The Girl in the Box Series, Books 1-3: Alone, Untouched and Soulless

by Robert J. Crane

  Chapter 13

  I carried the compensation sheet with me, crumpled in my fist, when I left the meeting. I had read through it, though I confess I was in a haze as I left them. One item stuck out, though—a $10,000 bonus to be paid when I signed on for the training program. I still didn’t have a great concept of how much that would buy me, nor what I would do with it. The sheet indicated I could continue to stay on the campus free of charge with all meals provided.

  The meeting had taken longer than I expected and I’d skipped breakfast. I had a lot on my mind—after all, the question of how Gavrikov got out of his box was a pretty good one, and I hoped my theory was wrong. We hadn’t discussed Full Metal Jackass in much detail; not that there was much to discuss. Why did I doubt he was the sort to just give up and go home after one encounter that went awry?

  Probably because he dressed himself like a submarine and paraded himself into town in hopes of capturing me. You don’t dress like that unless you’re a hopelessly delusional loser who will continue to swing for the fences long past the time you should have returned to the dugout.

  I entered the cafeteria at half past eleven. It was crowded already. I made my way through the line, again ignoring the animosity of the workers as I gathered my food. I was picking my way over to the far wall, prepared to eat by myself (again) when I caught sight of Zack, sitting with his back to me. I took one step toward him and halted. He was at a table for four and it was filled. Kurt Hannegan sat next to him and Scott Byerly and Kat Forrest sat opposite.

  I began to slink back toward the window when Kat waved at me, her big eyes and a wide smile visible even from across the cafeteria. An inward feeling of desperation enveloped me as she tried to wave me over. I sighed and closed my eyes, and when I opened them, Zack was also gesturing for me to join them. He got up and pulled another chair over. With greatest reluctance, I made my way across the room and endured the enthusiastic greetings of Kat and Zack and the muted one from Scott. Hannegan ignored me, I ignored him, and we were both the happier for it.

  “Scott has something he wants to tell you,” Zack said as I sat down. I could feel my motions reduced to a severe stiffness, as though all my joints were locked together and it was only through acts of absolute will I could bend them to seat myself. I looked at Scott, who was at my left, and had his head bowed.

  “I wanted to apologize,” the young man said, his face angled toward the table. Kat and Zack watched him while Hannegan continued to shovel a burrito into his face. “I didn’t really know you when I wrote that note and it was wrong and inappropriate.” He managed to look up and I got the impression that he was rather like a child caught doing something he shouldn’t. “I’m sorry.”

  “All right,” Zack said. “Now we can put all that unpleasantness behind us.” He looked at me, the satisfaction disappearing from his face. “Right?”

  I thought about arguing, but what was the point? Byerly couldn’t have hated me any more than I had hated myself when he’d written it. “Sure,” I said. “Bygones and forgetting and all that.” I picked up the burrito from my plate. The smell of beans, rice and chicken wafted up to me, tempered with the tang of the salsa and guacamole.

  “What did you talk with Old Man Winter and Ariadne about?” Zack asked just as I was taking my first bite.

  I finished chewing before I answered. “How did you know about that?”

  “I went to see Ariadne this morning and the secretary told me she was in a meeting with the two of you and couldn’t be disturbed.” He took a sip of the water sitting in front of him.

  “History of metas, remember?” The burrito was slippery in my gloves and Byerly was giving me a funny look as the salsa dribbled down the leather and onto my sleeve. I dropped the burrito and wiped at it with a napkin.

  “Uh huh.” He chewed as he answered, kind of skeptical. Hannegan still hadn’t looked at me and Kat hadn’t taken her eyes off me yet. I wanted to knock her chair over with her still in it. Or maybe Wolfe did. No, it was probably me. “You guys talk about anything else?”

  I remembered the compensation sheet, tucked away in my coat pocket. “Yeah,” I said. “A couple things.”

  “They offered you a job, didn’t they?” This came from Hannegan, who had stopped eating and was frozen with a taco halfway to his mouth.

  “Yeah.” I felt myself flush. “So?”

