“What do you think?” It was the boy that asked, just taking it all in. He was a clever one, like his daddy. Always calculating some angle or another.
“He said something about her once, didn’t he?” The girl was asking now, pointing at the TV screen. The little bar with the name said, “Sienna Nealon,” and it was under a video of a dark-haired lady walking out of a house flanked by two men and a skinny little blond-haired stick of a girl.
“I b’lieve he did,” Momma weighed in at last. “Mentioned her by name.” She kept staring at the TV screen. “Seems a mite peculiar, don’t it?”
The boy pondered it, and Momma waited for him to think it through. “You think she’s the one?”
Momma gave him a nod, a vigorous one, trying to leave him without a doubt. “If she is, I reckon we better find out.”
“Then what?” This from the girl. She had them beady eyes, just staring with pools of black.
Momma gave her the look, the one that almost made her flinch back without a word. “Then we kill her.” Like it was the most natural thing in the world.
London, England
He wasn’t the sort who was usually glued to the telly, but in this case he gladly made an exception. He had his teacup close by with his window shades still open to the dark night, the sounds of London echoing in around him through the panes of glass. He scarcely paid them any notice, though, riveted as he was by what was transpiring on his screen.
They had been outed, of course. Gloriously outed, yet outed nonetheless. The grand secret, one preserved and kept since Poseidon’s decree some two thousand years earlier, was now as obvious as the Emperor’s utter lack of clothes.
His tea had gone cold long ago. This information was something quite interesting, something that could change the very shape of the world in which he lived and operated.
For the dozenth time since this drama had caught his attention, he picked up his teacup and saucer, recalled they were cold, had a passing thought about brewing another, and then set them down again untouched. For now there was a girl upon the screen.
The girl.
He studied her pale face and rounded features as she was escorted out of a house by three bodyguards. It was an impressive spectacle, really, to see her protected by these three as though she hadn’t just turned into a flaming dragon and shredded a man in her jaws.
His hand fell to his chin and he stroked it, the natural posture of consideration for him. Yes, this had possibilities. Many, many possibilities. Now all he had to do was find the appropriate course of action to take advantage of them …
Florence, Italy
The two men sat out on the overlook, not noticing the view. It was a villa, one of the finest in Firenze—Florence to foreigners—and the entire town was lit up below them.
Instead they were utterly focused on the television in front of them, tuned to American news via the satellite dish on the side of the house.
“Capo,” the junior one said, breaking his silence. “This changes things. Their eyes are opened.”
The older one stared at the screen, thinking it over. The young man next to him was no fool, but he was young. “It means nothing,” he said after a moment, “save that they should fear us more now that they know what our kind can do.”
Edinburgh, Scotland
Alistair McKinney was dying, and he knew it, and he damned well hated it. But what could he do?
He was lying flat on his back, feeling the life running out of him in the last. It came and went in bits and bytes, like he was copying a file, except his bits and bytes were his life, and they were running out.
There was someone with him who seemed to be having a much grander time of it than Alistair was. He could hear the voice, faintly, as he lay there, just lay there, unable to move, unable to think. There was a fly buzzing around him, like it could tell he was nearly dead and unable to fend it off.
“… the American president announced …”
Alistair’s ears heard a little of that as he tried to move. The TV was on, wasn’t it? God, it seemed so far away.
“… named Sienna Nealon managed the agency response to the crisis …”
He felt the abrupt pain again, this time so searing he knew it was the end, but he couldnae find it in himself to scream. Instead, he heard something that sounded to his ears like a cross between a whistle and a choke, and it stayed with him until the pain faded and left him with almost nothing.
Except a view of the figure who had killed him, watching, unable to look away from the TV, even as Alistair died.
Location Unknown
The flare of the television in the dark fell on the face of the watcher. He stared at it in the blackness, watched it flicker as it told its story in silence. He needed no sound, no words, to know what it said. He saw the girl—the woman—with her dark hair and pale skin, and he knew her face. All too well, he knew her face.
The watcher had waited in the dark for some time and would wait here for a while longer. He was tasked with a duty to keep his charge, and to make sure they were kept safe. His eyes slid to the corner of the room, to that which he watched over, and he felt the assurance of a job done.
