“Worth it.” That's what he said. And it stayed, warmly, in my ears, for the rest of the drive back to the Hoover Building.
CHAPTER NINETY-SIX
Julie
“I'm sorry, ma'am, but your credit card has been declined.”
Julie blinked, listening to the host at the counter of a mid-priced DC hotel. Her hand was cool, draped on the marble counter, and her lips moved in silence, no words spilling forth for a few long seconds.
“I don't see how that could be,” she said, hoarsely, when she recovered her presence of mind – and her voice.
The man behind the counter gave her a polite smile, though she could have sworn there was a little spite dripped in there. “But it is. I ran it three times, just to be sure. Sorry.” He shrugged, and waved to the line behind her. “Can I help the next guest?”
Julie shuffled off, taking the cue to be jettisoned for what it was and rolling her suitcase away from the check-in desk. It rattled, ever so slightly, on the grooves of the hotel's tile floor. How could her credit card have been declined unless...?
She stopped in the middle of the lobby, her self-consciousness overwhelmed by a need to know. Dialing her phone, she waited...
“Hello?” Dom answered wearily.
“Hey,” she said, being a little too polite in her tone. But she was in public, and she didn't want to make a bigger scene than she already had. Her cheeks were burning, after all. “I was just trying to check into a hotel and–”
“Yeah, I saw,” Dom said tensely. “Kind of a pricy one, don't you think? We can't really afford that.”
She blinked. “You...kicked me out of our house and now you're telling me I can't check into–”
“That hotel is expensive, Julie,” Dom said. “You just lost your job, remember? So, yeah, I blocked your check-in when the credit card company asked me to verify the transaction. Pick something cheaper.”
Julie just stood there, torn between wanting to throw her phone and scream under the weight of what seemed to be countless, unearned indignities that had been thrust upon her. Instead, she said, more meekly than she would have preferred, “I picked it because it was close to the kids, not because I care how swanky or expensive it is.”
“Well, you need to care at least a little. I don't know if you've looked at our bank account lately, but it's not in great shape. Your job at the White House may have been your dream, but it didn't pay well, and my own career took a pretty hard hit so I could be flexible and care for the kids while you were burning the midnight oil.” Was that bitterness? “Or at least while you were out until after midnight.”
Ouch. Yep, bitterness.
“I didn't do any of what they're accusing me of,” Julie said, rolling her suitcase out of the center of the lobby. She was catching stares, and her own ability to hold it all together was starting to fray her nerves. “I can't believe you're listening to any of this.”
“If it was just one thing, maybe I wouldn't,” Dom said, and he sounded so cold she didn't even recognize him as her husband. He certainly didn't sound like the man she'd married. “But it's everywhere, Julie. And you can't just expect me to write it all off – the FBI, the media reports on...everything. It'd be asking me to believe that someone undertook a massive conspiracy against you. Does that seem reasonable?”
“Nothing seems reasonable to me right now,” she said, putting her head down and rolling her suitcase for the front door. She'd collect her car from the valet and leave. There had to be a Holiday Inn Express or something nearby, maybe a little farther out. It wasn't like she had a job to commute to right now anyway. Or a hope of a job, really.
A dark figure stood steadfast in her way, blocking her like an enormous shadow from the bright glass doors of the exit. Julie steered around him, phone in one hand and the suitcase's telescoping handle clenched in the other.
He moved to step in front of her.
Julie veered the other way, thinking to just go around him. Clearly they'd just picked their direction to veer at the same moment. Whoops.
He stepped in her path again, barring her passage.
Julie looked up to find herself looking in the eye a man a little over six feet tall, wearing a Hawaiian shirt, gold chains, and a wide, toothy smile. “Julie Blair?”
She held the phone tightly to her ear and straightened, her walk at an end for now. “Yes?” she asked, unsure of who this was or what he wanted. She took her hand off her suitcase and brought it forward defensively.
