Alone: The Girl in the Box, Book 1

by Robert J. Crane

  ~

  Nine

  “Excuse me?” Ariadne stared back at me open-mouthed. “Did getting strangled cause you brain damage? Don’t you think that your house would be the first place Wolfe would try to re-acquire you?”

  “Re-acquire?” I scoffed. “He didn’t acquire me in the first place.”

  She looked at me with something short of astonishment. “He damned near did – if it hadn’t been for our agents showing up when they did—”

  “No,” I said with a vehement shake of my head. Old Man Winter hadn’t shown the slightest reaction to our entire exchange. “By the time your boys showed up I had pumped Wolfe so full of tranquilizer darts he’d have had a hell of a time fighting off a grasshopper, let alone carry me away.”

  “Wolfe jumped a ten foot tall fence to escape from Kurt and Zack,” she said, her jaw clenching. “Maybe you missed that too, since you were unconscious in a pool of your own blood when it happened.”

  I rolled my eyes. I am a teenager; might as well fight like a one. “I want to go home – not permanently, but I have some personal effects I’d like to retrieve.” I turned an irritable gaze from Ariadne to Old Man Winter.

  He stared back, still unblinking.

  “No,” Ariadne said. “You’re far too valuable to risk Wolfe getting his hands on you. We have no idea who he works for, if he works for anybody – or what he wants with you, but it’s nothing good.”

  “Ah ha!” I crowed. “So you do intend to keep me here against my will!”

  “No,” came the quiet, accented voice of Old Man Winter. “If you want things from your home, perhaps we can come to an agreement.”

  I looked at him. “I’m listening.”

  He turned to Ariadne, who spoke in his stead. “We send agents to retrieve whatever you want and bring it back here. In exchange, you do the tests.”

  I thought about it for a minute. “Counter-offer – and be assured, I’m not really offering so much as telling you what I’ll accept. You send your agents to the house to confirm it’s clear and I go in and get what I want and need, and we leave in five minutes or less. I do the testing after.”

  “Are you suicidal?” Ariadne looked at me in amazement. “You know Wolfe will be there somewhere, watching. At least if we’re going to engage in this madness, let’s wait until M-Squad returns—”

  Old Man Winter cut her off, soft voice firm. “They will not be back for some time. We will send agents – ten should suffice to scout and keep a perimeter.” He looked back to me. “Your terms are acceptable. Dr. Sessions will test you when you return.”

  “No cutting,” I said to him, finding that this time his expression hinted at amusement, “nothing invasive, my hands will be free at all times, and don’t expect me to drink anything.”

  He nodded once more and she bit back her response but shot him a look that indicated great displeasure. “Very well.” With a curt nod of her head that reminded me of a bow of submission, she backed toward the door. I followed her and cast a last look at Old Man Winter before I left. He stared back, unapologetic, watching, surveying, who knew what for.

  The door closed with a soft click and Ariadne rounded on me. I could tell by the fire in her eyes that she was preparing to unload. “Stick it,” I told her. “Call me when your boys are ready to leave.” I didn’t bother to look back to see what reaction my words had caused. Well, maybe a little peek. Not sure why antagonizing her was so enjoyable; it wasn’t like she’d done anything to wrong me.

  I was sitting on my bed a few hours later when I heard a knock on the door. When I opened it, Zack was waiting with a dour look. “Ready to get killed?” His expression did not show any hint of lightness.

  I smiled, trying to lighten his mood. “I thought you guys were going to sweep the house and the area first to make sure Wolfe isn’t around?”

  He gave me a kind of exasperated shrug with a marked exhalation. “Kurt and I get to sit in the car with you until we get the all-clear, but let’s not fool ourselves. If Wolfe’s strategy is to not be seen, he won’t be seen – until it’s too late. If his strategy is to take one of our guys and squeeze him until he lies and says it’s all clear, then that’s what he’ll do and we still won’t see him until it’s too late.” His eyes blazed. “Wolfe is the most dangerous meta I’ve heard of and it’s insane that we’re going into this without M-Squad for backup.”

  “Have you guys run across him before?”

