“They’re all fine,” I said. “Our bad guy … wasn’t quite so bad, at least to you guys. No fatalities, and everyone seems to be recovering. You’ll walk away from this one with nothing scarred but maybe your pride.”
It was his turn to hem. “Did you, uh … kick his ass? In your own, inimitable way?”
“He’s dead, yeah,” I said, looking away. “I tried to spare him, but …” I shrugged. “He wouldn’t have any of it.”
He stared right at me. “Did you try and absorb him?”
Why did this dreamwalk suddenly feel so desperately uncomfortable? “Yeah,” I admitted after an awkward pause. “He wasn’t interested, so I let it pass.”
Reed just stared at the dark ground for a few seconds before replying. “Damn.”
I stared at him, a little surprised. “Why ‘damn’?”
He shrugged. “I mean … obviously you beat him without any additional powers, and … you’re totally a badass and all, it’s just …” He did another shrug, like he was trying to squirm his way out of having to answer an awkward question. Finally he broke through with a sigh. “I just want you to be safe, and having all the powers you can … makes you safe … er. Because there’s no way you’ll ever be totally safe, at least not the way you live.”
I gave him a jaded eye. “The way I live? Which one of us is presently paid to deal with metahuman criminal menaces?”
“Yeah, with an agency you set up.”
“But you’re doing the dirty work—well, most of it, anyway. I mean, sure, you gotta call in little sis every now and again when things get really hairy—”
“I did not ‘call you in’—I left you day-drinking on the Gulf of Mexico—”
“But you knew I wouldn’t just sit this out when it got personal—”
He sighed again. “Yeah. I had a feeling that if anything would pull you out of your funk and back into the game … it’d be a serious meta threat.”
“I’m, uh … done with the drinking,” I said, looking away. “I mean, I’ve probably still got some mild withdrawals to go through—thanks, metahuman powers, for blunting the impact of that—but, uh …” I looked up and found his eyes. They were, thankfully, kind, and filled with concern for me. “… I’m done.”
“Good,” he said, and he sounded a little hoarse. “I’m glad you’re … done. I wish I could have helped more, but …”
“You did it right,” I said. “One mental crisis at a time. Honestly, I was … such a mess. I’m surprised you actually thought I’d leave my stupor to get in on this.”
“It’s who you are,” he said softly.
“A crazy person?” I said, half-joking.
“A hero,” he said, not.
“She took everything from me, Reed,” I said, looking at the infinite blackness below. “My powers, my memories … pieces of who I am. She even broke my confidence, though apparently my ego is so massive she couldn’t take all of it. But … strip that all away … and I have to ask, what’s left?”
“A hero, still. Duh,” Reed said, answering instantly. “Also …” His voice softened. “My sister. Who’d be kinda super even without a single power.”
My throat got very tight, and my eyes misted up. “Thanks … bro. I love you, too.”
He brought it in, and we hugged, his arms around me and mine around him, for what felt like forever—in the best way. Finally, he said, “So … this is goodbye for a while, I guess?” And he pushed back slightly, so he could look me in the eye. “Since you can’t call me anymore, and I presume you’re … headed on your separate way.”
I held his gaze, and smiled. “Maybe we should make this a weekly thing? Like, ‘Sienna Nealon, phone home’? But with dreams?”
He smiled. “I’d like that. A lot.” And he hugged me tight again, and didn’t let go for a long, long time. I liked that, too.
CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR
The van rolled to a stop outside a hotel in Burnsville, Minnesota, just south of the cities, off Interstate 35. Harry was at the wheel, and I sprang out the side door as Eilish stepped out of the passenger side, her little bag slung over her shoulder.
We both peered inside; there was a man at the front desk, and Eilish sighed in relief. “Excellent prospects.” She was tense all the way through, looked like she was about to spring a leak from contracting her muscles so tight. “You sure about this?”
“Reed said he’d be happy to have you on the team.” I looked her right in the eyes. “You’ll be fine, Eilish. It’ll give you a chance to see if doing this … heroing thing … is something you want to do. It’ll pay … well, I might add, and …” I shrugged. “He’s got connections. You’ll be able to stay here for a while if you’re of a mind to. It’ll give you a chance to work things out without worrying that you’re going to be … y’know, implicated in assisting a fugitive in her flight from justice, decency, and railroading.” I shrugged. “They probably wouldn’t write up the indictment quite like that, but …”
“I appreciate it,” she said, staring back at me with a curious intensity in her eyes. “I’ve been … lost … without Breandan. It’s been years since I felt … steady, I guess? And … I hope you don’t take this wrong, but these last few months, after Scotland, coming over here with you, watching you dive into the bottle? It’s really woken me up to the fact that I need to work on a life for myself. So … maybe I will find it here.”
I looked back at her. “I guess I’m glad that somebody got some benefit out of me hitting rock bottom.”
“That’s thinking positive,” Eilish said, and thrust out her hand. I shook it quickly, and she headed for the door.
“They’re good people,” I said, calling after her. “My friends. Take care of them.”
