Untouched tgitb-2

by Robert J. Crane

  “By not getting anywhere near him,” the Nordic woman said, a slight smirk curling her flat lips.

  “I think introductions are in order,” Ariadne said. “Sienna Nealon, this is Roberto Bastian,” she nodded to the leader, then to the woman, “Eve Kappler and Glen Parks,” she indicated the older guy, who gave me a genuine smile, one that (surprisingly) didn’t creep me out. “And of course the other gentleman,” she strained at the word, “was Clyde Clary.”

  “Don’t call him Clyde,” Parks said, his gray beard reminding me of a thousand grandfathers I’d seen on TV. “It doesn’t bring out the sparkling side of his personality.”

  “Sure it does,” Eve said. “He sparkles like broken glass—then cuts you.” Her smile became a smirk, a self-satisfied look that either Wolfe or I found insufferable and wanted to destroy along with the rest of her sculpted face. I think that was Wolfe. Mostly.

  “Sir.” Roberto turned to Old Man Winter. “Would you like us to make our report now or in the morning?”

  Old Man Winter kept his silence. Everyone waited for his pronouncement, which came with all the gravity his position and deep voice afforded. “Come to my office at noon. We have other matters to discuss.”

  “Yes, sir.” Roberto saluted, then nodded to Glen and Eve, and the three of them headed toward the dormitory building, Kurt in tow.

  I looked back to Clary and Sessions, almost to the science building now. The capsule carrying Aleksandr Gavrikov looked heavy, and Clary was struggling to readjust it again. Let him loose , Wolfe said from somewhere in the depths of my brain.

  Shut up , I told him, as if that would work.

  If you let him loose, Wolfe will tell you what he knows about your mommy.

  Son of a bitch. That immediately put me on guard; if Wolfe wanted someone out of confinement, there was no stronger indication that said person should remain under lock and key, preferably buried under several tons of soil, indefinitely.

  You don’t know anything , I thought back to him. You’re just lying to get your way.

  He was quiet for a split second, and a thought floated to the surface of my mind. 3586 Curie Way, Bloomington, Minnesota.

  I blinked, and Ariadne caught it. “Tired?”

  “No.” My mind was racing. “Just remembering something. Wolfe mentioned an address—3586 Curie Way in Bloomington. Is that close?” It wasn’t a lie; I didn’t say when he had mentioned it.

  Zack, Ariadne and Old Man Winter were the only ones remaining on the helipad. Zack was the one who answered. “It’s about forty minutes away. Ten minutes south of your house.”

  “Wolfe gave you this address?” Ariadne looked skeptical. Old Man Winter looked blank, as always.

  “He did.”

  “Why would he give you an address?” Her eyes were narrowed, and you could see her crunching the odds in her head—wondering if it was some sort of trap. Leave it to Ariadne to ask the tough questions I wanted to avoid. I guess it could have been a trap, but if it was, it seemed counterproductive for Wolfe to kill me, since he lived in my head. I had this feeling that even after thousands of years of life, he was clinging to even this little half-life in my skull like lint clings to a sweater.

  I chose my words carefully so as to avoid a flat-out lie. “I don’t think he intended for me to survive our final encounter.” True enough. “So anything he mentioned wouldn’t have mattered, would it?”

  I looked from her to Old Man Winter then Zack. All three of them were studying me with varying degrees of suspicion, which worried me. Even though what I was saying was technically true, I was leaving a lot out—lying by omission. Based on my experience with Mom, who could always tell when I was being false, I was a bad liar. Ariadne shot a look at Old Man Winter, who had a cocked eyebrow and very little else to tell me what was going through his mind. Zack was looking at the snow.

  “Zack,” Old Man Winter spoke. “You and Kurt will take Sienna to the address she provided.” He turned, gracefully for a man with such a tall frame, and lumbered down the path to Headquarters.

  The worry was evident on Ariadne’s face. “Be careful,” she said to Zack and me before following Old Man Winter.

  Zack had his cell phone out and was already talking on it. I could tell it was Kurt by the way he was speaking. His cheeks were red and he shivered as he ended the conversation; I realized for the first time he wasn’t wearing a coat. “You’re cold,” I said, feeling a blush for being so stupid as to state the obvious.