  “Nope,” Zack said without emotion. “But one of our other branches did, and it ended bloody. Just like every other story in his file.”

  I scoffed. “He’s not some invisible boogeyman. He has weaknesses, and he can’t be everywhere at once. Maybe he’s watching my house, maybe he’s not.” I stared him down as another possibility occurred to me. “Why couldn’t he be here, watching the Directorate campus?”

  Zack’s hand crept up to his face, covering his eyes as he rubbed the bridge of his nose. “I don’t know that he’s not, but I know we stand a better chance of taking him here than in the middle of a South Minneapolis neighborhood. What could possibly be in your house that’s so damned important that you’re willing to risk your life and ours?”

  I didn’t answer him. He shook his head and gestured for me to follow him, which I did. The truth was, I didn’t need anything from my house. When we got there, I was going to load up as many weapons as I could carry from the basement, but I didn’t really need any of them. And it’s not like any of my clothes were so amazing that I couldn’t live without them; nor personal items, none of it.

  I wanted to go back because I thought Wolfe would be there.

  I hated the way I felt after our last fight, that sick feeling in the pit of my stomach thinking about it – about how he beat me down, made me fear him. I wanted to run into him. This time I’d be ready. Mobility and agility were my weapons. I couldn’t beat him for strength, but I moved faster than him last time and if I hadn’t rammed my head into the iron wall of muscle that was his stomach…I think I could take him. I wanted to. I was faster than him, I knew it. Not by much, but enough. I just had to aim for the weak points – eyes, groin, kidneys.

  At least it would be better than sitting around the Directorate for tests I didn’t really want to do, waiting for a mom who probably wasn’t going to show up.

  I followed Zack to an underground parking garage where I found ten guys, all dressed in suits, carrying rifles and shotguns. Kurt was standing there waiting and he greeted me with a scowl and a grunt that bordered on rude. I waved coquettishly with a big, fake smile. “I should get a gun too,” I said as Zack and I walked up to their car.

  “No,” they both chorused. I shrugged; I hadn’t expected them to say yes and I didn’t press the point. If I was facing off against Wolfe and needed one, I’d take it from an agent. When Wolfe showed, I knew I was going to have to move fast; I didn’t want any of these guys to die, after all.

  We drove to a gate that opened for us, the entrance to the Directorate compound, which was surrounded by a high brick wall. I counted three security cameras without difficulty and I had a suspicion that those were for show; I would have bet the real cameras were much smaller.

  We drove down straight roads in a convoy, empty fields of rolling hills on either side. After about twenty minutes we hit a major highway and followed it for another twenty minutes until we hit a suburban area replete with malls, stores and retail outlets. Another few minutes and we exited a freeway into an area of older homes that looked familiar. I couldn’t be sure, but I thought it was the same cross street where Reed and I entered the freeway a couple days before.

  A few streets later I found myself staring at the front of a house that should have looked familiar, since I lived in it, but didn’t because I hadn’t seen the exterior in over a decade except while fleeing from it in a rush.

  “We’ll wait here until we get the all-clear,” Zack told me, leaning over the seat to talk to me. A few of the cars parked in front of us emptied
and the agents were all wearing full length coats to conceal their weapons. They streamed across the street in a mass.

  “Um,” I said with amusement, “shouldn’t we have parked a few streets away if we’re afraid Wolfe is watching the house?”

  “Wow, you’ve outsmarted us. It must be our first day on the job,” Kurt answered with a snotty air of aggravation. “We are a few streets away. They’re going to walk the three blocks to get to your place.”

  I looked at the house I had thought was mine. I tried to reconcile the facade with the brief glimpse I had gotten of my home as I fled into Reed’s car days earlier. I shook my head. They were all snow covered, blotting out differences between them. I gave up and looked at Zack, who was shaking his head at his partner.

  We sat in silence for the next few minutes. Tempted as I was to make smartass comments to annoy Kurt to the point where he’d get out of the car, I restrained myself (not sure how). We waited, tension filling the air as mundane reports from the agents came across their radios. Staticky “all clear” calls came through over and over. Zack had unplugged his microphone so it piped out over a speaker.