She looked over her shoulder at me. “I’ll do what I can.” And then she went into the hotel, already speaking to the man behind the counter as the doors whooshed shut behind her. “Would you kindly … ?”
“She’ll be just fine,” Harry said as I climbed up into the passenger seat next to him.
“I know she will,” I said, settling in and staring at the glove box and the dashboard. Now Reed was gone, at least for a while, and I was separated once more from my team. With Eilish saying her farewell, and even Cassidy being gone, I was left alone with Harry Graves.
I looked at him, and he looked at me. He smiled and shifted the van back into gear as he took us out of the parking lot. I was left to wonder how long it would be until I was on my own again—
“A good long while,” Harry said, smiling over at me.
“Oh,” I said. Question answered, I guess.
We headed south as he turned onto Interstate 35, and I held the rest of my questions in, just basking in the quiet glow of having another person with me—at least for ‘a good long while.’
However long that might last.
CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE
South Dakota. Daybreak.
We’d followed Interstate 35 to Albert Lea, Minnesota, and then headed west on I-90 over the flat plains. We made great time, zooming through the night with Harry at the wheel, not a word spoken between us. My mind was on spin cycle, trying to digest everything that had happened; the fights with Stepane and his fear of Revelen, of the info that Warren Quincy had given me about the threats that still remained with the law on my ass …
Oh, and there was a nagging doubt or twelve about exactly how long ‘a good long while’ meant to Harry.
Plus … this one other question that had yet to be answered.
“You didn’t actually need my help at all, did you?” I asked as the sun started to rise in our rearview mirror. It was glinting outside my window, the reflection bright orange and beautiful over a cloudless winter morning. I could feel the chill seeping through the van’s window and into my arm, against the glass as I stared at Harry.
He was smiling. Damn him. It was handsome, too, as per usual. “Not this time, sweetheart,” he said, in a way that might have seemed patronizing from anyone else.
> Harry Graves, though? He pulled it off and actually made it sound …
Nice.
“You were here for me?” I asked. He nodded. “Why not just say so, then?”
“Well, I don’t know if you remember how you were feeling a few days ago,” he said, ambling along in his explanation, “but if I’d said, ‘Sienna—I’m predicting a ninety-nine point nine nine percent certainty you’re going to die in the next few days,’ how do you think you would have responded?”
“Reasonably, I would hope—”
“You’d be hoping wrong,” he said with a shake of the head. “Where you were, mentally … you were going to tell me to take a walk. Or try to ditch me at the first opportunity. But bring a girl a bottle of scotch to warm her up, and present this—this selfless lady with a chance to once again save a soul in need—”
“Oh, screw you,” I said, surly. Then, after a brief pause. “But thanks, I guess.” That came a little more abashed. “How’d you know it was you who could help me?”
He furrowed his brow at me. “Oh, you mean because I can’t see my own future. Well, funny story about that … I can’t, obviously. But what I can see is that Sienna Nealon has a 99.9% probability of death impending, and there’s no visible factor that can save her. But there’s still some … rogue, random element of chance, unrelated to you or anyone around you …” He grew quiet for a second. “And I looked again, and it was still there, gleaming in the possibilities … but I couldn’t see anything related to it. I tried to look closer, to dive into it, did everything I could to figure out what the hell it was …” He shrugged. “I’m ashamed to say how long it took me to recall that I can’t see myself or the probabilities related to my future.”
“So by elimination, the only factor that could save me was you,” I said. “Sounds dicey, Harry. What if you have other blind spots, other people you can’t see?”
He smiled, and it was dazzling. “Then you got the benefit of my company for absolutely free. What a deal, huh?”
“So … how did you save me?” I asked. “You know, to get past that probability of 99.9%?”
“Well,” he said, “first you have to understand … that probability, the 99.9%? It was that this ‘Terminator’ as you call him … was going to kill you back there at Deltan. If you’d fought him again, alone …” He shook his head. “There was no way out for you.”
“Damn,” I whispered. “But I kicked his ass on 94.”
“You still had to limp away from that one, as you’ll recall,” he said. “No … he had a trick up his sleeve, something he’d been saving. You were going to put him in an impossible position … and that was going to be the end of you.” He said it with quiet certainty. “Just the same, if Eilish had intervened in your fight the way you suggested before the battle—”
“You said she’d die.” I looked at him and he nodded, once. “That Stepane would kill her before she got control of him.”
“Without doubt,” he said. “One hundred percent. But the moment he was out of the picture—”
“You told Eilish to come in,” I said, working through it. “You came with her, directed her right to me.”
“And I knew I was doing the right thing, because the probability of your death started to drop as we headed in that direction,” he said. “See, that’s how I know to guide myself. I don’t know how my fate will unfold … but I figure if your odds improve …” He smiled again. “… Well, I’m heading in the right direction. I take care of you, you take care of me.”
“‘For a good long while’?” I asked.
His smiled faded a bit. “If you don’t mind some company on the road. I could help, after all. Keep you a few steps ahead of trouble. Maybe … provide a little company.” He didn’t arch his eyebrows enough to be lascivious, but the suggestion was there, if subtle.
