Masks (Out of the Box Book 9)

by Robert J. Crane

  “You’ve got to be joking,” Jamie said, almost ignoring her.

  “No, I’m serious,” Sienna said. “That lady is bad news. I think she orchestrated that whole attack yesterday so she could wipe the evidence for her prosecution, and now she’s added you to the hit list as a sort of collateral damage—”

  Jamie stopped in mid-air, her gravity channels ceasing all motion and yanking her to a halt. “That …” She blinked, staring across the blue sky and the Staten Island greenery broken by the roofs of houses. “Is that why my finances got wrecked yesterday?”

  “Beg pardon?”

  “Someone foreclosed on my house, ruined a commercial loan that totally trashed my business, repo’d my car, cancelled my credit cards, and overdrew my bank accounts,” Jamie said, it all coming out in a rush. “I just thought it was an error, or an accidental part of this cyber-attack.”

  Sienna grimaced. “Yeah … that probably wasn’t an error, no.”

  Jamie stared at her. “This is your fault,” she said quietly. “None of this ever happened before I met you.”

  “Hey,” Sienna said, looking a little offended, “I wasn’t the one who called Nadine Griffin a thieving bitch in the middle of a crowd on Wall Street.”

  Jamie blushed hard. “I—I didn’t say that. I wouldn’t.”

  “Close enough,” Sienna said. “Look, I am with you in this, okay? I want to help.”

  Jamie let the air out. “I don’t know that you can. I just need to make sure Kyra’s safe, and then I’ll turn myself in and—”

  She didn’t even get to finish her sentence. Sienna shouted, but it was too late, and made no sense. “Watch out! It’s FRIDAY!”

  “It’s not Friday, it’s Thurs—” Jamie said before she caught a glimpse of a man in a black mask riding a pillar of water, streaking up into the sky a second before he slammed into her. She felt bones break in her side, screaming pain run through her. He wrapped a thick arm around her neck and pulled her, yanking her sideways.

  Her gravity channels failed, her concentration gone as the big man pulled her down, choking her, and she fell, dragged back down to earth not by the gravity at her command but by the hands of her enemies.

  73.

  Nadine

  There’d been a kind of adrenaline-laced satisfaction to shooting Abner in the face, with killing her first human being. Nadine didn’t really think that the kill itself was a big deal, because Abner was nothing more than a tool that had lost its utility, like a screwdriver that had worn out. No, it was the feeling that she’d done something important, crossed a threshold. She’d killed a human being, and it felt good, like popping her cherry or executing her first trade for a profit.

  She kind of wanted a celebratory drink, something with an aged whiskey. Maybe a cigar, too.

  She walked eighteen blocks, thankful that she’d chosen sensible shoes for this, and picked up a cab a little ways out from Times Square. She headed toward Wall Street, figuring she might drop in at the office after ditching this cab—for which she would again pay cash somewhere in the East Village, and then take another back to Fifth Avenue, once she’d changed somewhere off the beaten path. She didn’t want to be recognized, after all.

  She walked along past a store with a dozen TVs in the window, all of them tuned to a local station, and paused at the back of the small crowd gathered in front. She could see the newscaster, the big letters blaring out from the story in the corner of the screen, the words audible through the shop’s open door:

  “—and the FBI’s metahuman task force is currently engaging Gravity Gal over Staten Island. We have a live feed just a few blocks from Gravity Gal’s—real name Jamie Barton—house. The FBI is still uncertain of the whereabouts of Barton’s daughter, Kyra, who is sixteen and is not at school nor at their house, according to authorities.”

  “That’s so terrible,” Nadine said in a soft whisper, trying to make it sound genuine.

  “It looks like Sienna Nealon is also on the scene, and she and the FBI agents—one of whom is identified as Scott Byerly—who, according to unsourced rumors, was a former boyfriend of Nealon’s—appear to be having a conversation … let’s go live to the scene, where Yvette Dunbar is trying to get closer to the apparent standoff with Gravity Gal …”

  “Such a shame,” Nadine said, keeping a look of concern on her face even as she felt nothing but abject joy on the inside. Abner had certainly done as promised, especially if Gravity Gal’s brat was snatched up. She didn’t want to know the details—she’d inevitably find out once the plan either succeeded or failed, anyway—but for now, it looked like everything was coming up roses.

