The Girl in the Box 03 - Soulless

by Robert J. Crane

  “Pretty sure I can.” I rubbed my eyes. “And will.”

  “No, no, no.” The smile was getting kind of creepy. “Do you realize what we’re carrying with us?”

  “Guns and teenage angst?”

  “Ha. No.” He reached into his pocket and pulled out his wallet, dangling the new Directorate-issued driver’s license in front of my face. “Fake IDs that aren’t really fake.”

  I let my jaw drop in disbelief. “What are you thinking?”

  He smiled again, then turned forward in his seat and fastened the seatbelt with one hand while fiddling with the GPS with the other. “I’m thinking we find a hotel with a bar.”

  I leaned back in my seat and draped my hand over my eyes. “Right. Because there’s no possible way this could go horrendously wrong.”

  I kept my peace on the drive, even though I was questioning not only Scott’s level of responsibility but also his sanity. We found a hotel (with a bar across the street) and I shook my head as we pulled up.

  Scott must have sensed my discomfort. “We all agree that the meta who’s doing this is probably far from here by now, right? If he keeps to the pattern?”

  “Mighty big ‘if’,” I said with a shake of the head. “But probably.”

  “So if we check into the hotel and then have maybe one or two drinks...”

  I could tell by his smile he was already reveling in the freedom and there was little I could do to sway him. Still, I had to try. “What if Ariadne calls us after we’ve been drinking with a lead we need to pursue immediately? We’re screwed. We won’t even be able to drive anywhere.”

  “I can drive.” Kat spoke, turning to face me. “I’m pretty drained from healing that clerk; I don’t think it’d be a great idea for me to drink right now. So if we get a call, I can drive while you guys sober up.”

  “See?” Scott gave me a shrug of unworry that did little to assuage my concerns. “Got it covered.”

  I grabbed my bag and opened the door. “Got it covered like what? Like you had Gavrikov covered?”

  “You’re never gonna let me forget that, are you?” He was following behind, and I caught a hint of annoyance in his voice.

  “Not so long as he’s stuck in my skull, no.”

  We checked in, getting two rooms. I started to suggest that Kat and I could stay in one room while Scott stayed in the other, but when I handed him the cards for his room he handed the other to her and I didn’t bother to argue. I preferred to stay by myself anyway.

  We went up to the third floor where our rooms were side by side. “Meet out here in five and we’ll head down together,” he said.

  “I think I’ll pass,” I said. “You guys go have a good time. I’m just gonna turn in; might as well have one of us be rested for the morning.”

  “Come on, Sienna. We’ve been working our asses off for months, had Parks and Ariadne breathing down our necks, had all manner of shit go wrong, and now we have a chance to unwind. Don’t be so uptight.”

  I took a deep breath before answering so I could avoid ripping his head off while we still had potentially weeks’ worth of road tripping ahead of us. “I’m not being uptight. I just don’t want to screw this up, okay?”

  “I get it.” He let the smile recede into a smug, almost taunting expression. “It’s okay. I admire your restraint. You probably don’t even wonder what it feels like.”

  I tensed, felt every muscle from my lower back up locking into place. “Wonder what what feels like?”

  “Drinking.” His half-smile dissolved into a real one. “You haven’t wondered what it’s like? Your boyfriend goes out drinking sometimes, doesn’t he?”

  I felt myself relax, but only a tenth of a percent. Dammit, I had thought he was talking about something far different, and it had let a wave of acid loose in my stomach, sending it roiling. “Yeah, Zack goes out drinking every now and again.” Usually when I’m busy, but he does it. Because he’s old enough.

  “And you never felt curious or left behind?” He smiled, a little too innocently.

  Damn his smile. I knew what he was doing, what he was suggesting. Any other day, it might not have found its mark. After all, my boyfriend was mature, responsible, secure in his job, and if he went to the bar with his college buddies, he did it on his time off (and usually when I was training.) I’d never felt left behind, not really, because I was too busy doing other things. I pulled my cell phone out of my pocket and lit up the display. Still nothing. “Fine.” I looked back up at him. “One drink.”