His eyes fell back to the television, to the flickering, to the girl. Sienna Nealon. He knew her.
He knew her all too well.
She was the reason he was here, in the dark.
And when the day came that he left it for the last time, she would die just as surely as the sun lit the sky.
Sienna Nealon will return in
LIMITLESS
Out of the Box
Book One
Coming November 4th, 2014!
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A Final Note From the Author
(‘Final’ for like five minutes, anyway, until Out of the Box starts.)
First off, if you want to know when future books become available, take sixty seconds and sign up for my NEW RELEASE EMAIL ALERTS by CLICKING HERE. Don’t let the caps lock scare you; I don’t sell your information and I only send out emails when I have a new book out. The reason you should sign up for this is because while I have actually set a release date for Out of the Box #1, it is not something I usually do, and even if you’re following me on Facebook (robertJcrane (Author)) or Twitter (@robertJcrane), it’s easy to miss my book announcements because…well, because social media is an imprecise thing.
Now that the PSA is out of the way…
Well, that was a hell of a thing.
Alone: The Girl in the Box, Book 1 was released on April 11, 2012 and here we are, approximately two years and four months later, and it’s done. Ten books in less than two and a half years. (Plus I released another six books in other series during that time, and some of them were REALLY long…hey, what’s that tooting sound? My own horn? Oh. I’ll stop, then.) Girl in the Box was always meant to be an origin story, the tale of a girl who’s stunted emotionally by the things her mother has done to her in the name of protecting her, about her journey out into the world to become an isolated and yet self-sacrificing protector of society. I wanted to show her grow up, suffer betrayals and grow stronger than she would ever have imagined possible.
Also, I wanted cool fight scenes. Because really, cool fight scenes make the world go ’round.
Sienna has become part of my world, and I have had an absolute blast telling her origin story. I’ve laughed with her, cried with her, and I hope you have, too. I dedicated this book to the fans because without you showing your support by buying the books, this series would have died uncompleted, like so many other authors’ series’ have.
So, thank you. I appreciate you more than you know. Especially if you’ve stuck with Sienna from the beg
inning until now.
That said, this is an origin story. That means it’s just the beginning. The problem with having as much fun as I have with Sienna is that ideas just keep coming to me…I’m now up to twenty five books plotted for Out of the Box. (If that sounds intimidating to you, imagine how intimidating it is for me! I have to write all those damned things…) Out of the Box will follow a much less rigorous story structure than Girl in the Box, with story arcs lasting only about three books at a time at most. Well…mostly. Of course there’s a larger, overarching story I’ll get to, but it’s much subtler than this time around. Still, it’s there, and I can almost guarantee Sienna fans will find plenty of things to enjoy about the new series.
So here’s my promise to you – as long as I’m having fun with this world and these characters, I’ll keep writing them. It’s probably a good sign that I honestly had the most fun I’ve ever had with a Sienna book while I was writing book 10, isn’t it?
Come join the Girl in the Box discussion on my website: http://www.robertjcrane.com !
Cheers,
Robert J. Crane
Acknowledgments
Once upon a time, I was deep in the telling of a fantasy story about a warrior and a paladin. It was a very different sort of story than the one you’ve just read, and although I thoroughly enjoyed the telling of it, I was worried that it would not have the broad-based appeal to allow me to make a living as an author.
In a really long conversation with my friend Kari Phillips, I told her my idea for another series I’d tentatively sketched out about a girl confined to her home, mysteriously trapped by her mother until the day mom doesn’t come home and she wakes up to find two men in her house. “You should write that,” she told me. “I think that would do well.”
And so it has.
Thanks to Kari for helping Sienna get out of the box.
There were others, of course, almost too many to count. Robin McDermott, Julia Corrigan, Erin Kane, Damarra Atkins, Calvin Sams, Paul Madsen, Kea Grace – all these people reviewed preliminary manuscripts at some point in the series and provided guidance to either help me feel like I didn’t suck or helped me fix genuine errors in the books. They were fixers and reassurers, people who helped keep the car on the road, and I appreciate every one of them for it.
Thanks especially to Jo Evans, Jessica Kelishes and Nicolette Solomita, who each worked on this particular book to help it be the best it could be.
