Destiny: The Girl in the Box #9

by Crane, Robert J.

  Chapter 5

  It was a slow, miserable walk back to the Headquarters building. The sun was rising at my back and I knew it was sure to be another warm late summer’s day. I let my hand run over my face, rubbing my brow. There was dirt on my fingers and I could feel it smudge on my forehead as I walked. I didn’t care.

  I ran my tongue over the roof of my mouth, still tasting the remnants of the coffee I’d had earlier. I’d need more unless I wanted to fall asleep before the day had even begun. Breakfast, too. I felt a little weak, probably from a failure to eat, and my stomach rumbled its assent to my assessment.

  There were still figures milling around the construction site where I’d encountered Sovereign. I saw security uniforms, and even a white lab coat that told me Dr. Perugini was there. I took the long way around, dog-legging toward the cafeteria on the back side of the dormitory in order to avoid her. She and I weren’t on the best of terms; when I’d talked to her earlier in the night, she was most upset with me for leaving Old Man Winter’s burnt corpse to stink up her medical unit.

  Winter.

  I cursed aloud as I walked, hearing my boots swish through the dewy grass. I’d just had a showdown with the voices in my head, and every last one of them with power had refused to help me. My instincts told me to pound the stuffing out of them, Jack Bauer style, until they gave me what I wanted, but I didn’t think I had it in me. Pushing them around and bullying them some was one thing; actively torturing them was another.

  I was surprised I drew that line for dead people. They were living rent-free in my head, after all.

  I came around the far wing of the dormitory at a fast walk. The enormous glass cube that was the cafeteria sat between the right-angled wings of the building. It was enormous, extending four stories into the air. Even from here, I could smell fresh eggs cooking. My stomach rumbled again. Breakfast would be served soon.

  I glanced through the glass windows into the cafeteria and saw figures huddled inside. I recognized a great many of them instantly. They were metas we’d saved from England, mostly. The remnants of Omega. I could smell the pall of fear from outside, too. It wasn’t a literal smell, but it was heavier than even the eggs.

  I trudged past the cafeteria, keeping my distance. Karthik was inside with them, I knew, along with a few other defenders. Probably Reed by this point. I walked faster, hoping to get around the wing on the other side of the building before I was seen. I wasn’t in the mood for conversation.

  I sent air rushing through my gritted teeth and thought about Winter again. He’d offered his soul to me, freely, and I’d turned him down. He was a wretched bastard, had killed the only man I’d ever loved by forcing me to touch him. Trying to get me to absorb him for eternity while promising some secret knowledge had seemed like the ultimate revenge, like the last laugh and nastiest dirty trick ever.

  If I’d known then what I knew now, I might have taken him up on it.

  He had been willing to give me his soul. That meant he might have been willing to show me how to use his power. Not that his power alone would have done me much good, since supposedly Sovereign had righteously beaten and scarred his ass once upon a time, but at least it would have been something.

  And I needed something at this point. Actually, to fight Sovereign, I needed a whole lot of something—and that something was power, with a capital P.

  I made it around the far wing of the dormitory and saw the main entrance to headquarters. It looked deceptively quiet even though I knew that there were a ton of security personnel standing just inside the lobby with enough firepower to win a small war.

  Unfortunately, I was in a bigger war than they were equipped to handle, and I needed all the help I could get.

  I made my way across the lawn and stepped onto the sidewalk, following it back to the entry. Every click of my boots against the sidewalk was like a beat of the drum, a cadence as I marched back to my doom.

  I had no idea what to do next. I had people to protect that I couldn’t really protect. Sovereign had proven that. As if he wasn’t bad enough, his second in command, Weissman, could play with time like he carried God’s own remote. Pause, fast forward, slow motion, even rewind might have been in his power for all I knew. I’d gotten lucky the last time we fought and caused him a load of pain.