The man handed her an envelope, slapping it into her free hand. “You've just been served.” He walked away without another word.
“What's going on?” Dom's voice came to her from over the open connection.
Julie lifted the envelope and tore it open, pinching the phone between her shoulder and ear as she did so. “Process server just handed me something, I don't know what it is, though...” She pulled the letter free of the envelope. “What the hell...?”
“What? What is it?”
“I'm...I'm being ordered to appear before Congress,” Julie said, staring at the words. “It's a congressional subpoena.”
“What...what does that mean?” Dom asked, clearly the words not registering on him. Or at least, not their significance.
Julie stared at the words on the paper, and the answer slipped out, no thought to soft coating it, or how Dom might take it. Because truly...she had no more ability to cushion the blows that seemed to keep raining down on her. “It means that Congress is now investigating me for all the things I've been accused of.”
CHAPTER NINETY-SEVEN
Sienna
Stepping into the Hoover Building after my car ride felt like stepping out of the warm air of a hothouse into a freezing cold Minnesota winter storm.
It was evident to me the moment I stepped into the lobby that I'd walked into something. The lobby, normally a buzz of activity, was twice as crowded as usual, and the conversations, audible to my meta ears, were stilted like a house on the beach.
I picked up the snatches of odd conversations as I moved across the lobby, walking across the giant marble insignia of the FBI seal. Ahead was a receptionist desk with security meant to block access to the upper floors to all but agents. All around was wood paneling on every wall, a little stone work mixed in to give the place an august feel.
The agents ringing the place were stationed just a little too strategically to be there by accident. Don't get me wrong; people conversed in the lobby. Co-workers discussing off-topic things, bonding, chatting – all that was normal.
This, though? This overstuffed cast of characters with wandering eyes that all found me the second I walked in?
Not so much.
“Shit,” I muttered under my breath. I was heading straight up the middle, because my plan was to make like I was heading for my “office” – which was to say the conference room on the top floor. There, I could veer off and visit the director, slap cuffs on her, and be on about the next order of business before anyone was the wiser.
Yes, my plan was to pull off a palace coup, or at least the modern, bureaucratic version of it. It wasn't like I didn't have the evidence to back it up, now that Darnell had photo proof of her being in a secret group, and I had Hilton in...well, some form of custody, at least.
Didn't look like I was going to get the chance here, though. When I made it to the exact center of the lobby, everyone in the place drew their guns, almost as one.
Half a hundred people drawing weapons at once makes a hell of a noise, let me tell you. It's a rustling sound, a rifling sound, clothing being pushed aside, metal roughly brushing against the leather, cloth and plastic of holsters. A collective noise so strange and different – and yet alarming, once you realized what it was.
Couldn't say I wasn't alarmed, watching fifty people reach for guns to draw a bead on me.
Brianna? I asked in my head.
Yep. Let's do it.
I shoved my hands behind me, drawing moisture out of the humid DC air as I
dropped to my knees. I sculpted a wall of ice speedily, making a little igloo around myself. I had it mostly completed behind me before most of the agents had even cleared their holsters, and was surrounded on three sides by thick ice. Admittedly not thick enough to protect me against a volley of bullets, but...
My suspicion was that I wasn't going to have to face that many bullets.
“Hold it right there!” The voice of Heather Chalke shouted over the hubbub, and I saw her slightly to my left, hiding among the agents ringing the lobby. She had three good-sized dudes between us, all with guns drawn. “Sienna Nealon – you are under arrest!”
“Oh?” I put my hands up, smiling benignly. I'd finished forming an ice wall up to my waist and I was kneeling in the middle of my little three-sided igloo, at least somewhat protected if they started lighting me up. “Am I?”
“Slay Queen? More like Ice Queen,” someone behind me muttered. I appreciated that.