In April 2013, I traveled to London, England to write Enemies (Book #7). While I was there, I tried to coordinate a meet-up at a local pub, figuring it would be a good chance to chat with fans on a one-on-one basis. There seemed to be serious interest, and I was excited to be able to interact with some people who enjoyed my work.
I sat in the bar by myself until half an hour after the start time, feeling like a complete and utter arse. I selling very well at the time, and according to Facebook, London was my biggest city for social media traffic. And yet, there I was, Guinness in hand, face red with embarrassment, by myself in a pub in a lonely city.
Thankfully, Carien Keevey walked in and completely saved the day (and my fragile ego). It was a very lovely evening, and I owe her my thanks for that in addition to joining the proofreading team to help make the books better.
Annie Sullivan gave Sienna a voice for the audiobooks, worked tirelessly to give her heart and emotion, and deserves all the credit for how wonderful they turned out.
Karri Klawiter has provided the covers for every single Girl in the Box book except for #1, and done a stunningly magnificent job every time. Kudos to her for making the books look très magnifique (or however you say it in French).
Sarah Barbour has been the tireless editor for the vast majority of the Girl in the Box, and she’s done fantabulous at it, going so far as to research everything from Roman town names to the proper spelling of Black Hawk helicopters. Where the Chicago Manual of Style fails, Sarah doesn’t, always coming up with an answer for everything.
When I was first starting out as an indie author, I had so much help from Nicholas Ambrose that I can’t even enumerate it all. He edited the early volumes, formatted them, and designed the cover for book #1. In short, as I said in the dedication to book #9, he made being an indie author seem so very, very easy until I was in far too deep to even think about bailing out.
Finally, my thanks to three ladies who helped get this show on the road. Heather Rodefer, Debra Wesley and Shannon Campbell were my first readers back when the series first started, and you could not find a more enthusiastic group of cheerleaders than the three of them. This series would not exist without them helping me so very, very much in the early stages.
My wife. My kids. My parents. These are the people who make it possible, and who I do this for. Gracias.
About the Author
Robert J. Crane is kind of an a-hole. What, you don’t remember how he killed Zack? ZOMG NEVER FORGET!11!!!!1
Website: http://www.robertjcrane.com
Facebook Page: robertJcrane (Author)
Twitter: @robertJcrane
Email: [email protected]
Other Works by Robert J. Crane
The Sanctuary Series
Epic Fantasy
Defender: The Sanctuary Series, Volume One
Avenger: The Sanctuary Series, Volume Two
Champion: The Sanctuary Series, Volume Three
Crusader: The Sanctuary Series, Volume Four
Sanctuary Tales, Volume One - A Short Story Collection
Thy Father’s Shadow: The Sanctuary Series, Volume 4.5
Master: The Sanctuary Series, Volume Five* (Coming Fall 2014!)
The Girl in the Box
and
Out of the Box
Contemporary Urban Fantasy
Alone: The Girl in the Box, Book 1
Untouched: The Girl in the Box, Book 2
Soulless: The Girl in the Box, Book 3
Family: The Girl in the Box, Book 4
Omega: The Girl in the Box, Book 5
Broken: The Girl in the Box, Book 6
Enemies: The Girl in the Box, Book 7
Legacy: The Girl in the Box, Book 8
Destiny: The Girl in the Box, Book 9
Power: The Girl in the Box, Book 10
Limitless: Out of the Box, Book 1* (Coming November 4th, 2014!)
In the Wind: Out of the Box, Book 2* (Coming Late 2014!)
Ruthless: Out of the Box, Book 3* (Coming Early 2015!)
Southern Watch
Contemporary Urban Fantasy
Called: Southern Watch, Book 1
Depths: Southern Watch, Book 2
Corrupted: Southern Watch, Book 3* (Coming Fall 2014!)
Unearthed: Southern Watch, Book 4* (Coming Late 2014/Early 2015!)
*Forthcoming
Table of Contents
Dedication
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Ch
apter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Chapter 48
Chapter 49
Chapter 50
Chapter 51
Chapter 52
Chapter 53
Chapter 54
Chapter 55
Chapter 56
Chapter 57
Chapter 58
Chapter 59
Epilogue
A Final Note From the Author
Acknowledgments
About the Author
Other Works by Robert J. Crane
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