  Then I’d gotten all stupid and merciful, letting him get away. I was pretty sure that trying to be the good guy in that situation had caused me to hesitate. I was even more sure it would cost me in the end. Another regret on the pile of them. Another questionable choice in a host of them. They were adding up quicker than I could take inventory.

  I breezed through the security checkpoint toward the elevator and hit the button. I was still lost in thought when the doors opened, and I stepped inside without conscious effort.

  I was at a dead end. I supposedly had powers, but I didn’t know how to use them. I had souls that were supposed to be mine, but were stubbornly refusing to cooperate with me. I had seemingly invincible, unbeatable foes looking down at me like giants staring down at a mouse. Like I’d just looked down on Bjorn.

  And they could smash me—and all my people—at will.

  I slumped against the back of the elevator car, felt my skull thump against the hard metal, and took a deep breath. What was I supposed to do now? Wait until one of them showed up to kill us all and just throw myself into the fight, hoping that one of my captured souls might decide to help me?

  The elevator dinged and started to open before I could compose myself. I could feel the desperation as if it was a passenger in the car with me, holding me tight, suffocating me. I straightened as the doors slid apart to reveal the fourth floor—and someone standing right in the middle of them.

  “Sienna,” Ariadne said, her face as drawn as I’d ever seen it. “I was just coming to look for you.”

  “Well, you found me,” I said, slapping my sweaty palms against my denim jeans. They felt like they were drenched, just from all that thinking—and dreading. “What’s up?”

  Ariadne hesitated. Never a good sign. “We just got a call from the Las Vegas Police Department.”

  I perked up. “Is the extermination starting there?” I paused. The local PD wouldn’t call us about something like that; they wouldn’t even know who we were or who to call, assuming they had any clue metahumans existed and were operating in their city.

  “No,” she said, a moment after all that ran through my mind. She paused again, pursing her lips, and I could tell she was having trouble saying what was on her mind. It was almost like she was looking for the best way to phrase it. “They found a body,” she said at last. I waited; if Ariadne was seeking me out to tell me this, it had to be important. “It’s … someone you know.” She bit her lip, toying with the edge of it. “They think it’s your Aunt Charlie.”

  Chapter 6

  The knock sounded at my door as I was finishing packing. “Who is it?” I asked as I carried my overnight bag into the living room and set it down next to the table.

  “It’s me.” My mother’s voice came muffled through the door. “Let me in.”

  “If that’s not a metaphor for our relationship, I don’t know what is,” I said, my bare feet sinking into the tall pile of my carpeting. “You demand something, I immediately have to answer it.” My hand gripped the metal handle slickly; my palms were still sweaty. I opened the door.

  She was standing there with her dark hair still wound in a tight ponytail, her sharp jaw line protruding, arms folded. It was totally a mother thing to do—except she was standing in such a way that I could have knocked her flat on her ass with one good punch. That wasn’t really like her.

  “You heard?” I asked.

  “I heard.” She kept her arms folded as she stepped into my room. “You’re going out there?”

  “To identify the body, yes.” I closed the door behind her. She took care to avoid me as she passed. I was wearing gym shorts and a short-sleeved t-shirt while she was still rocking a leather jacket
and jeans on a summer’s day. Her one concession to the heat of Minnesota summer seemed to be her lack of gloves, but she kept her hands tucked safely under her arms, so she wasn’t exactly living dangerously. “Someone has to.”

  “I could go,” she said stiffly.

  “You could,” I agreed, making my way back to my bag. I checked the zippers absently, fiddling with them even though I remembered closing them before I’d moved it out of my bedroom. “But I figured I’d do this myself.”

  We basked in the silence for a moment before she had to go and ruin it. “You’re running away.”

  I didn’t yell, I didn’t scream, I didn’t throw anything at her or grab hold of her until her soul came ripping out of her body. Though I was mightily tempted on all four of those counts. “I’m going to identify your sister’s body in Las Vegas and then I’ll be right back.”

  “You’re scared.”

  I pushed my lips together in a tight smile. “I’m not the one who’s probably going to die. He wants me alive, after all. What do I have to worry about?” Other than being the concubine of a genocidal maniac.