  “Yeah, I should have grabbed a coat at the airport before we got on the chopper, but for some reason it slipped my mind. Was in a hurry to get back here, I guess.” He cast a sidelong look at the retreating backs of Ariadne and Old Man Winter. “I get the feeling that you’re not telling us everything you know about that address.”

  “Oh, no,” I said, “I’ve told you all I know about the address; it’s as much of a mystery to me as it is to you.”

  “And Wolfe just…gave it to you?” His brow was furrowed and one eye seemed to be more closed than the other.

  Now I had to be even more careful if I was going to avoid outright lying. “He hurt me pretty bad during the last fight, slammed me through a concrete wall.” I tried to recall the final battle. “I don’t know; maybe he was talking to someone else. I think I lost consciousness for a few minutes at that point.” That was true.

  “I see,” he said. Doubt flowed through his words, and he wasn’t looking at me. I felt a drop in my stomach. I hated lying to him, but I had to know what was at Wolfe’s address. “Kurt’s meeting us in the garage in five minutes.”

  I needed to know where Mom was, and I was sure that Wolfe knew something he wasn’t telling me. I doubted she was there, but I also didn’t think he’d give me the address if there wasn’t some hint as to her whereabouts. Damn him; he was dead and he was still toying with me. I had to wonder if I’d ever be free of him.

  I fell into step beside Zack, feeling the wind play through my hair, hoping it was blowing it in a sexy way. I self-consciously ran my fingers through it and found it to be tangled instead. I yanked my hand down as he turned to look at me, and I swore I could hear Wolfe’s cackle ring through my head. In that moment I regretted he no longer had a physical body because I wanted more than anything to kick him in the balls.

  “I have to ask,” Zack started, and he looked at me, those brown eyes shining in the light of the helipad’s spotlights, “Did you know you could beat Wolfe when you went after him?”

  “What?” I was caught off guard by the question. I hoped it showed on my face. “No, I didn’t think I had a chance against him. That afternoon I watched him wipe out a SWAT team and a half-dozen police officers without taking so much as a scratch. I didn’t think anything could kill him.” I lowered my head, and felt a tingle of fear at the memory. “That’s why I went. Only I could stop him.”

  “That’s pretty damn brave,” Zack said with a shake of his head. “I don’t know too many people who’d throw themselves into the fire like that.”

  “It didn’t feel brave.” I felt a cold unrelated to the weather, something much deeper inside. “Someone who was brave would have confronted their problem long before I did, long before all those people died. What I did felt inevitable—and I just wanted it over.”

  “Most people,” he said, “Wouldn’t have forced a confrontation with that maniac after their first encounter with him. You did.” He shook his head, I think in amazement. “How many eighteen-year-olds—”

  “I’m still seventeen.”

  “How many seventeen-year-olds do you think would get choked out by some lunatic and then willingly go back for another round?” He laughed. “You’re brave, Sienna. Maybe the bravest person I’ve ever met.”

  I felt a thrill at his words, then felt it go as I recalled the cold facts of the situation. “Yeah, but that second round cost you guys eight people. All so I could try and fight him.”

  “You didn’t know that was going to happen.”

  “
But I should have!” I felt hot, like something under my sweater was causing my skin to catch fire. “I was so focused on myself, trying to get what I wanted that I didn’t worry about anyone else.” I thought about that day, and suddenly it felt a little too close to what was happening now. Wolfe played his game and he did it his way; it was not unreasonable to think he might have allies left behind at the address he gave me, or a trap, or worse. I looked back at Zack, watched the mist from my breath blow in the air. “I need you to take me to the address and then wait in the car.”

  “Are you kidding?” His reaction was immediate dismissal. He didn’t get angry, he scoffed. “I’m not letting you go in alone.”

  “I have to.” I stopped walking, and he took another couple steps before he realized I wasn’t alongside him and stopped too. “Wolfe doesn’t play nice.”