  “Doing what?” Scott Byerly did a flush of his own, his ruddy complexion suddenly redder.

  “As an agent?” Zack was looking at me in wonderment. “A retriever?” He looked down at my side and my eyes followed him a moment later. His hand was already in motion and he snatched the compensation sheet from where it was dangling out of my pocket. I didn’t try to stop him, and he stared at it, eyes narrowed as he focused, Hannegan leaning over his shoulder. “Wait, this isn’t an organizational chart...this is...this is...whoa.” Zack’s jaw dropped and he looked at Hannegan in near-astonishment. “I don’t get paid that much. Do you?”

  “Hell, no,” Kurt said, scowling. “And I’m near the top of the pay scale!”

  “But at the bottom of their estimation, apparently,” I said and ripped the paper out of Zack’s hands.

  There was an eerie quiet around the table that lasted almost five seconds before Scott Byerly spoke. “Can I see that?”

  I let out a small noise of exasperation and thrust it at him. “Sure. Why not?”

  Kat Forrest looked over his shoulder as he looked down the page. “Wow,” she said. “They must think you’re really powerful to offer you so much.”

  “I’d offer you more to leave,” Hannegan said under his breath.

  “This is...” Byerly blinked a few times in rapid succession and then handed the page back to me. “A very nice offer. I wish I’d gotten one.” I saw his jaw tighten as he said it.

  “The day will come, my friend,” Zack said. “Probably soon, in fact—” A low buzzing filled the air and he reached down, pulling out his cell phone and studying the screen. He looked to Kurt. “Ariadne wants to see us.”

  Kurt paused in eating, his mouth full. “Now?” Flecks of half-chewed food rained onto the table and I looked away.

  “When was the last time she made an appointment to see the low-paid help?” Zack stood and pulled his coat off the back of his chair. “Yes, now.” He looked back at the three of us still seated. “You guys take it easy.” Hannegan followed him out, a taco clenched in his chubby fists.

  “Congratulations on your offer,” Kat said, her eyes shining. “That’s really amazing. Not too many metas get asked to go through the training program. You should be proud.”

  “Why?” I took a bite of my burrito and then wiped my glove on a napkin. “I didn’t do anything except be born a meta.”

  “Well, you killed that psychopath.” Her smile glittered like a spotlight shining directly in my eyes, annoying me.

  “Yeah, you did,” Byerly said, then leaned closer. “How did you do that, by the way?”

  I felt still, as though a great slab of ice had frozen everything inside me. “I told you—I’m death.”

  “What does that mean?” He leaned even closer, almost whispering. “You’re an efficient killer? You’re super strong?”

  I felt an ugly thread tug at me inside, felt Wolfe doing something, though I couldn’t tell what. I ignored him. “It’s none of your business.”

  “Are you a human time bomb? Like the guy that blew up the science labs?” Byerly kept pressing, and I could feel the warmth of his breath on my cheek, he was so close—too close. “Can you throw energy or maybe—”

  “What I can do—” I started to scoot my chair away from him but he landed his hand on my arm, stopping me. “If you really want to see, just keep your hand where it is. If you don’t, move it.”

  “Maybe I want to know.” His eyes were focused, boring in on me and I saw something else in them, an intensity.

  “Scott, let her go—” Kat’s plea went ignored.

  My
glove was already off. Wolfe had moved my hand without me even knowing it and it was on Scott’s cheek. He started to recoil, but I anchored my thumb and forefinger, gripping him on the neck. Not hard enough to choke him, but enough to let him know I had a good hold on him. His eyes widened in surprise, then narrowed in anger, and he brought a hand around, maybe instinctively, to hit me. I knocked it aside and jerked him to his feet.

  I saw the anger vanish, replaced with creases in his forehead from the first stirrings of pain. “Ouch,” he breathed, consternation knitting his brows together. “Ow...oh...” He sucked in a sharp breath and grunted. After another second he let out a squeal that drew even more attention from those around us and then he let out an earsplitting, agonized scream that started a scramble for the cafeteria door, people falling over each other to get the hell out of there.