  “You’re scared of what’s going to happen if you fail.” She did not look amused. “You think he’ll—”

  “I don’t think he’ll do anything,” I said. “I think Weissman, lovely and caring soul that he is, will take that knife of his to everyone around here with all of his trademark enthusiasm and charm. I think everyone here will die screaming if I don’t find a way to stop him, which—hey, surprise—I don’t have one.” I felt my whole body cry out to do something, to move, to vent frustration in some direction, but I held it back. “I’ve got nothing. No solution. No special powers. Nada.” I held my hands up to reveal how empty they were and shrugged my shoulders as though that simple gesture could relieve them of the weight of all the people who were looking to me to save them.

  “You can’t run,” she said. She looked like she was hugging herself, like she was gripping herself tight to keep from—I don’t know—slugging me, probably.

  “I’ll be back tomorrow,” I said. “I doubt Weissman will move in tonight.”

  “And if he does?” She almost sounded like her voice was going to quiver. Almost.

  I let my head sink down until I was staring at the floor, examining the carpet fibers. “Then I guess he’ll get one less piece of cannon fodder than he planned for.”

  I listened to her taking slow breaths for a long moment before she finally turned on her heel and walked out the door.

  Chapter 7

  I was dressed a little more professionally when I got on the plane to Vegas. I wore a suit jacket with my jeans and slung my bag over my shoulder. I never was much of a purse girl, and it was probably never more obvious than now, as I sat in the first-class section in the large seat, the dull thrum of the overhead vents fading into the background chatter of the coach passengers loading behind us.

  I’d only flown commercial airlines a few times. The one that stuck out most in my memory was my trip to London and back. It had been the sort of rough hell that I wouldn’t wish on many people: a nine-hour flight each way that rendered me cramped and annoyed, vowing to never get on an airplane again.

  Yet here I was, this time for a three-hour flight which I would reprise tomorrow. All so I could go look at a corpse and make sure it was my aunt’s. I let out a long sigh, the stale, stuffy, filtered smell of the plane’s air conditioning running through my nose.

  I’d seen enough corpses to last eight lifetimes, and I was only nineteen years old.

  I thought again about what my mother said, about how I was running away. I didn’t really want to admit it, but she was right. She was dead on. Maybe not correct in her reasoning, but correct in the symptom.

  It wasn’t like I was afraid to die. I’d rather have died than go on with all the people I cared about back at the campus dead.

  No, I was afraid of the future. I didn’t even want to think about it. Unfortunately, my brain didn’t share those feelings, because it had put this thought on a loop in my mind.

  I didn’t think Weissman would be coming immediately. Something about the way Sovereign—Joshua—whatever his name was—talked about the whole thing made me think Weissman had other stuff to do before he came for us.

  Of course, I’d still feel like holy hell if he got there while I was gone.

  I took another breath of the synthetic-smelling, recirculated air, listening to the man in front of me talking with the stewardess as she took his coat and offered him a glass of something alcoholic. I had already decided to pass on that if it came my way. Not because I was underage, but because this business I was heading to Las Vegas to attend to was grim and worthy of seriousness. Not drunkenness. No matter how great the temptation might have been to be hammered.

  I hadn’t seen my Aunt Charlie in a year or so. Not since she’d saved me from that asshole James Fries then proceeded to beat the hell out of me herself. My mother had saved me on that one and threatened Charlie so strongly that we’d caught not a whiff of her heavily perfumed ass since. Even the Agency sources had drawn a blank on her when I’d had them snoop around a few months ago.

  It was like she’d disappeared. Which was probably for the best.

  And now she was dead.

  Another guy in a suit appeared in the aisle as I kept my head down, staring at the seatback in front of me. It was in its upright and locked position, like it was supposed to be. Not that it mattered, I supposed. Here in first class, there was actually a decent space between me and the next seat. I was short enough I never had a problem with the leg room, but I could certainly tell the difference.