  I gnawed on one of my fingernails as I listened. The voices didn’t sound unhappy, just clipped and professional. I wondered if Wolfe would show up, if he was even looking for me here. I mean, he couldn’t just hang around my house all day, every day waiting for me to show up, could he?

  I thought about those black, soulless eyes and suppressed a shudder. He could. He would. I had to act fast here, get to him before he got to anybody else. My ears focused on the radio, waiting for the first hint of any trouble.

  “Found something in the basement,” came the voice over the speaker. I felt myself tense. If it wasn’t Wolfe, I could bet I knew what they found. “It’s…ugh…well, it’s not Wolfe. All clear.”

  “All clear,” came another voice in agreement. “That’s the whole house.”

  “You haven’t sent anybody here since the day I left?” I asked Zack, who was staring into space, concentrating.

  “No.” His head gave a quick shake. “You ready?”

  “Yeah,” I replied. “Is our driver going to give us curbside service or do we have to walk from here?” I looked at Kurt and the flash of a scowl was my reward.

  “One of these days, little Miss Daisy, you and I are going to go head to head,” he growled as he threw the car in gear and stomped on the accelerator.

  “And I shall look forward to that day with greatest anticipation,” I said in a mocking southern accent, “if for no other reason than I’ll get to watch your head cave in from finally meeting one stronger.”

  He said nothing else as we turned and flew down an alley, almost taking out a garbage can. His next turn was almost as violent and I didn’t get a chance to ask whether he was scared and pissed or just a bad driver, because he came to a screeching halt and the wheel hit the curb.

  “Settle down,” Zack told him, wide-eyed.

  “I’ll settle down when we’re out of here.”

  “Only if you can find a nice fella who’ll take you,” I quipped.

  “Oh, how quaint, a gay joke,” Kurt said without turning back. “I’m married.”

  “Actually it was my way of calling you a little girl. What’s his name?”

  “Haha. To a woman.”

  “Shocking! Because no reasonable man would have you?”

  “Can it, please.” Zack turned to me. “We’re here. Let’s hurry and get the hell out.”

  “Sure,” I said as I slid over and opened the door, stepping out onto the curb covered in a half foot of snow. He parked this way intentionally. Ass. “Just trying to express my happiness for your pissy partner that he could find someone to put up with his menstrual cycles.” That wicked feeling of glee buoyed itself in my soul again as I stepped onto the sidewalk. I ignored Kurt, who made a rude gesture at me from behind the trunk and made no move to join us.

  Zack followed me up the driveway, which had a thin layer of snow over it. I wondered if Mom used to shovel it herself after a snowstorm? No…she was always dressed nice before she went to work. Flurries fell around me and I found myself sticking out my tongue, trying to catch one.

  Zack watched me with a small smile of amusement that evaporated after a few seconds. “We’re in a hurry, remember?”

  My goofy grin faded. “Right.”

  There was an agent at the door of the porch, hands buried inside his coat. I stepped past him with a sarcastic salute and he rolled his eyes and smiled. Now there was a man with a sense of humor. The screens and windows of the porch were all boarded up and covered – so that when Mom left in the morning, I couldn’t see outside.

  It was dark as we stepped into the entry. The lights were on, but they didn’t cast much light compared to even the cloudy sky outside. I looked around the living room. Everything was where we left it, upturned furniture and all. There were a few darts sticking out of the walls, and a couple of the agents were chuckling over them.

  I smiled as I passed them and brushed into my room. A few articles of clothing were on the bed, not where I left them, since the last thing I did before I left was sleep and then whoop the hell out of Zack and Kurt.

  I felt Zack edge up behind me. “If your men didn’t move these clothes around, someone else has been here,” I told him.

  He had the radio plugged back in and I saw his fingers move to touch his ear. “Did anyone move any clothes in this room?” He paused for a moment, waiting for responses, then looked back at me and shook his head. “Guess he’s been here.”

  “Or someone has,” I replied.

  He handed me a black duffel bag that he’d had slung over his shoulder. “Get what you came for and let’s go.”

  I threw some clothes in the bag at random, then tossed in my eskrima sticks after retrieving them from where I left them behind the couch in the living room. As I picked them up I half-smiled, half-frowned as I remembered leaving them behind while I crawled away from Kurt as he fired his dart gun at me.