  Yes, it seemed like it was time for that drink. And just for this, she’d get a slightly more aged whiskey, a slightly better quality cigar. With a last sad look at the TVs in the window, Nadine marched on, hiding the smile in her heart.

  74.

  Sienna

  “Friday!” I shouted as Guy Friday dragged Jamie to the ground with his arm around her neck, aided by a slowly falling pillar of water. I could see Scott below, bringing his colleague back down at a reasonable pace, and I hovered menacingly, about ten feet away, as Friday brought her back to earth.

  “Stop calling me that!” he shouted, sounding pretty cross with me. I didn’t much care, because last I checked, calling a federal agent by an incorrect yet not profane name wasn’t a crime. Assaulting a federal agent? Now, that was a crime, and one I had a feeling they were hoping I’d step into in the next few minutes.

  “Stay out of this, Sienna,” Scott said, though I had a feeling his warning was mere protocol. He brought Friday down easily, setting him only a few feet away from where he stood, the strain evaporating with the pillar of water now that he’d brought his trained monkey back to the ground. “You don’t want to get involved.”

  “Kinda do,” I said, “if only to knock some sense into you for sleeping with Nadine Griffin.”

  There was a pause of dead silence; we were on an empty street, sirens blaring only a couple blocks away as the law worked their way toward us. “You nailed the Queen of Wall Street?” Friday asked, looking over at Scott. “Way to go.”

  Scott paled, his ruddy complexion going ashen. “How did you …?”

  “She texted me a pic of you two cuddled up this morning,” I said, fighting past the wave of revulsion and jealousy that was twisting my stomach like a hammock. “Congratulations, you slept with a woman under federal indictment for embezzlement, money laundering … pretty sure the list goes on.” I stared at him, trying not to let the sickening feeling of betrayal leak out in what I said next. “What were you thinking?”

  He turned a shade of scarlet. “Probably the same thing you were thinking when you almost screwed James Fries.”

  “Low blow,” I said, my voice tightening. “Also, I was eighteen, and while I know men are supposed to mature slower than women, this is some seriously bad judgment.”

  “Let’s not play around,” he said hoarsely. “You’re jealous.”

  “Hell, I’m jealous,” Friday said, arm still snugged around Jamie’s neck. She wasn’t fighting him, she was just taking it all in, her eyes thinly slitted. I got the feeling was struggling for breath. “Have you seen the gams on that lady? Her pic on the cover of Forbes was hawt.” The way he said “hawt” did nothing to alleviate the nausea I was already feeling at the thought of Scott sleeping with her.

  “I still care for you, Scott,” I said, neatly sidestepping having to cop to the jealousy thing. “It wasn’t just pain between us, you know. There were other things, too, like—”

  “Lies,” he said coldly. “I remember the lies. Strangely enough, I forget everything else.”

  “It doesn’t change the fact that I loved you,” I said, “and some small part of me always will.” I looked over at Friday. “And it doesn’t change the fact that you guys are holding an innocent woman when you ought to be arresting last night’s lay for this atrocity.”

  “Excuse me?” Scott asked.


  “What did she look like naked?” Friday asked. “Because I’m guessing based on that magazine cover, it was tight—”

  “Could you be any more disturbing?” I asked, unable to conceal my horror at Guy Friday any longer. “I mean, really.” I shifted my attention back to Scott. “Come on. This is not a righteous arrest. Anonymous tip? Jamie’s not involved, someone’s playing you.”

  “You don’t know what we have on her,” Scott said, but the look on his face told me they had absolutely nada.

  I just shook my head, closing my eyes. “Scott … come on. Don’t do this. I mean, seriously, if you send the frigging investigation down this road, you’re going to end up looking dumb. And not just a little dumb. You’ll be ahead of that guy running the meth lab at NIST for worst federal employee.” I lowered my tone to a plea. “She’s a hero. She is not the person you’re looking for.”