  “Is this seat taken?” The guy in the suit asked, drawing my attention. I wasn’t sure at first if he was legitimately asking me or if he was just bantering with the stewardess. I turned to look at him and immediately resisted the urge to throw a backhand out to smack him.

  “You ass,” I said. “What are you doing here?”

  “Following you,” Scott said as he sat down in the seat next to me, his pressed, pristine white shirt unbuttoned at the top in what looked like—to me—another expression of his slightly cocky, preppy, pretty-boy charm. He leaned on the armrest between us and smiled. “Figured you might need some help.”

  “I’m identifying the body of someone you’ve never really met,” I said. “What do you think I’ll be needing your help with?”

  “I’d say emotional support,” he said, still smiling, “but I’m a little worried you don’t have any emotions right now.” It was a little charming. Just a little.

  “Oh, I have them,” I said, leaning toward the window. “Nice to know I’m keeping them beneath the surface, though. I’d hate to be bleeding them all over everyone right now.”

  “You are the leader,” he said. “All eyes are on you. I’d imagine that’s difficult.”

  “It can be.” The little circular vent above me started hissing air at a higher volume, and it felt cooler than it had a moment ago. The light thrum of the plane’s electrical systems changed into something heavier as the engines started up. “Look … if this is about you and me—”

  “It’s not,” he said, still leaning toward me. There wasn’t just a simple arm-rest like I’d dealt with in coach; there was a full-on end-table-sized surface between the two of us. “I told you, I don’t need an answer from you on that, not until after. But—you are walking into something right now that you shouldn’t have to face alone. You ought to have someone there with you when you—”

  “Charlie’s not exactly a fond memory for me, okay?” I cut him off, but I did it quietly. “It’s not like I spent my childhood playing at her house, or had her with me during the toughest times of my life. I knew her for six months before she tried to kill me. Six months during which I’d see her for a day a month when she was blowing through town. I don’t think that Charlie dying and me having to look at her corpse is going to be something that sends me over the edge emotionally.”

  “Well, I’m
here for you anyway,” Scott said, and he pulled back from me a little. Still kept on that charming smile, though. “Even if all you need is someone to drive the rental car.”

  “What if I want to drive the rental car?”

  His smile evaporated. “You’re kidding, right? I always drive.”

  “Unless you’re too drunk to do so,” I said with a little smile of my own.

  “Yeah, but that’s not going to happen here.” He actually scoffed. I almost couldn’t believe it.

  “Scott, we’re going to Vegas,” I said. “With government-issued IDs that say we’re over twenty-one. You can’t tell me that these thoughts have not occurred to you before stepping onto this plane.”

  He shook his head and pursed his lips into a thin line. “I’m a little insulted that you think so little of me—” He snickered. “Okay, maybe—just maybe—I’ll concede that it crossed my mind that you needed to find a way to leave behind some of that emotional baggage that’s weighing you down. Even for just a night.”

  I looked out the window as the tarmac started to move. White concrete lit by the hot, noonday sun shimmered outside my window. “I don’t think a night’s gonna do it. We’re staring at the end of the world as we know it here, Scott.” I glanced back at him and caught him looking at me, face all filled with concern. “Whatever baggage I might try to leave behind, I have to pick right back up when I reach my destination.”

  “You got the weight of the world on you right now, Sienna.” He leaned closer again, and I caught the light scent of his cologne. It wasn’t bad anymore; just enough to give me a pleasant whiff. “It wouldn’t hurt to let all that go for one night. Just one night. And then—like you said—you can just pick it right back up tomorrow. Who knows? Maybe a night of rest will make it feel a little lighter, or give you an idea for a new way to carry it—” He broke off. “My metaphor is falling apart.”

  I arched my eyebrows, but I know my face kept its regular grimness. I lightly chewed on my bottom lip. “What if it’s heavier when I pick it back up? You know, like when you’ve had a good workout, and you max yourself out and—”