  “Put him down!” Kat was on her feet, shouting at me. I strained, trying to regain control of my hand, but Wolfe was in charge, holding the rest of me still. I lifted Scott Byerly off his feet and he shuddered in the air, convulsing, his eyes rolling back in his head. I looked on, horrified, unable to stop it.

  I felt a blow land on the back of my head and I flew forward, releasing my grasp on Byerly. I plowed through three tables, heard some things break that sounded like it could have been me or the furniture, I wasn’t sure which. I came to rest twenty feet away from where I had started, a medley of other peoples’ lunches smeared on my clothes. Kat was already at Scott’s side and Clyde Clary stood not far away, his lips twisted in an amused smile. “Clyde,” I said, using my sleeve to mop some blood from the back of my head where he’d hit me.

  “Girl, ain’t no one calls me Clyde,” his pudgy face went angry quickly.

  “I think I just did.” I stood up. “But if you’d prefer, I could just call you fatass prick—”

  He charged at me, broad shoulders flashing underneath his shirt, the skin around his neck rippling, turning into something different. It looked like metal in the brief glimpse I got before he put his shoulder down and stormed at me. He moved fast, especially for such a big guy.

  I grabbed the nearest table, heavy and metal, and heaved it at him. It spun, hit him in the face and ricocheted off at high velocity, flying through one of the upper windows of the cafeteria. He moved off his course not even a millimeter, his head now the same dull metal that I had seen beneath his shirt. I dodged out of the way just in time as he shredded the tables behind me, shards of them flying through the air.

  “You’re dangerous. I like it.” He smiled and grabbed a table of his own as I rolled to my feet and he chucked it at me. It skipped off the floor, a hubcap of spinning death that grazed my shoulder as I dropped below it and heard the shattering of glass behind me. He threw another, then another, and I dodged them, executing some gymnastic evasions I wouldn’t have been capable of even a month ago—before my powers manifested. I looked around for a weapon—any kind of weapon—that might be effective against a hulking slab of metal.

  He stomped toward me, malice in his eyes. I met his attack, ducking his punch and grabbing his arm with my ungloved hand as he started to pull it back. I gripped onto the slick metal and held tight, waiting for a reaction; it was cool in my grasp. The big jackass looked at me, then down to my hand, then back at me and split into a broad grin. “Your succubus trick only works on flesh.” He pulled his arm back, yanking me off balance and lifting me from the ground. I managed to hold onto him, but only just.

  A second later I realized what he was doing. As soon as he pulled me toward him, he set me up for a punch with his other hand. His fist made contact with my midsection and I felt all the air leave my lungs in a rush, worse than any physical pain I’d felt since Wolfe had near-gutted me. I flew through the air, landing with a crash on a metal chair that promptly upended. I heard more things break when I landed and this time I knew it was me, not the furniture.

  I sat up, clutching at my ribs. There was blood in my mouth, the metallic taste unpleasant enough that I spit it out. Clary stalked toward me from across the room; his punch had thrown me almost a hundred feet, from the middle of the cafeteria to near the kitchen.

  “Any suggestions to keep us from getting pummeled?” I muttered the words under my breath, but Wolfe was silent. If ever there had been a time when I could have used the help of the world’s most brutal infighter, this would have been it. I looked around and my eyes widened as I remembered something, a possibility. I made for the kitchen, hobbling as fast as my wounded frame could carry me, Clary not far behind.

  I jumped over the cafeteria line and the serving stations with one good leap. As I reached the kitchen doors I heard Clary crash through them behind me. “You can run girl, but you can’t hide!”

  “You can spout cliches,” I said, “but you can’t find a woman who’ll enjoy your company.”

  I plunged into the kitchen and heard the screams of the serving ladies, who had all run inside to hide after the altercation started in the dining area. There were a half dozen of them, all wide-eyed. “Get out!” I said as I pushed past them. I stopped next to the freezer and swung the heavy door open, then checked my placement. He would have to charge through a preparation station in order to get to me, with an obstructed view, and if he wasn’t paying much attention (which I assumed was his usual state) he’d go charging into the freezer where with any luck I could shut the door behind him.

