Omega: The Girl in the Box, Book 5

by Crane, Robert J.

  19.

  I awoke to the steady in and out of breath being drawn, and light sliding across the floor from the enormous windows that lined the wall of my room. The sun was streaming in from overhead, already high in the sky, shining bright light on my entire apartment.

  I felt Zack close to me; for the first time, I’d tried falling asleep on his shoulder, something that was never truly possible before. I hadn’t stayed that way, unfortunately, because I’d discovered after an hour or so that his every breath, every move was jarring, and I had rolled over but remained close. His every movement wasn’t quite so distracting this way and he was still so much nearer than he’d ever been before we had the suit.

  I watched his face as he slept, the closed eyelids and relaxed look upon his handsome features, the easy comfort. I didn’t want to wake him, and I didn’t want to leave. I pondered tiptoeing to the bathroom because the need to go was urgently rising, but I held out as long as I could, then used meta strength and agility as well as a tremendous amount of patience to move as slowly as possible to extricate myself from the covers without disturbing him.

  I followed the beams of light across the floor to the bathroom, shutting the door before I turned on the light. After I finished taking care of my business, I washed my hands and leaned forward on the marble counter, looked at the mirror above the vanity. The bathroom was spacious, the toilet a solid eight feet from the door and the glass-encased shower just beyond it. There was an independent heating unit that began to run when I turned on the light, cutting the chill in the air as I felt the prickle of cold cause my flesh to goosepimple as I stood there, staring at my face in the mirror.

  Little doll, came the voice of Wolfe, just a whisper, in the back of my mind. The image of myself, nude, in the mirror, didn’t change, but it was almost as though I could see him looking out from behind my eyes. Once, it would have sent me in a scramble to find clothes. Now, I didn’t even move. I just let him stare, because that was all he was good for. Staring and some chatter.

  “I’ll get to dealing with you in a minute, Wolfe,” I said, looking into the darkness of my own eyes. I had heard Wolfe and Gavrikov, the voices in my head, in the past when they had something ridiculously urgent to tell me, but I suspected the effort they had to expend in those instances required cooperation by both of them to be heard. The chloridamide I injected lasted for a good twenty hours and forgetting my dose, which I had last night, was the only way I ever saw them like this. And then, it was only ever one of them. Ironically , it was the one of them I couldn’t stand and would never have voluntarily chosen to share my brain with, not in a million billion years.

  They’re coming for you, little doll.

  “This I’ve heard,” I told him, far more casual than I felt. “You want to tell me why?”

  Don’t know, he said, his voice a rasp. I could feel his eyes using mine to study my curves. Letting him do what he was doing now was my ultimate show of disdain for him. I could feel the disgust somewhere deep inside, but I couldn’t tell if it originated from him or me. Wolfe went where Wolfe was told, didn’t ask questions when it came to playing with little dolls like you.

  “Well, I bet they were all just as charmed by you as I was,” I said to the mirror, to my image and the one deep behind it. “It’s a shame none of them ever had the ability to kill you before I came along, because it would have been worlds better than having you stuck in my head—”

  They’re coming for you, Wolfe’s voice came again, urgent. Janus isn’t like the others they’ve sent. Vampires? Henderschott? Even that delicate little morsel Fries...they are insignificant compared to the Wolfe. But Janus... There was almost the sound of a hiss inside my head, as though Wolfe were drawing away at the thought of the name.

  “You’re afraid of him. He frightens you.” I felt the umbrage at my words, the hiss of anger. “Why? Why does he scare you?”

  Wolfe fears no man, the words came, no man and no beast, either. But Janus...is strong. Powerful of body and mind. And he has the ear of those at the top of Omega, he is the loudest voice of their old guard, still at odds with the new regime . The others fail. Henderschott failed, constantly. Wolfe owned a piece of his face after one of his failures. Janus does not fail. Not ever.