I stared at Harry Graves, who’d somehow come back to me after a year of just … being gone, and now … he’d saved my life. Again.
And he was handsome.
And he was decent.
And oh, it had been forever. I could tell by the way my heart was beating, my pulse quickening and my breath catching in my chest.
“It might be nice to … have some company for a while,” I said, trying to play it cool even though I knew he knew. The smile gave it away. I figured he’d seen a certain sexy probability in my future grow exponentially in the last thirty seconds, and that was just fine with me. I reached over, and brushed his arm, my bare fingers running over his sleeve.
“Oh, I brought you these,” he said, and reached down into the pocket in his door. He tossed something at me, and I caught them.
Gloves.
“All the way from Florida?” I asked, staring at them.
He actually blushed. “Well … I held onto them until I, uhm … knew you might need them for … something.”
“Hm,” I said, favoring him with a crooked smile, then slipping them on one by one. They were leather, smooth, comfortable. “What do you get for the succubus who has it all?”
His smile matched mine. “You’re on the run from the law. Do you really think you ‘have it all’?”
I smiled again, this time more mischievous. “No, but … considering where I am and what I’ve been through … I think I’m doing okay. Now …” I touched his face. “Take your eyes off the road for a second, Harry. Because I see something in your future that you don’t.” And I kissed him for just a couple seconds.
We broke, and he said, “Whew,” and then swerved slightly before getting the van back under control and back on the road. “Yeah. I did not see that coming.”
I settled back in my seat, but reached out with my left hand and took his right, interlacing our fingers. “Wait ’til you see what happens next,” I said, and smiled at him as he smiled at me, the infinite possibility of the future ahead of us on the horizon. I couldn’t see it, but …
I had a feeling it was going to be good.
CHAPTER FORTY-SIX
The White House
Washington, DC
Secretary of Defense Bruno Passerini, Admiral, USN (Ret.) still walked with the cadence of a Navy man. It was something he’d picked up in Basic and never let go of, the precise movement style that came from drill. He couldn’t have shed it if he’d tried—not that he had—but it was bound to him like a second skin, and almost as tightly as the anger he felt pulsing through his veins right now.
“Director Chalke,” he said, trying to catch up to the woman in the grey suit as she strode through the West Wing lobby toward the exit. She probably had a car waiting for her, and he didn’t want to miss this opportunity to catch her. Otherwise he might have to make an appointment and drop by FBI Headquarters, and that didn’t suit his disposition nor his mood.
Someone had misappropriated his department’s vital resources without even consulting him, and that was the sort of thing that Bruno Passerini found … aggravating.
FBI Director Heather Chalke spun, giving him no more than a look over her shoulder before she paused and let him catch up. “Secretary Passerini,” she said, a hint of levity running through her words—the Director always seemed to be speaking with great irony, like she was telling a joke that only she was in on, regardless of who she spoke to. It was irritating, because it bore the marks of a mind so impressed with itself that she didn’t allow for the possibility that anyone was smart enough to realize she was speaking down to them.
Thank God she’s not under my command, Passerini thought as he caught up to her. But to her he only said, “The Orion Protocol.”
She made a face, squinched up her small features, like this was funny. “Is that your name for your little hunter guy? Cute.”
Passerini held in the cold irritation he felt, but only just. Passerini’s patience was not legendary in the Navy, and for good reason. Because when he lost it, you could only wish you were sitting under an F/A-18E Super Hornet as it dropped its payload. And that was the reason he’d been assigned the callsign Hammer. “
I wasn’t informed that we were offering one of our top programs to the Justice Department.”
“Homeland Security, technically,” Chalke said with that same veiled amusement. “But I know it’s all very confusing, way more complicated than Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines, and—whoever else. There’s a fifth one, right?” She tapped her chin, eyes looking up like she was trying to remember.
“This was my project,” Passerini said. “Quincy was my operative. And now he’s sitting in the Cube.”
“We’ll get him released,” Chalke said with a light shrug. “I mean, I should have known better than to throw a blunt instrument like a soldier into this given how badly the last few attempts to use them have gone—”
Passerini bristled; Chalke was smiling. She knew she’d gotten his goat with the crack about the military.
“Well, since you haven’t been able to get the job done with anyone else,” Passerini said, not above a little passive-aggressive shot or two of his own—this was DC, after all. No one here spoke openly about their intentions; they just catted like teenagers at one another, and it drove him nuts. “It probably made sense to you to seek out the best trained fighters on the planet. But my people are not police,” Passerini said, adding an edge to his voice that his junior officers when he’d commanded the Enterprise task force had called “Hammerfall,” “and we were never meant to be used in the way that you and the previous administration have. There’s a reason for the Posse Comitatus Act—”
“I guess you guys don’t take the ‘domestic’ part of ‘enemies foreign and domestic’ seriously, huh?” Chalke snarked. If she was under his command he’d have broken her down to private for insubordination.
“I take my duty very seriously,” Passerini fumed. “I take the safety of my people very seriously. And when one of them gets assigned to cannon fodder duty, thrown at Sienna Nealon by another department, one that doesn’t give a damn for their well-being—”
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