  Clary stopped at the entrance to the kitchen. “Come on, now, girl.”

  “I’m not going anywhere with you,” I said, holding my arm. It was actually the least of my pains, but the others weren’t easily reached and pulling it closer seemed to ease the torment in my chest.

  “Have it your way, then.” He lowered his head. “I’ll let Old Man Winter decide what he wants done with you once you’re good and out.” He barreled toward me, not bothering to use the aisles, charging right through the prep station, tearing the vent hoods out of the stove, destroying a cook top and counters, metal flying in every direction.

  I watched him for as long as I could, but once the debris started flying my way I dodged sideways, behind the heavy door of the freezer. I hit the ground and my chest and side screamed at me. I watched him run past me into the freezer, hit the wall and bounce off, then heard the crashing of a side of beef and cartons of God knows what hitting the floor. I kicked the freezer door and it swung closed. I wrenched myself up and yanked the pin off a shelf nearby and plunged it into the lock.

  I took two steps back and fell down, breathing a sigh of relief. Everything still hurt, but at least that idiot was contained where he couldn’t do any harm—

  That thought lasted less than the second it took for the door to the freezer to come exploding off its hinges. It flew through the air above me, skipping across my left shoulder and leaving a gash over an inch deep. I was pretty sure it broke my collarbone, but it was hard to tell among all the other agonies.

  “Nice try.” Clary sauntered over to me as I squirmed on the floor. I heard a hissing that I thought was in my head until I realized that the idiot had severed the gas line to the stove when he charged through. “Ain’t nothin’ can hold me.”

  “I think you’ve confused ‘can’ with ‘want’,” I said through gritted teeth. “For example, a woman ‘can’ hold you, but none of them ‘want’ to—”

  He grabbed me in a clawlike hold around the neck and picked me up in a manner that reminded me of the way Wolfe had manhandled me, beaten me, abused me. Clary’s piggy eyes leered at me from behind his smug smile and I hated him, wanted to crush him, but now I couldn’t breathe.

  The eyes.

  I stared down at him. Sure enough, Wolfe’s voice was right—his skin was metal but his eyes were the same white as always, the blood vessels visible on the sides.

  My fingers lanced out and I stabbed him with my thumb right in the socket. I did not hesitate nor pull my strike and he screamed in uncontrolled misery. I fell to the ground, unable to catch myself. A lancing pain
ran up my entire upper body after the impact, and I floundered on the floor, holding onto my sides.

  “YOU BITCH!” Clary stomped and I bounced a few inches into the air before landing again. It hurt more. “YOU TOOK OUT MY EYE!”

  “Honestly, it wasn’t one of your best attributes,” I muttered. “Not that you have any good ones.” I managed to get to my hands and knees and looked for something to use as a weapon since it had become obvious that he was unlikely to present me with an opportunity to stab out his other eye. There was a ringing in my ears that went along with the hissing. I saw a fire extinguisher and it dawned on me that it was probably a better choice than anything else. I grabbed it and crawled along on my hands and knees, trying to avoid his blind rage behind me.

  I had reached the door when he finally realized I wasn’t near him anymore. “Hey! Where do you think you’re going?”

  I used a countertop to pull myself up and turn back to him. “Me? I think I’ll go for a quiet drink somewhere. Care to join me?”

  He had started towards me but stopped, his head snapping back, his jaw opening slightly. “Really?”

  I grimaced. “No. Not really. I’m going to get medical treatment. You? You can burn in hell. Literally.”

  He stomped his foot again and his jaw made a scraping noise as he ground his teeth together. “Damn you, girl! What am I supposed to do with one eye?”

  “You could be huge in the kingdom of the blind.” I reached back and flung the fire extinguisher with all my much-vaunted metahuman strength.

  And it missed him.

  He smiled as it sailed by. “You missed—”

  It hit the side of the metal countertop, hard, and sparked. I had the intense satisfaction of seeing him look back, confused, before the fireball blew me out of the room.