  “So now we’ve progressed from the unkillable man,” I said, pointing at Wolfe’s image behind mine in the mirror, “to Iron Man, to a guy who tried to get in my pants before smooth talking me into joining Omega, to vamps and a traitor, and more recently the three stooges.” I took a deep breath, drawing confidence from the lineup I’d just listed. “Now they’re sending me a man who won’t fail. Got it. I bet they didn’t think any of the others were failures, either.”

  You’ve gotten the dregs since me because they’re dealing with bigger matters, Wolfe said in a low hiss. You were always in the back of their minds, always at the side of their focus. Now they turn all their attention on you, and you will feel the strength of Omega descend on you, the power of the gods of old will rain down hell upon your life.

  I tugged the little leather kit from of the drawer by the sink and pulled a needle free from the stock I had, then drew a few milliliters of chloridamide into the syringe and pressed it into my vein, the same one I used every day, because it healed to perfection between doses thanks to my meta powers.

  You will break, little doll. The eyes stared at me from behind mine as I looked up to the mirror, those black, soulless eyes, pools of nothing but darkness. You will look back on this moment and wish that you’d listened to the Wolfe...

  I pushed the plunger and felt the rush of the narcotic as it hit home; it was always a curious sensation, as though the world went slightly muted when I injected, a little feeling of drowsy satisfaction. “I don’t think I’ll ever be sorry that I don’t have to listen to you, Wolfe.” I didn’t hear a response from him, his voice quieted, and I smiled, my own smile, all the way up to my eyes, visible in the mirror. Nothing of him remained with me now, not even the faintest trace.

  I saw movement in the mirror and the door opened as Zack stepped inside, his naked body visible under the thin mesh of the suit he still wore. “Good morning,” he said as he wrapped his arms around me and I felt the press of him against my back—in several spots of my back, actually.

  “Hi there.” I turned to face him, pressing my flesh against him, feeling his warmth even as my feet touched the cold tile floor. I ran a hand down his chest, felt the firmness of his muscles and let out a little sigh of contentment. I gave him a long, sweet kiss and broke just when I heard him gasp slightly. “Sorry.”

  “It’s all right,” he said with a smile. “Just in time, it was starting to get that first feeling of ow.” He squeezed me in his arms and I lay my head against his chest.

  I held there for almost a minute, just enjoying the feeling of being close to him, then a devilish thought lit my mind and I raised my head to look at him. “Do we...have time?”

  He looked pained. “Again? I have to tell you...other girls I’ve talked to, you know, after the first time, they’re not really as...um...enthusiastic, let’s say. I mean you seem fine and all, I just mean I hope it didn’t hurt too much.”

  “I barely felt it at all,” I said, putting my head against his chest. I froze there for a second, and then pulled myself off his chest to look him in the face. “That’s not what I meant,” I said, watching him raise an eyebrow. “What I meant is that compared to the pain I’ve experienced in my life, it was fairly small. Pain-wise, I mean.” I slapped myself on the forehead. “A small amount of pain! Not that I didn’t feel it, because I did, and it felt good, but...” I sighed. “You know what I mean. I hope you know what I mean. It was very good. I liked it a lot. I would like to do it again, as soon as possible.”

  “I think I got what you mean,” he said, with almost a smile. “You were already...prepared... and so the little pain you felt was n
ot that big of a deal compared to the beatings you’ve experienced in the last year.”

  “You’ve got a way with words,” I said, pulling close to him again. “I wish I had a way with words right about now. Instead, I’m fumbling, a mess, all that.”

  “It’s all right. But to answer your earlier question, I have to go.” He gently pulled from me. “We have a meeting with the other agents, preparations for when this Operation Stanchion lands on us.”

  “What are you going to do?” I asked.