  “If it’s like you say,” Scott said, voice scratching, “she’ll be out of jail in no time. But she’s coming with us for now.”

  I closed my eyes again, letting my neck sag. In spite of what I said, I really didn’t want to get into this, not with these guys. Jail was not part of my life plan, and neither was disassembling my life so that I could help Jamie escape for what was likely to be a very short term. I could see her future; if they’d set their sights on her, she was going to go with them, sooner or later, or else they would escalate and escalate and escalate until they brought her in, willing, unconscious, or dead.

  Because that was the only way law and order worked. It couldn’t abide a high-profile fugitive like this thumbing her nose at the law, even if she—or I—had the power to do it.

  “No … I’m … not,” Jamie said, grunting out every word from beneath the wall of Friday’s swollen arm, and before I had a chance to react, she did something very, very foolish, and threw the whole scene into chaos.

  75.

  Jamie

  The arm around her neck was loose enough that Jamie could breathe, but only just. She was still struggling for breath, a grip like iron against her throat, restraining her in the arms of the mountainous man Sienna had called Friday. Jamie’s vision was fuzzing, and she had listened to the exchange between Sienna and Scott, waiting to see what progress was made, if any. The last thing she wanted to do was escalate the situation, but Kyra was there, on her mind, and she knew she had to be sure that her daughter was safe if it was the last thing she did before they dragged her down.

  And it wasn’t going to get done here.

  Jamie had a hand up and behind Friday’s neck. He wasn’t restraining her arms, because she couldn’t get enough leverage to hammer him in the back of the head, even with her meta strength.

  But she didn’t need to hit him. No, she just needed to affix a channel to the back of his head, and then anchor the other end to the asphalt beneath their feet. That done, she took a hard breath, forcing air into her lungs, and turned the channel’s gravity on to nearly full.

  The effect was immediate, yanking back Friday’s head like it had a hand on his skull. He let out a cry of shock and his grip loosened, just slightly. Jamie slapped two channels down, one to each of his feet and then set them to full reverse, causing him to flip up into the air in a perfect countermove to the channel she’d already set.

  Friday flipped, legs coming up over his head as his shoulders slammed into the ground. Jamie anchored herself to the road by the bottom of her feet and turned her own flip, slipping out of Friday’s grasp as he hit, rolling back to her feet and vaulting into the air as she cut the reversed channels on Friday’s legs so she didn’t rip him apart from the torsion.

  She left the one binding his head to the pavement, though. That seemed like a sensible precaution.

  “Oh, Jamie,” Sienna said, cringing. “I wish you hadn’t done that.”

  “I need to be sure my daughter is fine,” Jamie said, sucking in deep breaths. Having that ape’s arm on her neck had not been a pleasant experience.

  A jet of water shot past Jamie, and she twirled with a dual push of gravity channels on her feet, dodging above it. “You are not getting away with this!” Scott Byerly shouted at her, his hands shimmering with moisture as he stood with his feet planted, aiming a hand at her. “Don’t make me knock you down.”

  “GRRRRR-ARGHHHH!” Friday’s shout was followed by the sound of cracking rock, pavement splitting from the ground as the massive meta ripped a chunk of asphalt loose with his head. He stood up, leaving a massive pothole behind, a chunk of boulder hanging off the back of his head like some sort of perverse, rocky halo. “That … hurt.”

  “On the plus side,” Sienna said, her dry voice sounding almost bored, “now you’ve got a road tiara so that you can finally claim your place as queen of … I dunno, truckers or something … that you’ve always been at heart.”

  Jamie dodged another blast of water, but just barely. It hit her costume’s sleeve and left a tear in the material. Her eyes widened as she saw it; Scott was not tempering his attacks. If that had hit me in the chest, I would have died. And if I try and escape here without knocking him out … he will swat me out of the sky with one of those water blasts, maybe for good.

  “Stand down now,” Scott said. “You don’t need to get hurt.” He was eyeing Sienna, who was hovering a little ways off, putting her at the back end of a square, opposite Jamie and almost equidistant from Friday on one side and Scott on the other. “If you’re innocent, we can work this out.”