Chalke looked like she was struggling, very hard, to keep her composure. She seemed a lot whiter than usual, but swallowed, visibly, staring at me from between her three-big-dude shield. Other agents were shuffling around to get a shot at me, but the ice was growing, seemingly on its own, organically, thickening without me even having to touch it or wave my hands. “You absorbed that meta in New Orleans, didn't you?”
“Nah, I just got sick of all the shit from you and your Network pals and went full Elsa on rage alone,” I said, staring her down. There was only a small window in which I could look at her now. “Or maybe this is just my Minnesota blood? Hard to say.” I glanced at the agents trying to encircle me. “You hear me? The director is working for the Network that President Gondry called out. She's actively involved in the assassination attempts against him.”
“Don't believe her!” Chalke shouted. “She's just trying to muddy the waters!”
“One of us dragged the president across the entire district yesterday trying to save his life,” I said, the ice swallowing me up to the eyes. I could see the agents trying to draw a bead on me, readying themselves to pump a shot into my face. “The other sat back and did not shit while it happened. I'll leave you fine investigative agents to determine which of us is which, but let's just say the one who did that? Had plenty of opportunity to knock Gondry off if she was of a mind to.”
“You're mind controlling him,” Chalke said, pale, but trying to keep her calm. It wasn't often that drama on this scale went down in the lobby of her headquarters, after all. She looked like she knew she was at the eye of a storm that was in danger of sweeping her away at any second. “We have the evidence.”
“I'd like to see this evidence,” I said, “and I will – but I have evidence of my own–”
“You're lying,” Chalke said, raising her voice. “Shoot her! She's dangerous, she needs to be stopped before she–”
“Can speak any more truth?” I called, sealing up the last of myself into an ice sculpture. I'd thickened the walls to incredible hardness while we were talking, and now I was sending out a slick of ice across the floor of the lobby – thin layers at first, just beneath the agents' shoes. I raised my voice to be heard through the ice barrier. “Wouldn't want that, Heather. But lemme tell you something...if you think I'm going to exercise my right to remain silent...you've got another thing coming. Because I do not do anything quietly.”
And with that, I stomped as hard as I could on the lobby floor, shattering the concrete I'd just frozen and dropping a thirty-by-thirty-foot segment of floor beneath us as I froze a slide into place beneath me.
Fifty agents took a ten-foot screaming plunge into the basement while I used my powers to shatter the dome protecting me and slid across the empty space where the first-floor lobby had been only seconds before. I blew out the front entrance, sliding out onto Pennsylvania Avenue riding a floating sled of ice. I headed west to the White House, fearful of what I would find when I got there.
CHAPTER NINETY-EIGHT
Chapman
CHAPMAN: HOW IN THE BLUE HELL DID SHE GET ICE POWERS?
CHALKE: I don't know, why don't you tell the class? You were the one who was supposed to be watching her!
Chapman sat back, steaming, in the plane seat. Why was it that this always seemed to happen with Nealon? Had she also absorbed Bowen's luck-changing abilities? Maybe taken those of someone like him? Because she was one slippery little bitch.
KORY: Must have been down in New Orleans, right? That shooter meta that tried to kill Governor Warrington?
CHALKE: Seems likely. And also explains her sudden penchant for making these long range, killer shots that she couldn't hit when she joined the FBI.
BYRD: lol u guys gave her the tools to kill us lol o shit
Chapman cringed, glancing around the airplane cabin. Chase was sitting across from him, subtly watching his reactions. He sighed heavily, then asked, “Enjoying the show?” Didn't put too much annoyance in it.
“I know the sound of someone who's been thwarted by Sienna Nealon,” Chase said. “Know it by heart.”
“She escaped the FBI's attempt to...bring her down,” Chapman said. He almost said “kill her,” but if they'd gone for that from the start, like he'd have done, she probably wouldn't have had a chance to escape. Stupid Chalke, having to play nice in front of her agents. How hard was it to just drill her in the head with a pistol and say, “I thought I saw her reaching for a gun?” Apparently impossible, going by the failures of these people.