  “Attagirl.” He shot a look at Kat. “This’ll be fun. The three of us, on our first assignment, blowing off steam, hanging out at the bar.” He draped a thick arm around Kat and drew her close, giving her a peck on the cheek. “It’s kinda like...” He thought about it for a minute.

  “Being grown-ups?” I offered it sarcastically, but it only widened his smile.

  “Five minutes.” He turned and his hand fell to grab Kat’s, and they walked toward their door. “We’ll head down together.”

  I nodded and slid the card key into my door and turned the handle. When I walked inside, I flipped the switch and waited for the lights to come on. The carpet was a deep maroon and it was a simple setup – two beds, desk, dresser and TV.

  I threw my bag on the dresser and retreated to the bathroom. I looked in the mirror at myself. I looked older, mostly because of the suit, but also because I had my hair back in a ponytail. I held up a gloved hand and heard the leather stretch as I clenched a fist and then relaxed it. Grown-up indeed. I pulled the glove off and started to splash water on my face to help me wake up, but then remembered that it would probably destroy the careful amount of makeup I had applied earlier, before I left the Directorate. I rarely wore the stuff, but in this case it seemed important for the role I was playing.

  I looked again at myself in the mirror and wondered what I was thinking. We were on a serious assignment, the first chance we had to prove ourselves, and we were going to a bar at midnight to have some drinks even though we weren’t anywhere close to done with our assignment. I sighed and looked at the faceplate on my phone again. The LED indicator that let me know when I had messages or missed calls wasn’t blinking. Screw it. Screw him. We’d been working our asses off for months, Kat was going to stay sober, and Scott and I would just have one or two and call it a night. An energy drink or coffee tomorrow and we’d be ready to keep going.

  I tried to remember that reasoning as we walked in the doors to the bar. The light was orange in the room, with flatscreen TVs suspended from the ceiling around the bar itself. Tables were set up to the left and right of the bar area, with a small dance floor in the far corner. Music was playing, a modern pop tune, but not a soul was dancing. I scanned the room as we walked in and the place was only slightly packed, which surprised me given it was Saturday night.

  We made our way to the bar, Scott leading us, his grin reaching an infectious stage. He bellied up and Kat sat next to him. I took the seat on the other side of him, mostly because he was more likely to talk than Kat. She was always tired and quiet after healing someone.

  The bartender made his way over to us, a guy in his forties that had more than a few extra pounds. He had long brown hair in a ponytail and was happy enough after he checked our IDs. “Whaddya want?” he asked in an accent that was as far from midwestern as I could imagine.

  Scott looked over to me first and I shrugged, so he turned to Kat. “Just water for me,” she said. “Designated driver.”

  “What’s good here?” I picked up the mixed drinks menu that he had proffered and thumbed through it.

  “Honestly? I got some strengths; I make a pretty good Whiskey Sour, Bloody Mary, Rusty Nail, Dirty Martini...my Fuzzy Navel is the stuff of local legend—”

  “You don’t need to show us that,” Scott said.

  The bartender smiled and his face split into jowls. “I also make a pretty good Cherry Bomb.”

  I shrugged, without a clue. “I’ll try the Whiskey Sour.”<
br />
  “Straight up or over ice?”

  He looked back at me and I felt the fatigue of the day edging in. “Surprise me.”

  The bartender nodded and Scott ordered a beer, a local brand, and went to the other end of the bar to prep our order. Once he was out of earshot, Scott turned to me. “What do you think so far?”

  “He seems like a nice enough guy. Kinda big, though. You think that’s glandular?”

  “About the case.” Scott shook his head.

  “I think we should not screw it up.” I tried to give him my most serious look. “Right?”

  “Right.” He looked back at Kat, who was resting her face on her palms. “Right?” She gave a lethargic shake of the head, pulling it off her hands to spread her palms with indifference. “It’ll be fine. Just a drink or two, and we’re off to bed for the night, and back to work tomorrow.” He smiled again at me and I caught the first hint of nervousness. “But come on, admit it – we’re out on our own, on the road, we’re in charge of this thing, and we’re sitting in a bar after a long day of chasing down a meta. Tell me this isn’t how you imagined it.”

