usually entails.”

  “It's never schmaltz-free with you,” I said, drifting closer, and catching him in a one-armed hug. “You sure you want to do this, though? Brave the Hades lady? Because I can promise you, getting even part of your soul ripped from your body? Not a fun experience.”

  “Maybe you can show me sometime,” Reed said, “you know...so you can gain the ability to fan yourself in the summer or something.”

  “Mmm, me becoming a mini-Aeolus,” I said. “The possibilities for mischief there are endless. See some poor sap walking across a parking lot with a bunch of unbound leaflets...whoosh! Enjoy the scramble to pick up that litter, loser.”

  “Should have put 'em in a binder,” Reed agreed, giving my shoulder a squeeze. “Now...can we get our heads together on this and try and come up with a plan?”

  I looked around. “You mean...?”

  He winked, then snapped his fingers, and suddenly the sky seemed to get bigger, and then–

  CHAPTER ONE HUNDRED TWENTY-SEVEN

  “I will never get used to that bit of weirdness,” I said, as we appeared in a house. Greg Vansen was standing next to us in a flight helmet, and after a brief wave at me, he disappeared again, miniaturizing to slip through the molecules of the house and back out of it, to the cockpit of his SR-71, presumably. “I mean, we're sitting in a miniaturized house under the seat of an airplane. And a moment ago we were in the sky.”

  “My question is,” Reed said, deeply pensive, “does he ever miss his target? Like, just now, when he shrunk us down and through the molecules of the miniaturized plane, then through into the house here – does he ever accidentally free-fall? Because that's a small target to hit, and it moves fast–”

  “Y'all just gonna debate this crap all day?”

  I turned; there was a table in the dining room, and gathered there...

  Were all my friends. Or the ones that were with us on this, at least.

  Augustus had spoken. “Because I'm for arguing it. I mean, I can see how he does it on the ground, with the wind conditions being normal-ish. But when we're up at 5,000 feet or whatever, it feels like things get more complicated, y'know?”

  “Really? Because I'm for focusing on a way to escape the death we're riding into,” Olivia said. “Feels like I'm just starting to get my life together. I'd kind of like to keep it.” I noticed for the first time she had some faint freckles on her cheeks.

  “Where do we start with something like that?” Jamal asked, looking around the table. Scott shrugged.

  “You might want to start with establishing the actual power level of a Hades,” Lethe said dryly. “For that, though, you would need someone who has actual, tangible experience with that type of metahuman.”

  “You mean like someone who grew up with one?” I asked. “Say, as their parent?”

  “For example,” she said.

  “Well, don't leave us in suspense,” Olivia said. “Since you seem to be the person you're talking about.”

  “Hades's range was huge,” I said. “He once nearly killed–”

  “Hades's range was huge because he was old at the time he tried to wipe out half of Greece in a fit of rage,” Lethe said. “The older a meta gets the stronger they get – if they're exercising their power. Hades was, so his range was massive. This girl you're up against – she's a baby. She'll have just manifested. Furthermore, she's not even a true Hades by nature. That might constrict her power, too.”

  “So how close can we get to her?” Reed asked. “Without losing our souls?”

  Lethe's lips puckered as she mused on that. “Twenty yards would be pushing it. Thirty would be fairly safe.”

  “We can do a lot at that distance,” Augustus said, exchanging a look with Scott.

  “Maybe,” Scott said. “Depends on the altitude. Could we get Greg to keep us somewhat close?”

  It was Reed's turn to make a face. “He said to count him out of combat unless we paid him a lot more.”

  “I could pay him a lot more,” I said.

  “We're going to be under a lot of scrutiny for this,” Reed said. “We probably want to play it as above the table as we can.”

  I nodded. “You're right.”

  “But I could drown her,” Scott said.

  “I can bury her,” Augustus said.

  “And she'd counter with plasma,” I said. “So if you're going to do it, you're gonna have to come at her hard and fast, and prepared for the heat and hell she'll return.”

  “There's not a lot I can do at thirty yards,” Olivia said quietly. “Sorry.”

  “We all need to be careful here,” Reed said. “Regardless. We need to make it a team effort. Hit her hard, keep her off balance.”

  “Even still,” Lethe said, “she's got a lot of offensive power to deploy. That plasma overcomes a lot of what you have to throw, so you better give her everything. No holding back.”

  “No holding back,” I agreed. “That's the only way we're going to make it through this.”

  “The way we're going to make it through this,” Reed said, “is together. Get that through your head.”

  “We're going to push her as hard as we can,” I said. “But there may come a moment when you all have to get back and let me finish the job. When that comes...”

  Reed stared at me with hard eyes. “If it comes...I'll make the call. I hope you'll trust me to do it.”

  I nodded, but bit my lip. Somehow, I had a feeling that if – when – that moment came, my brother might not make the best call.

  CHAPTER ONE HUNDRED TWENTY-EIGHT

  The Eiffel Tower loomed on the horizon as we came zipping into Paris at sunrise. The city sprawled over the landscape, and seeing the endless buildings made me wonder – just for a second – if Scout had a point with her locusts jibe.

  “Can almost smell the baguettes,” I said as I appeared on the grass space between the avenues heading toward the Tour Eiffel, as they called it locally. The Seine lay beyond, and in the twilight it was quiet, the sounds of a city just awakening and coming to life around us.

  Someone shouted something behind me in French. A quick glance confirmed someone h
ad seen our miraculous appearing act. I heard “Sienna Nealon!” in a French accent, and knew that the jig was now officially up.

  “The game is afoot,” Reed muttered, striding alongside me toward the tower. “Any idea where we're doing this?”

  “She said Paris,” I said, scanning the landmark for any hints of Scout's presence. The air held a cool, pleasant sensation that would probably fade when the sun came out to play. The clouds in the sky were few, but drawing closer in a swirl, and I could see my brother scowling in concentration as he walked. “That doesn't necessarily mean here, but for Americans, what's more Paris than the Eiffel Tower?”

  Scott and Augustus appeared in front of us, immediately falling in to our little formation. Greg was deploying us two at a time, keeping pace with his shrunken SR-71. “That's a trip,” Augustus muttered. Olivia and Lethe appeared next, followed at last by Jamal, and a shout of someone calling, “SLAY QUEEN!” across the grass space where I was walking.

  “Your fandom truly is globe spanning,” Reed said sourly.

  “So is your jealousy,” I said. “Because it seems to follow me everywhere.”

  He didn't dignify that with a response. He really didn't have to.

  “Here you are,” Scout's voice boomed. I looked up; she was sitting in the arch of the tower, a few hundred feet up, positioned there like a pinup model, but dressed in clothing that looked like she'd stolen it from a dude she'd slept with. I doubted she had time for that, but she'd definitely raided someone's closet. Her bearing was casual, too, uncaring. “I wondered if you'd have the courage to come, knowing what you're up against.”

  I really didn't know exactly what I was up against. All I knew was the succubus, Hades, lightning, plasma, and flight parts of it. “I'm not one to pass up on a good fight,” I said, a little cautiously. She could sonic boom right down on us, after all, even from that splayed-out position.

  “Don't I know it,” Scout called. “Every time I try and make a move, no matter how small, you show up and fight. If I announced I was going try and save a kitten from a tree, you'd arrive just in time to try and knock it off the top branch.”