  “Stay out of the way as much as possible if it’s a meta assault,” he said, taking a slow walk out the bathroom door and back into the bedroom, fishing his boxer shorts out of a pile of clothing next to the bed. He came up with my underwear as well and tossed it to me. I caught it in one hand. “Our job is to effect an evacuation of the campus, not to get into a rumble with Omega’s metas. We’re assigning out those industrial strength electro cannons like we used on Wolfe, but we’ve only got a half dozen of them. We’ve got some dart guns that will put most metas down, but they take a few seconds to work, so pistols and rifles are going to be option one. We’ve got some shotgun shells that have some extra pop to them, and some slug-throwing shotguns that’ll put a hole in an elephant. Other than that...” He shrugged. “Like I said, we’re evacuating and trying to make way for you metas to rumble to your heart’s content.”

  “My heart’s quite content with no rumbling,” I said, and slipped on my panties. “I could use a nice long vacation about now.”

  Zack smiled. “Like Italy?”

  “Somewhere tropical,” I said. “Somewhere warm. It’s about to get really cold here in Minnesota again, you know.”

  “Having lived here my whole life, I was dimly aware of that fact.”

  “I’ve never been outside the Midwest,” I said, looking out the window at the sun, already high in the sky. “I remember thinking when Wolfe was coming for me how much I wanted to be somewhere, anywhere else.”

  “I remember,” he said. “But you knew he’d find you.”

  “Yeah. I should take those vacation days they gave me, and go somewhere good.” I stepped closer to him, rubbed a hand along the smooth covering over his chest as he placed his shirt on and left it unbuttoned. “What do you think? You, me, a sandy beach, warm sun overhead, crystal blue waves—”

  “I think that sounds like a vacation that is a little above my pay grade.” He smiled. “But I like the sound of it. It sounds like more fun than that time we took a day off and went to Valley Fair.”

  “I had fun with that,” I said, and slapped him on the shoulder. “You remember the list?”

  “You mean the list of things you were supposed to do in your life?” he asked. “We did a good number on that list this last summer, you know.”

  “We did indeed.” I stood up on my tiptoes and gave him a peck on the cheek that lasted a fraction of a second. “I had another list, you know.”

  He turned his head to look at me. “Oh, yeah? What was on it?”

  “Well,” I said with a nod toward the bed, “this was right up there.”

  He let out a chuckle. “Mission accomplished, huh? Guess you better start making a new list, or things will start to get boring.”

  I let a hand slip across his chest again. “I don’t think I’ll get bored with this for a good, long while.”

  A flicker of amusement crossed his face as he buttoned his shirt. “That’s a relief. If you were tired of it already I’d be a little worried; like maybe I was out of practice or something.”

  “Oh, yeah?” I let my fingers find the buttons he had just done and unbutton them one by one, pulling his shirt down and trapping his arms. “Well, we can’t have that, can we?”

  “Sienna...” he said plaintively, “...I’m going to be late...”

  “We don’t know what’s coming or when,” I said. “This may be the last breather we get for a while, and I don’t think that Omega is going to launch an all—out assault on the Directorate in broad daylight. All I want,” I said, unbuttoning his pants, “the only thing on my list now...is repetition.” I steered him to the bed and pushed him down, climbing up onto him and staring down. “I think you can handle being late for once in your life.” And I brought my head down to kiss his neck.

  “Hmmm,” Zack said, his voice sounding in my head like the moans he emitted whenever we had been together in my dreams. “Maybe just this once...”

  20.

  I was late for breakfast, and I knew it as I closed the door to my quarters. Zack had left a half hour earlier, but I needed time to shower and doll myself up (okay, I didn’t really do that, but I still liked to feel clean). I paced down the hallway, and stopped at the corner next to the elevator. Scott was waiting there before me, and the elevator dinged, the doors opened, and he started to get in.

  I followed him, sneaking in just as the doors began to close. “Morning,” I said as he acknowledged me with a nod. He had a suitcase in one hand and a backpack on his back. “Umm...are you...” I tried to find a way to not come out and say it, but failed, “...bailing out before it hits the fan?”

  His jaw set, and I could almost hear his teeth grind as the elevator dropped, floor by floor. “I’m leaving, yeah.”

  “Why?” I felt a sudden deprivation of oxygen, and wondered what the hell had happened to the atmosphere in the elevator car.

