Omega: The Girl in the Box, Book 5

by Crane, Robert J.

  I stared into the black sky overhead, the smoke and darkness lit only by the fires of the burning Directorate, and I felt a touch of something on my forehead. Another followed, and another, and I opened my eyes. Snowflakes fell in little flurries, wending their way toward the earth, falling down around me, around the chaos of the destroyed campus, the destruction of my life, the end of my world, and I lay there, Zack’s cold hand in mine, as they fell.

  27.

  Interlude

  Chanhassen, Minnesota

  The Cadillac’s wheel was tight against his hands; the ache was in them, from the weather, he told himself, the first flakes of snow hitting the windshield, illuminated by the headlights as he drove down the darkened highway.

  “I can’t believe you left Bjorn behind,” Fries said from the backseat. “How could you do that?”

  “He disobeyed my order,” Janus said, and gave a reassuring smile to Klementina in the passenger seat, “and he paid the price for it.”

  “You let him remain a prisoner of Old Man Winter—” Fries said.

  “Hardly,” Janus said. “He’s quite dead, now.”

  “Dead?” Fries said into the silence. Madigan, for her part, did not question, did not say a word. She knew. He had worked with her many times before, and she understood the way of things. “You let them kill him?”

  “I did not let them do anything,” Janus said. “But I believe Erich Winter has hit his breaking point. You see, Winter is afraid, and Bjorn will suffer the rather unfortunate consequences of that. It’s all part of the plan, you see. All expected.”

  “You manipulated him?” Klementina asked, a look of awe on her face. “Old Man Winter and Bjorn?”

  “Only Bjorn,” Janus said. “Erich Winter needed no manipulation. Over a hundred years ago, in Peshtigo, Wisconsin, he saw the truth of what we now face, the leader of Century. He knows now how critical Sienna is to the survival of our people, and he will not hesitate to...push her in the right direction.” Janus smiled. “Which, coincidentally, is our direction, though I doubt he fully realizes that right now.” The smile evaporated. “Not that he would care, even if he knew. Meta survival is somewhat higher on his list of concerns than our petty disputes, after all.”

  “What is he?” Klementina asked, and even Fries fell silent. “The leader of Century, I mean. I’d heard—well, Kat had—from Old Man Winter that Sienna was important, was vital, but no one seems to want to explain why.”

  Janus felt the cold chill run through him too, the remembrance, of a meeting long ago. “So you want to know about the most powerful meta on the planet, do you?”

  He could see the hunger in her eyes. “I do.”

  “I can only tell you so much; his abilities are beyond that of any class of meta you have ever heard of,” Janus said, with a smile that he didn’t feel. “He is...adaptable. He has powers that no meta should have, abilities you have seen before but in combinations never before possessed by anyone else.”

  “Does he have a name?” Klementina asked.

  “A thousand of them, Sweetness,” Janus said. “A million perhaps. Excuse me for a moment.” He lifted the disposable cell phone to his ear, and waited to hear the receptionist on the other end. “Message for Alastor. Stanchion went as planned. One casualty, Bjorn Odin-son. All other operatives returning to duty stations. Mission was a success, and Sienna—code-name Savior—will join us within a month.” He halted. “Did you get all that, dear?” The voice repeated it back to him and he listened carefully. “Very good.” He hung up the phone and tossed it back into the center console before closing it.

  “‘Savior’?” Fries said from the back seat. “She’s the same kind of meta I am, you know.”

  Janus shrugged. “She has something you don’t.”

  “What’s that?”

  “A soul of her own to start with, I would think,” Janus said, and smiled at Kat. “Enough. Our plans are our own. You will remain in Minneapolis and wait for her to make contact.”

  “Are you kidding?” Fries said, dull astonishment from the back seat. “She shot me! What’s going to stop her from killing me if she comes after me again?”

  “Human restraint and little else,” Janus replied, “but your life is a sacrifice I’m well prepared to make. Remain here until she makes contact, then we’ll work out some sort of arrangement to her satisfaction.”

  “You really think she’s gonna come to me, after everything we’ve been through?” Fries asked in disbelief. “That she’ll be willing to deal? That she won’t shoot me again?”

  “Yes to the first,” Janus said, “yes to the second, maybe to the third, but I’m indifferent on the outcome of that one.”

  There was a lengthy pause. “What makes you so sure she’ll come to us?”

  “Because,” Janus said, and there was little satisfaction in it, “she has nowhere else to go.”

  28.

  Sienna

  I stole a car out of the Directorate employees’ lot. It was Zack’s car. I doubted he’d miss it. It rattled a little—the transmission, a small voice told me, one that I didn’t want to think about yet. It carried me down the road though, the old windshield wipers shrugging off the slowly accumulating snow as I drove down U.S. Highway 212 in the middle of the night, the headlights illuminating the snow that was falling ever faster now, little dots of white that flurried past the beams.