  “Is that it?” Zack’s voice almost cracked with the sound of his nerves. “Can we go yet?”

  “Just a few more things,” I said as I headed toward the door to the basement. My hand froze for a moment at the handle, then I slowly turned it. “Anyone down there?” I asked as I hovered in the doorjamb, waiting for Zack’s answer.

  He shot a look at the other agents in the room. “Not right now.”

  The white plaster of the living room walls gave way to concrete block at the entry to the basement. The staircase made an abrupt turn to the left ahead, following the foundation of the house. The steps were an old, unvarnished wood, and the only illumination was the single light overhead. I used to walk down these steps several times per day, but it was the last time I came up them that was giving me pause.

  I reached the landing and turned, most of my thoughts about Wolfe forgotten. I knew he wasn’t down here. The smell of old sweat, blood and other foulness filled the air.

  I looked back at Zack and saw him scrunch his nose in displeasure at the aroma. “Did your mother kill someone down here?”

  I didn’t blink. “No. But not for lack of trying.”

  He laughed, and I continued down the last few steps and felt the concrete underfoot. Even though there was a thick sole on the boots I was wearing, my mind filled in the sensation from the thousands of times I had trod these floors barefoot while Mom was away, giving my feet a ghostly feel of the familiar chill. It crept up my legs, infusing my body, and I felt an involuntary tremor run through me.

  The smell was worse down here, and my eyes wandered over our assorted weapons, hanging from hooks on the far wall. Katanas, nunchuks, scythe, rapiers and so many more. Mats covered the floors in the middle of the room and pipes crisscrossed the ceiling overhead from the exposed beams of the floor above. A slight clinking could be heard from overhead, as well as soft footsteps of the agents treading upstairs.

  A couple of buried windows provided a l
ittle bit of light in the back, but they were covered by a film of white, providing enough opacity that it was impossible to distinguish anything through them. For illumination there were three naked bulbs swinging from the ceiling. In the far corner I could see the faint outline of a blocky shape in the shadows and the tremor got a little worse; I shook for a second.

  I had halted in place and I felt Zack’s hand brush my shoulder. I looked back in slight surprise and found his eyes looking into mine. My goodness, they were pretty. “Hurry up, okay?” His face was all sincerity, so I shook off my reverie and pushed myself to cross the mats to the far wall. I pulled a katana off the hooks and slid it into the loops of the bag, then threw a pair of sais and a dagger into it as well.

  Zack watched me with wide eyes and a look of abject absurdity. “If you wanted weapons, we had plenty back at the Directorate…”

  “Just figured I’d get them while I’m here,” I replied. “Besides, Kurt’s not too keen on me being armed.”

  “I’m not that excited about it either,” he admitted with a wry grin. “But that’s because I’ve felt what you can do with those sticks.”

  “In fairness, you did break into my house.”

  “Yeah, I…” His words trailed off as he looked into the corner. “What is that?” He started across the mats to join me on the far wall, but I met him halfway.

  “Nothing. I’m done, we can go.”

  “No, wait.” He was peering into the darkness.

  “It’s really nothing. You were worried about Wolfe, weren’t you?” I plastered a smile on my face. “We should go.”

  “Just a minute.” He reached up and grasped one of the overhead lights, pointing it toward the corner. He took a step closer and I withheld any additional protests and felt myself brace internally. I turned away and shut my eyes, facing the stairs and took a couple steps in that direction. There was an agonizing and sudden tightness in my belly. “What…is…this?” Zack’s voice was low, but rising with each syllable, incredulous. I heard the squeak of hinges behind me, then retching from Zack, then a firm declaration. “Oh my God. Oh my God.”

  I squeezed my eyes shut tighter.

  “OH. MY. GOD!” The last declaration was the most frightening, but it was nothing compared to the sound that followed it.

  “I’m not a god, but it’s always nice to get a compliment.” I opened my eyes to find twin pools of blackness staring into mine from just a few feet away as he descended the stairwell. “Hello, little doll,” Wolfe breathed. “Time to play.”