“Yeah, she does that,” Chase said. “You want me to send in the clowns?”
Chapman let a small chuckle slip out. “No. I want them ready to move shortly, though. How's their planning?”
“Coming along,” Chase said, and here she stiffened again. Still questioning the morality of killing the president, then. “You've really got a murderer's row of talent put together for this. If you're dealing with the FBI director.”
Chapman wasn't sure how to answer that. “Change needs to happen. The world's in bad shape, and it shouldn't stay there.” That was about as diplomatic as he could manage presently. He turned his attention back to the Network.
CHAPMAN: She's going to go straight for the White House now, right?
CHALKE: Well, let's see, I just initiated an attempt to “arrest” her, so yes, it seems likely she'd run to her patron.
KORY: Not gonna lie, I'm nervous. Is this going to be a problem?
Chalke took forever to answer. Hopefully it was because she was doing things that needed to be done, and not because she was caught up in trouble in the real world.
CHALKE: I hope not. But I guess we'll see soon.
CHAPTER NINETY-NINE
Sienna
FBI headquarters was a mere handful of blocks from the White House. I shot along Pennsylvania Avenue on my ice bridge basically, drawing moisture from the air of a town that had become colloquially known as “The Swamp,” originally for the humidity rather than the corruption. It was the humidity I was using now, though, gliding about ten feet above the sidewalk.
I was counting the seconds, almost. I'd just been shut out of FBI headquarters by my boss – well, former boss, now, I imagined. I should have seen it coming – hell, Harry should have seen it coming.
Then I cursed aloud. He probably had, but figured I could handle it. Such a loving man, always letting me dig my own way out of trouble. I would have been madder at him, but the truth was that he knew me. I liked digging my way out of trouble, even if it involved stumbling along in the dark with people shooting at me. It wasn't generally much fun at the time, but the sense of accomplishment after getting through it? Epic endorphin rush.
People below exclaimed in surprise as I glided over their heads, my ice bridge forming beneath my feet as I went, shoes slipping along with seemingly no traction. But neither did I tip over at any point; my powers granted me the perfect balance of a skater on the ice, which I imagined would come in really handy if I ever made it home to Minnesota.
So...question.
“Yeah?”
I asked. “What's up, Brianna?”
Just a view from an outside observer. If the FBI director turned her agency against you...what's the likelihood she's stopping there rather than turning another agency against you? Asking for the health of my mind, because I'm trapped in your body, and you're moving into the world's heaviest sniper zone as we...speak? Chat? Communicate? As ever, not really sure how to quantify these talks we have.
“We share brain space,” I said. “Think of it as a mind meld.” I took another breath. The White House perimeter was ahead, just a few blocks away. “And you raise a fantastic point.” I slowed my approach. The White House was one of the most secure buildings on the planet, with Secret Service snipers keeping watch over long distances around it.
If Chalke had beat me to the punch in informing the Secret Service I was persona non grata, my coming that way now would probably spell a quick end to my journey. Or an excruciatingly slow one, with a bullet or twelve in my body halting my forward progress.
Maybe you should call before dropping in?
“Good idea,” I said, drawing out my phone as I slid off onto a side street and dropped to the pavement, walking like a normal person and blending almost immediately into the crowd after catching a few yelps and stares. I was already dialing.
“White House, office of the president.”
“This is Sienna Nealon,” I said, “FBI. I need to speak to the president right now.”
There was a pause on the other end. “Just a moment, I'll put you through.”
I took a breath of warm, humid air as I took a turn into an alley. My nostrils filled with the smell of garbage from a nearby dumpster. The sweat was sticking to me, a product of my exertions escaping FBI headquarters.
My pulse throbbed in my ears as I waited to see if my call was being connected. At the very least, I knew this much – my phone wasn't traceable by their systems, so they wouldn't be able to home in on my position just by keeping me on the line.
Control: Out of the Box (The Girl in the Box Book 38) Page 29