  It was well after midnight by the time I had managed to peel myself off the snowy ground and get going. Not a single police siren was to be heard, nothing, nada, and no one was around when I came to. No one but him, his body. I didn’t know whether I had fallen asleep or passed out, and I didn’t much care, either. The car smelled like him, and I wanted to burn it, burn me, make one giant funeral pyre and be done with it. But I couldn’t. Not now.

  Not yet.

  The freeways were starting to get slushy when I hit Eden Prairie and Interstate 494. I followed the road I’d driven a million times in the last year, took Minnesota Highway 62 toward the south side of Minneapolis, then headed up Interstate 35W. I could see the skyline in the distance as I drove, getting closer and closer. The houses grew older as I went, and when I exited in my old neighborhood, I rolled down the window, felt the flash of cold rush into the car, and realized that the cold was like home to me. The snow was insignificant. It covered the ground the first day I left my house, and for the longest time it was my whole world, a snow-covered, frozen-over hell. Let it snow, I thought, let it come down in volume enough to bury me.

  I pulled onto my old street, the trees catching the headlights and casting twisted shadows on the walls of the houses as I drove past. Like the shadows from the flames of the campus, they seemed to take on a life of their own, as though they would reach out for me, take hold of me, shake every bit of decency and life out of me until there was nothing left...

  Well, they were welcome to try. I suspected there wasn’t much of either remaining, anyway.

  I pulled into my driveway and killed the engine, leaving the keys where they were. I didn’t care if someone stole the car. I almost hoped they did, because it smelled like him, and I could hear the engine the way he heard it, could almost taste his kiss again, as I sat in it.

  My feet crunched in the first accumulation of snow, one step at a time as I made my way up the walk. I opened the door to the porch and it swung wide, closing behind me. I felt the handle of the door to the interior of the house, remembered my keys had burned in my dorm room, and twisted the lock until I heard it break. I pulled out the guts and used my finger to twist it. It broke the skin, but I didn’t care. A bleeding finger was insignificant compared to the other things that were on my mind.

  I opened the door and stood silhouetted in the darkness of the living room. I felt a flash of memory, a thought of his, not mine—of him and Kurt, making their way across this
room. Kurt hit the coffee table with his leg, making a noise. I could hear their breathing, steady, the motion, the smell of the outside—my memory now, intersecting with the other. I shook my head, tried to forget it, to put it out of my mind. I closed the door behind me, shrouding the room in darkness.

  Darkness. Peace. Quiet. Nothing moved, there was no sound. Bliss.

  I looked to the hallway, and I could see my old bedroom from here, remembered I had been lying there when—

  I put it out of my mind again, tried to quiet it, to shut it up. “I don’t want to think about that now,” I said to the empty room. “I don’t want to think about it.” My eyes went back to my bedroom door, and in the midst of the familiar sights and smells of my childhood, I smelled another.

  Zack’s cologne.

  I walked to the bedroom door and looked at the bed where I had lain when he woke me up the first time. My prince. Not with a kiss, but his very presence, jarring me awake. And I’d hit him for it. In the groin. I pulled the door closed, put my back against it. “No,” I whispered. “No— no— no...”

  I drew a deep breath, the ghosts of memory plaguing me. I tried to separate myself from it, from the smells, from the sounds, the phantom thoughts and memories that wouldn’t stop. “Fine,” I said, “just fine, be that way.” I walked ahead, to the old, wooden door, and turned the handle. The steps led down, turning on a wooden landing below, though I couldn’t see it. I knew every step by memory, having walked it a thousand times, and I closed my eyes and felt for the handrail. I heard the creak of the floorboards and the rattle of the water heater over in the far corner of the basement, but I didn’t care. All these sounds were familiar, but they weren’t intimidating. I didn’t fear them.

  I didn’t have much left to fear.

  When I reached the bottom step, I took a few more forward. The neighbor’s porch light shone in through the window I’d had replaced almost a year ago after Reed broke through it while making an escape. I could see the light through the snow, the definition gone but the light remained, just a little bit, almost like moonlight shining through the glass. It caught my face, and I turned, looking toward the corner for it, for the shadow.

  It was there, pushed against the wall, not in the same place it had stood for all my life, but near enough. The box stretched to a foot over my head, forbidding, dark, the door hanging slightly ajar and open, still bent from the last time I had been in it, when I had broken my way out. It was only a few hours before the memory, the one I wanted to forget, desperately, to believe had never happened—because if it hadn’t, if he hadn’t come, then I wouldn’t have met him and we wouldn’t have—and he would still be alive, and not dead and—

  I ran my hand across the pitted metal surface. I tugged on the door and it opened with a squeal, still hanging off its hinges at a broken angle, twisted. “I never should have left you,” I whispered to the darkness within, and it felt like the darkness answered me, like it moved inside, welcoming me back. I took a step in, and turned, facing my back to the open door, then grasped hold of it and pulled, dragging the door shut behind me. It fought me only a little, then I heard it creak into place, and the darkness surrounded me once more, only the faintest lines showing around the door where the lamplight came in from outside the window.