  “I’m not helpless,” Zack still stayed away from anger, but I could see the beginnings of annoyance in the way his eyes were wrinkling at the sides and how his mouth had moved from a smile to a flat line. “I can hold my own in a fight. Just because I’m not a meta—”

  “It’s not that you’re not a meta.” I aimed for gentle, soothing words. “If Wolfe set a claymore mine as a trap and it blows off my foot, it grows back.” I gestured at him. “You’d never walk again.”

  I could see the wheels spinning as he struggled to put together an effective response. He started to say something, then stopped short, frustration pinching his handsome features. “I can’t let you go in by yourself.” His words came out mangled, as if he was at war internally. “But you have a point. Wolfe’s not known for being subtle with his violence, so…” he took on the air of a man proposing a bitter compromise, “I’d be willing to let you lead the way while Kurt and I follow at a safe distance.”

  “A mile?”

  “About ten feet. I doubt Wolfe bothered with explosives.” He was firm; there was no more room to negotiate. I nodded and started to walk again. “And you don’t know,” he said, falling into step beside me.

  “Don’t know what?” I asked, confused.

  “You don’t know what would happen if you got an arm or a leg blown off. Yeah, it may grow back, or it may not.”

  “I heal pretty fast,” I said. “I’ve regrown an awful lot of skin since I met you.”

  “Ouch.”

  “That’s what I said.” Deadpan. Perfect. He grinned at my wisecrack and I smiled back.

  He walked a few more paces and I saw him gnaw on his lower lip. He turned his head to look at me. “You don’t blame me for all the hell you’ve been through since…”

  “Since you and Kurt rousted me out into the world?” I shrugged. “If it wasn’t you, it was gonna be Reed or Wolfe. Reed might have been gentler,” I needled him, giving him a wry smile, “but it all worked out, I suppose.” Except I now had a psychotic mutant squatting in my brain.

  “Yeah.” He opened the door to the parking garage and held it for me. “I guess it did.”

  I heard Zack beside me, the squeak of the rubber soles of his boots on the tile floors, heard his breathing. I caught a whiff of his cologne and took a deep breath through my nose. I could feel the heat from the exchange positioned in the entrance nearby blowing on me.

  Kurt Hannegan was waiting by the car, a thoroughly disgusted look marring his otherwise ugly face. I put my emotional turmoil to the side, because however bad I was feeling, I wanted to make sure that Hannegan felt worse. Again, if I could blame this on Wolfe, I would, but the truth is I loved pissing him off.

  “Let’s get this over with,” he said with a grunt. He was wearing a tweed suit coat with brown patches on the elbow and a brown tie to contrast with his white shirt and dark pants. He had tried to comb the meager hair he had left on the sides of his head to the top in an attempt to…I dunno, revive the glory days, I guess, but it failed.

  “You mean you haven’t been looking forward to this?” I said, feigning hurt. “Kurt, didn’t you miss me?”

  “No.”

  “Sure you did,” I said. “You missed me with your little popgun the first time we met. I think it’s a metaphor for our entire relationship.”

  He looked at me, wary. “That I’ll always be shooting at you?”

  “And I’ll always be dodging and kicking your ass.”

  We got in and he drove out of the garage without another word. It was a heated structure, with space enough for a couple hundred cars. The Directorate maintained a fleet of vehicles, along with the countless other things they kept—Black Hawk helicopters, weird and experimental weaponry, a host of agents, facilities all over the U.S. and the world. I had to wonder who funded it all, who ran the whole show, and what the real purpose was, if it was something different than what I’d been told.

  Kurt kept the speedometer pushing eighty most of the way. We streaked through the farmland that surrounded the Directorate, zipping along a state highway until we got on the freeway loop that circled Minneapolis and St. Paul. We headed east, as the sky showed the faintest hint of lightening in that direction.

  After about twenty minutes we exited onto a street that held houses on one side and warehouses on the other. My pulse quickened as we neared our destination; I didn’t think we’d find Mom, but I wondered what Wolfe was playing at. If he’d given me the address, there had to be a reason for it. It couldn’t just be a dead end.

  We turned onto a side street filled with small warehouses, all gray, all run down and drab, and Kurt stopped the car. We all stared at one in particular, with shiny brass numbers reading 3586 hanging on its dingy concrete block walls above a steel door.