  “I will go with you,” Jamie said, “so long as you can guarantee my daughter’s safety.”

  “Stupid cow,” Friday said, probing the rock that was stuck to the top of his head with his hand. He squeezed it experimentally and part of it crumbled off in dusty pieces. “We don’t know where your idiot daughter is. And we don’t care.”

  Jamie felt like someone had reached into her chest and squeezed her heart, smashing it in a Friday-like grip.

  “Oh, dumbass,” Sienna said, voice barely above a whisper, “you really don’t know what you just said, do you?”

  Jamie felt the motions come without any conscious thought behind them; the only word in her head was one, urgent, repetitive: Kyra.

  She twisted and anchored Scott Byerly to the front of the nearest house and turned the channel to full, came back around and anchored Friday to a black SUV with sirens roaring that had just come around the corner, and throttled them both to full. She watched the government agents zip off like they’d been hooked by an invisible shepherd’s crook, jerked from the stage by a pissed off talent manager, and she gave Sienna a hard look. “You’re not going to stop me, are you?”

  Sienna just stared at her, looking slightly pained. “No.”

  Jamie swallowed heavily. “Thank you.” And she pushed the channels she’d just set against the road down, flinging herself into the afternoon sky, trying to figure out where to go—and what to do—next. The only thing she knew for sure was that she had to find Kyra.

  76.

  Sienna

  I watched Jamie leap off into the sky, and I felt nothing but pain for her. She looked racked up, terrified of the circumstances she was in and of the fact her daughter was missing. I had a bad feeling about that last one, myself, and I didn’t even wait for her to sail out of sight before I had my phone out and dialing.

  While I waited for someone to pick up, I looked at Scott, then Friday. She’d sent the big guy right into the grill of an oncoming FBI suburban, and the impact had not been pretty. The hood of the SUV looked like it had caught a battle axe the size of a motorcycle right down the middle, the engine hanging out of what was left. Friday was staggering in front of the SUV, wobbling on unsteady legs, so I guessed he was probably fine and that Jamie had released her anchors on him, since he wasn’t walking around with the SUV as a giant replacement for his mask. It would have been nothing but an improvement, I assure you.

  Scott, on the other hand, was cratered in someone’s living room. She’d sent him flying like he’d been sho
t out of a giant slingshot, and I could see his feet sticking out of the wall. He seemed to be stirring, so I decided I didn’t need to check on him, either.

  The fact that he had slept with Nadine Griffin might have had a little something to do with it, too, not gonna lie.

  “Hey yo,” J.J. said when he picked up. “What’s up?”

  “Trouble’s up,” I said. “Probably the murder rate pretty soon. I need to get a fix on Nadine Griffin.”

  “So you can murder her?” He sounded not as uneasy about that as I might have thought.

  “No,” I said, probably not sounding totally sincere. “She’s put this box around Jamie Barton pretty hard. Scott’s gonna be chasing Gravity Gal, and I figure while he’s doing that—”

  “You can massacre his new girlfriend. Got it.” He hummed, typing away at a keyboard while I tried not to respond to his blatant misapprehension about my killing Nadine. I was totally over it. Well, I was partially over it.

  Well, it wasn’t worth killing her over, at least.

  “I have her cell phone—or at least the one she used to text you—as pegged at her office on Wall Street,” J.J. said. He threw in a dash of condescension when he next spoke. “I guess just trying her there would have been too much work, huh?”

  “Time’s valuable at the moment,” I said, and hung up on him as I took to the sky, shooting off toward lower Manhattan.

  I crossed the harbor, dodging a couple of helos doing helicopter tours. I saw people getting their snaps of me in. I posed, smiling and throwing a hand wave as I jetted past.

  I found Nadine Griffin’s hole-in-the-wall office on Wall Street exactly as I’d last seen it, with … uh … well, with a gaping hole in the window. I looked around, stepping out into the bullpen, but there was no one here. Her stuff was all arranged around her desk, though, so I took a moment and nosed through it. Hey, you leave your window open, you should expect weirdos like me or Tinkerbell to drop in.