  I stood there, alone again, in the dark, the quiet, the peace, the solitude. Just stood. Breathe in, breathe out. I liked the dark. The quiet. The solitude. I didn’t mind alone at all. Breathe in, breathe out. It smelled like home. My legs gave out a moment later, and I slumped, my back sliding down the back wall of the box. I folded in on myself, pulling my knees close as I dissolved, finally, the emotion coming now, here, in the darkness. This was where I belonged, where I deserved to be. Where I never should have left. Back in the box.

  And I resolved I would never leave again.

  An Apology For The Agony I Just Caused You, The Reader

  Yeah, I know that hurt. A lot. It hurt me too, honestly. I finished writing that scene - yeah, that one scene, you know which one if you finished reading it, and yes, it broke me. Killing characters like that is painful for the author, too, I promise, and I didn’t just do it to be cruel. This is book 5 of a 10-book series. We’re now at the midway point, and things had to take a turn to get us where we’re going. I promise it’s all for good reasons, that it’s all part of the story. There’s always been a bigger plan, a thread that stretches through the entire series, and I hope it’s all going to be worth it for you, the reader, in the end. I even thought about ways I might be able to soften what just happened here in this book, but there really isn’t, not without fundamentally changing the story. I hope I’ve built enough trust with you by this point that you know I didn’t do what I did capriciously and for no purpose. Things were always going to get worse for Sienna before they got better.

  I hope we see you for the next book (full preview of Book Six on the next page!) and if you want to know as soon as it comes out, CLICK HERE to sign up for my mailing list. I promise I won’t spam you (I only send an email when I have a new book released) and I’ll never sell your info. You can also unsubscribe at any time - like maybe now, in some of your cases, after I just killed one of your favorite characters in a horrible way. I hope you don’t feel that way, but I understand if you do. If you want to talk about it, feel free to send me an email (please don’t yell at me) at cyrusdavidon@gmail.com, stop by my Facebook page (Robert J. Crane (Author)), send me a tweet (@robertJcrane) or stop by my blog, which will have a dedicated discussion post where you can talk with other fans about this book (compain about how insensitive the author is - ZOMG what a jerk!!1!1!). If you don’t want to talk to me, you could always send Sienna a tweet of support - @SiennaNealon.

  I hope to see you again next time.

  Robert J. Crane

  Acknowledgments

  These are the people who helped me during the writing and publication of this book, in no particular order.

  Hated me by the end:

  Heather Rodefer, my tireless Editor-in-Chief, fearless wielder of the purple pen and vanquisher of all typographical errors. This is the girl who never cries at the end of sappy movies, nor sheds a single drop from sad books. The fact that I made her cry is probably the greatest achievement of my writing career. She punched me over this. Seriously. In the arm. It hurt.

  Damarra Atkins, she of the witty inside-geek jokes, who called me worse than Joss Whedon (Wha?! Every writer is worse than Joss Whedon! How much worse is the question...). But at least she didn’t hit me.

  Robin McDermott, who fixed many a technical error, and accused me of being far too wordy for my own good and yours, Dear Reader. I trust you all own a dictionary, though, so...

  Shannon Garza, whose feelings I rely on to take the emotional temperature of my books. Whose heart I broke, whose tears I stole, whose forgiveness I may never earn. Sorry, Red.

  Didn’t hate me by the end:

  Paul Madsen, who found any number of proofreading oopsies on my part, and who gushed praise about the ending. Well, probably about as gushy as Paul gets, I’m guessing.

  Kea Grace, the first to finish, first to render opinion, and whose measured evaluation allowed me to stay the course.

  Kari Layman, who berated me for almost an hour on the phone at a moment when I seriously considered changing the ending to something that would be less angst-causing. If you didn’t like it, blame her.

  Debra Wesley, whose gleeful cackling and constant attention to detail combined to make me worry about her until she told me she loved the story from top to bottom, and not to change a thing, even when Damarra (also) wanted to hit me for it.

  Were thankfully neutral about the whole mess:

  Sarah Barbour (aeroplanemedia.wordpress.com) who did the final edit and proofread in record time in spite of being hired at the very last minute, still managing to correct for errors great and small, incl
uding Russian language (Who does that!? She does!) and a number of suggestions that made the manuscript read much more smoothly. Sarah also did the editing on Untouched, but went unacknowledged due to authorial oversight.

  Karri Klawiter of artbykarri.com, whose covers do shine like...uhh...well, they’re shiny, in a very «Firefly» sense of the word. Shiny.

  To my parents, who raised me, to my wife, who tolerates me, and my kids, who drive me slightly crazy. Love you all.

  About the Author

  Robert J. Crane was born and raised on Florida’s Space Coast before moving to the upper midwest in search of cooler climates and more palatable beer. He graduated from the University of Central Florida with a degree in English Creative Writing. He worked for a year as a substitute teacher and worked in the financial services field for seven years while writing in his spare time. He makes his home in the Twin Cities area of Minnesota.

  He can be contacted in several ways:

  Via email at cyrusdavidon@gmail.com

  Follow him on Twitter – @robertJcrane

  Connect on Facebook – robertJcrane (Author)