  I felt a charge of amusement. “First of all, it’s been like four hours, not a day, and most of it we’ve been driving, so I don’t know how hard it’s been.” I saw his nervous happiness start to evaporate and stopped myself. “Yeah, it’s kinda how I imagined it. Freedom, right?” The bartender returned and set down a napkin and placed my drink on top of it, complete with a maraschino cherry, put a beer bottle in front of Scott and slid a water glass onto the bar beside Kat.

  “I’ll drink to that,” Scott said, raising his beer up and angling it toward me. He waited for me to pick up my glass, which was a lot shorter than his; kind of a midget glass, I thought, like they didn’t want me to have a grown-up’s cup. I clinked it against his bottle as he said, “To us! To freedom!” and then reached around him to click my glass against Kat’s. Even she was wearing a smile, as wan as it was.

  “Pretty sure it’s bad luck to toast with a water glass,” I said to Kat as I took the first sip of my drink. Whatever she said in reply, I didn’t hear. I felt my face contract as the full flavor of the whiskey hit my mouth. It was only mildly sour. What caused me to make a face like I’d swallowed battery acid was what I could only assume was the result of the alcohol. It was pungent, powerful, and I immediately wanted to spit it out and throw the cup far, far away from me. They had given me poison, I was sure of it.

  “Are you all right?” Scott was looking at me with his brow furrowed. He took a swig and set his beer back down on the bar.

  I swallowed the vile mixture and wondered where the barman had gone. I assumed he’d wanted to be as far away from me as possible when I discovered that his idea of a good drink was far removed from what I had thought it would be. “Is it...supposed to taste like I took a swig of household cleaners?”

  Scott laughed and looked back at Kat, who feigned a smile of amusement as she rested her face on her hands. “A little strong, huh?”

  “It’s a little strong in the same way that compared to normal humans, we are a little strong.”

  He picked up my drink and took a sip. “Not bad. It’ll probably take a little bit for you to get used to the flavor, that’s all.”

  I wanted to tell him that the only way I could ever get used to the flavor would be to take a blowtorch to every taste bud in my head first, but I refrained. I stared down at the drink, looking at it like it was an adversary I was facing off with. “Acquired taste, huh?” I picked up my little kid’s glass, suddenly thinking it was a lot bigger now. I didn’t want to waste a lot of time on this, and it certainly didn’t bear sipping, prolonging my disgust for an hour or more, a little shot of revolting nastiness at a time.

  I threw it back like I’d seen on TV, trying to ignore the strong, nearly gag-worthy reflex it caused as it passed my tongue and drained down my throat. I felt the ice on my lips, and that was good, the last lingering aftertaste of the liquor still remaining on the cubes. I set the glass down on the bar and shook my head, as though I could rid myself of the tang that was still on my tongue.

  The bartender made his way over, and just as I was about to ask him to make my next round a water, he set another Whiskey Sour in front of me. I looked up at him, frozen, like I had gotten caught flashing him a fake ID, except this was much worse. “The gentleman down there sent you this.” I looked at the barman, and he lifted a pudgy finger to point to a man down the bar.

  He had brown hair, spiked a little in front, with a thin face and intense eyes that caught my attention even from twenty feet away. He raised his glass to me and I could almost feel the ice cubes melt in mine as I picked it up and raised it in a silent toast across the distance between us. He took a drink of his and I took a deep sip of mine, taking care not to make the face that was struggling to get out, that mixture of putrid desire to spit and horror that drinking so vile a liquid was socially acceptable.

  “Picked up an admirer, huh?” I turned back to Scott to find him with a second beer in front of him, and his words were drifting a bit as he talked, slurring. I looked past him at Kat, who was shaking her head as if to keep awake, not paying much attention to us.

  “I guess.” I looked back to the man to find he had turned back to the bar, nursing his drink, attention focused on a soccer game on the screen in front of him. “Or maybe he just figured I was the only unattached woman in the bar.” I swiveled on my stool to look around and confirmed my suspicion; most of the people in the bar were plainly coupled up.