  “Because I’ve been ordered to go on medical leave by Dr. Perugini and Ariadne,” he snapped at me, turning his head long enough to give me a searing look. “Because when I try to use my power, I think about Kat and this happens—” He held a hand out and a tiny squirt of water came forth, no more than a few droplets that fell immediately to the carpeted floor of the elevator, making little dark spots in the beige carpet. “Because I’m pretty much useless to everybody now, Sienna, so they’re sending me home, out of the way, where I won’t be a danger to anyone but my parents and my siblings, and not much of one at that.”

  The elevator doors opened to the lobby and Scott’s hand returned to his suitcase, which he dragged along behind him. “Scott, wait,” I said, and he slowed. I ran to catch up with him. “I’m sorry,” I said. “Sorry for Kat, sorry for everything.”

  “I told you it wasn’t your fault,” he said with his lower jaw jutting out, as though he was encouraging me to aim for it, to hit him or something. “And now I’m pretty much out of the fight because I’ve gone and turned my head into a spaghetti noodle of twisty ties.” He waved a hand at me. “Or something. I don’t know.”

  “Have you talked to Kat?” I asked.

  “No,” he said, sullen. “I tried a couple times...the first, she didn’t even recognize me.” He adjusted the backpack over his shoulder. “The second time I couldn’t even find her to say goodbye. I’m sorry I’m not more use. Sorry I can’t...” He shook his head. “I’m just sorry, in every definition of the word.” His eyes came up, and met mine. “Get out of here, Sienna.”

  “Can’t do that,” I said. “Not after last time. How many people died? You should know.”

  “I should,” he said, “but I guess I don’t. I was too hard on you last time.” He broke a weak smile. “Kinda hard not to be scared when you don’t feel like you have any power to fight with, huh?” He looked at me soberly. “Good luck, Sienna.”

  “I’ll need it,” I said, as I watched him wend his way to the exit doors, the suitcase he carried looking like a burden that was almost too much for him, though I knew for a fact it wasn’t at all what was causing his shoulders to slump.

  When I walked into the cafeteria, they were already starting to clean up the buffet from breakfast, and there was no one else standing in the line. I caught a few dirty looks from the cafeteria ladies, but that wasn’t exactly new for me, so I didn’t sweat it. I filled my plate with cold eggs, colder toast, and a mug of coffee laden with a ton o
f cream and sugar, then made my way to one of the countless empty tables. The glass windows that surrounded two sides of the cafeteria provided me with an expansive view of the autumn-laced grounds; leaves were everywhere. Presumably, the gardening crew would normally have dealt with them, but they were now off work for the week. The cafeteria was also emptier than it normally would have been, and I wondered if the administrative staff was also off work because of the pending threat.

  “You’re not real social, you know that?” I turned at the sound of the voice, unaware that anyone had even noticed me. Standing a couple tables away was the kid whom I had seen staring at me only a couple days earlier. “You don’t really talk to anyone but your little group of friends, you know? You kinda put out a... ‘get lost’ vibe.”

  “Oh, good,” I said, “it’s still working. Or, apparently not, since here you are, talking to me.”

  “I can leave,” he said, beginning to turn away.

  “What do you want, kid?” I asked. He wasn’t really a kid, probably only a year or two younger than me, but if he was gonna make with the fawning puppy eyes, I wanted to start putting some distance between us now, rather than later.

  “I’m not a kid,” he said, as he turned back around. I disagreed with his assessment, but then, I couldn’t fault him for trying. I would have said the same thing at fifteen.

  “Sure you’re not,” I said, laying the patronizing tone on thick. I figured if I gave him enough reasons to leave me alone by being both a smartass and condescending, he couldn’t fail to get the message that I wasn’t interested in him in any way.

  “I’m not.” He said it with a decent amount of confidence. “But I don’t suppose that matters.”

  “Not to me. What do you want?”

  He gave a subtle nod to the chair directly across from me. “Mind if I...?”