  I was out of the car a few seconds after it stopped, Zack and Kurt hurrying behind me. When I looked back, Kurt was looking around, nervous, and had his hand resting on his gut. I assumed it was because it was within easy reach of his gun, but maybe he just liked it there.

  “We’re gonna need a minute to pick the lock,” Zack said when we reached the door. I shook my head, grabbed the handle and pulled. I heard a creaking before the mechanism broke free, the metal handle tearing from the door. I reached inside and pushed the guts of the lock out, then ripped the door open. I didn’t wait for either of them to comment before I walked in, pausing inside to give my eyes a chance to adjust to the dimness.

  It was all one big room with concrete floors and corrugated metal walls. There was a lump over in the far corner and I went toward it. The soles of my boots tapped against the bare concrete and each step sounded like doom as it echoed off the metal walls. As I got closer to the shape, my hand came up to cover my nose; a horrible smell filled the air and it got worse as I got closer and closer.

  Zack and Kurt had flashlights on behind me, and I gestured for one of them to hand me theirs. Zack did. The beam played along the ground as I went toward the mass. It was big enough to be a person, it wasn’t moving, and I hoped I wasn’t about to find one of Wolfe’s greatest hits.

  “It smells like he killed something in here.” Kurt gagged as he spoke, the choked glottal stop sound sending an echo of its own off the walls.

  “Maybe he’s keeping trophies,” Zack said.

  “You mean…body parts?” Hannegan didn’t bother to hide his revulsion at the thought.

  “I don’t think Wolfe was a collector,” I said. I knew it somehow, the same way I knew everything else, even though he wasn’t talking to me right now. He was watching, waiting for me to find out what he’d left for me. I kicked the lump with my toe. It didn’t move or squirm or anything. I knelt down, the flashlight shaking a little, and pushed at it. It was soft, cloth, and filthy.

  I grasped it and it lifted with ease, a blanket all balled up. I shook it and it unfurled, and I sighed as I realized what it was.

  “Bedding?” Kurt asked. “Is that…is that his bed?”

  “Yeah. All balled up, like he was a hamster or something.” I felt Wolfe bristle at my comparison, but I was annoyed. I shook it again out of a sense of irritation, and something came loose within the depths; I fel
t it moving inside. I shook it again and felt it tumble down, falling out of the sodden, filthy blanket.

  I tossed the bedding aside and stooped to retrieve what dropped. It was a purse. Black, leather, no longer than my arm and with a broken strap. I opened it and shined the light inside. Frustrated, I turned it upside down and let the contents spill out to the floor. Lipstick, a cell phone, a few other odds and ends, and a wallet.

  I picked up the wallet and noticed the name on the driver’s license before I saw the face: Brittany Eccleston.

  The picture was of my mom.

  Chapter 4

  “How did you get this?” I mumbled the words, but I knew Kurt and Zack could hear them. I just hoped they assumed I misspoke or was talking rhetorically to Wolfe, who, as far as they knew, was not there.

  Many, many stories I could tell you…but I have my price . The words were taunting, teasing. I killed him and he was still an absolute shit to me. At least he wasn’t around to physically abuse me anymore.

  “You think he got your mom?” Zack’s voice was laden with concern, and it sounded genuine.

  Kurt was more analytical. “No way to tell without more evidence.” He pointed. “The strap’s broken; he could have just ripped it off of her. The I.D. has her address on it, “ he nodded to me. “This explains how he found her.”

  I wondered if I could chance another interrogatory toward Wolfe without attracting the curiosity of Zack and Kurt, but I decided against it. He’d wanted me to find this, to get curious, so I would do what he wanted. Maybe he knew more, maybe he didn’t. All I was certain of was that he wanted Aleksandr Gavrikov out of that containment cell, and that scared me.

  “Anything else in here?” It was Zack who asked the question, but Kurt who started shining his light around. The warehouse looked empty, abandoned.

  “I don’t see anything.” I shone my flashlight to the corners, but all I saw were metal walls, through and through. I turned and started to say something but stopped and froze in fear as Kurt Hannegan got slapped down hard. The big man hit his knees and an arm wrapped around his neck. I watched his face turn red as he was dragged back to his feet, his portly body interposed between us and his assailant.