  I looked to Scott and frowned. “Why didn’t he assume I was your girlfriend and send a drink to Kat?” Scott got a blank look, then hemmed and hawed. “Never mind, it doesn’t matter,” I said. He took a breath and lifted his second beer, draining it.

  “Take it easy.” Kat leaned over, crossing Scott’s body to weigh in over the blaring music that filled the bar, now a classic 80s rock tune that had more metal than an orthodontic patient’s mouth. “You’re not going for a third, are you?”

  “I’ve been drinking beer and wine with my family since I was like...thirteen,” Scott said, his words curling as he answered, his tongue sounding like it was getting heavy. “I can handle it.”

  “Uh huh.” Kat looked from him to me, her eyes narrowed slightly. “How much does your family usually let you have?”

  “One.” He swayed on the stool. “We’re social drinkers, not alcoholics.” He laughed, as though it were the funniest thing in the world.

  She rolled her eyes and then whispered something in his ear. He straightened on his stool and turned to me. “I think we’re gonna turn in for the night.” He pulled a wad of cash from his pocket and laid some on the bar. “You coming?”

  I felt a flush of red as I imagined what Kat had said that got him to change direction so quickly. I didn’t want to be in the room next to them, certainly not for the next half-hour. “I think I’ll stay a little longer.”

  He grinned, a goofy one. “Heh. Well, you might wanna stop after that one.” He pointed to my drink. “After all, if this is your first time drinking, you need to build up a tolerance.”

  I felt a sway of my own in my head. “I’ll work on that.” I shot him a dazzling smile. “Have fun.”

  Kat rolled her eyes at me but smiled, a weary look that I knew contained at least a grain of indulgence; her making an accommodation she normally might not have made when she was this tired, only for the purpose of getting him out of the bar before he became too trashed to walk.

  As if to illustrate my point, Scott started to stand and his legs buckled. Kat caught him with an arm around his back and I could see her help him regain his balance, her meta strength enabling her to keep him upright. They walked to the door, her steering, him along for the ride. I chuckled under my breath and was dimly aware that the room had a gentle bob to it that could have been my head rocking back and forth. I knew that my best bet was to avoid drinking even one more drop of the suddenly much tastier drink in front of m
e.

  When I turned back to the bar, I started because there was someone in the vacant seat to my left. He caught my eye, those intense blue eyes locked on mine, and he gave me a disarming smile that somehow got me to giggle, which came as a great shock to me. “Sorry,” he said. “Didn’t mean to startle you.”

  “I didn’t mean to be startled.” I took a deep breath and closed my eyes, shaking my head that I’d said that. “Sorry, I just didn’t expect—”

  “Do you mind some company?” He caught my gaze and held it, and his smile went beyond the realm of disarming and into charming. He was wearing a button-up shirt that was unbuttoned at the top, giving me a glimpse of the beginning of some well-defined chest muscles.

  I caught my breath and it held for a minute before I could squeeze out my answer. “I don’t mind.”

  “My name’s James. James Fries.” He held up his drink, a tall, clear glass with some sort of garnish being the only hint it wasn’t water, and took a leisurely sip, not breaking eye contact the whole time he was drinking. “And you are?”

  “Sienna.” I thought about it for a second, remembering that my identification had a drastically different name on it than the one I’d grown up with. “Sienna Clarke.”

  “What brings you to the mighty town of Owatonna, Sienna Clarke?” He leaned against the bar, the angle of his body making him look very cool, his laid back attitude drawing my interest.

  I took another breath and caught a whiff of a musk, something that left me wanting to take another breath so I could smell it again. “I’m here for work.” I blinked a couple times and the room swayed pleasantly. “You?”

  “The same.” He took a sip and I admired his lips as they caressed the glass. “What do you do for work?”

  “I’m...” It took me a second to remember my cover story. After all, I wouldn’t have wanted him to think I was some sort of person with super strength and powers that defied reasonable explanation. “I’m with the FBI. I’m doing some...investigating.”