The Girl in the Box 02 - Untouched

by Robert J. Crane

  I stiffened and wondered if she was accusing me of blowing up the science building. It didn’t seem fair, since I was being held responsible now for two incidents which were started by the houseguest in my skull, that mongrel that still needed to be housebroken and taught not to play with other people’s bodies.

  “Be that as it may,” she looked daggers at Clary and then turned back to me, “we can overlook this, but any further incidents would provoke our full displeasure.”

  Clary looked at me. “They’re gonna let you skate!”

  I looked over at him. “Yeah. Awesome.” I turned back to Ariadne. “Anything on my mother’s stuff yet?”

  “What?” She took a step back. “Oh. That. Our forensics lab was in the science building.”

  I took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “So it’s gone.”

  “Yes.” She wavered, looking as though she wanted to offer me some sympathy, but thought the better of it. “I’m sorry.”

  “Bummer.” Clary was nodding his head, then he brightened. “When do you start training? Cuz that’ll be fun.”

  Chapter 15

  I walked out of the medical unit under my own power shortly before nightfall. My broken bones were knitted, though my skin still had scabs in numerous places that would take until the next day to heal.

  “Get out and don’t come back!” Dr. Perugini shouted as the door swung closed behind me. Clary walked out along with me and I kept an eye on him, though he was whistling a pretty happy tune the whole way out. Turned out that Kat Forrest had given him his eye back with her healing power after I blew up the kitchen. It took a little while before Perugini was sure it was fine, but when she ripped the bandage off I almost fell off the bed in shock. No wonder he wasn’t holding a grudge.

  Byerly had left a few hours earlier. It was awkward after he woke up. Clary leavened the moment with a few choice jokes that were fairly graphic and involved my powers and how they’d affect someone in an intimate setting. Needless to say, Byerly didn’t laugh and neither did I, and when Perugini pronounced that he was in fine form after Forrest’s ministrations, no one was more relieved to see him gather his clothes and dart out than me.

  “You wanna get something to eat?” Clary asked me as we cleared the Headquarters building. “I’m starving. I didn’t get my lunch before we got into it, y’know.” His earnestness would have been endearing if he hadn’t been trying to beat the daylights out of me only a few hours earlier.

  “I’ll pass.” I left him behind, walking back toward the dorm. I was hungry too, but I doubted I’d be welcomed in the cafeteria for a while—assuming it was even operable at this point. I had a feeling that the below-zero temperatures I’d encounter would make any sort of meal eaten there a chilling experience. And that was just from the pissed-off people. We’d broken a lot of windows, which meant it’d also be literally cold in there.

  I went back to my room, closed the door, and dug into the stash of food I’d gotten from my apparent burglary of the cafeteria a few days earlier. There was no doubt in my mind that Wolfe had done it, taking my body for a joyride while I slept. Now that he’d taken control during my waking hours, that was even more worrisome. I could tell Ariadne and Old Man Winter, I suppose, but only at the risk of being locked away and never allowed out again. I didn’t enjoy the thought of a cell of my own in Arizona, so I’d decided to play the whole incident off as me being reckless. I assumed it worked. It was hard to say.

  “How do I get you out of my head?” I asked the question aloud, but no answer was forthcoming from inside or out. I chewed on a piece of beef jerky and sat down on my bed. No one but another succubus could answer my question, and the only one I knew of was Mom.

  It occurred to me that I had a few powers to go along with the fatal touch of my skin, one of which was something Wolfe had called “Dreamwalking”—the ability to touch the minds of others while sleeping. I’d had conversations with Reed and Wolfe by doing that, and all it took was a willingness to fall asleep while concentrating on the person I wanted to talk to.

  I was a little afraid to sleep after the control Wolfe had exerted on me, but I was more afraid of having to admit to Old Man Winter and Ariadne that I had him in me and that he was taking control. I finished my beef jerky, chewing slower and taking more time than was necessary even for that tough stuff.

  When I was done, I lay my head down on the pillow and clicked off the lights. I thought of Mom, of the house, of the old days when we were a family. I could feel the tug of fatigue on my eyelids, but I lay with them wide open in the dark, worrying over what might happen when I closed them. Wolfe was a monster, a beast that I had once hoped I could put down like a rabid animal. Instead he was cohabitating with me in my own body.

  It was bad enough when I only heard his voice. Now he’d set free a crazed man who could explode with the force of a bomb and turned even more of the Directorate against me. If I took the job they offered me, there would be no doubt it was going to be a hostile working environment. Most of the metas I encountered in the halls had done a swift direction change when they saw me coming as I walked back to my room.

  I lay there in silence, the only noise coming from the warm air rushing through the vents above me. I could hear a tap-tap-tap of metal in the ventilation system somewhere as the ductwork vibrated from the furnace-heated wind that pushed through it. I could smell that clean, sterile scent that lacked the authentic aroma of a house. The whole room felt less lived-in and more generic, as though it was a room made for anyone. My room at home was mine, made for me. I looked at the blank walls, lit by the glow of lights outside, and thought that maybe I should get a painting or something.

  The sheets were cool against my skin. It was comfortable, neither warm nor hot. The spice of the beef jerky lingered on my tongue and I thought about getting up to brush my teeth, but now I was drifting and it was too late. I tried to bring my thoughts back to Mom but things were hazy.

  I woke to an insistent knocking on the door. The drowsiness was overwhelming, a fog hanging around my head. I tried to ignore the sound, but the thumping grew louder and the interval between it shorter and shorter until I finally shook off my covers, pulled on a pair of long gym pants and a t-shirt and threw it open. “What?” I wasn’t kind about asking.

  Zack was waiting outside, Kurt behind him, leaning against the wall. “Get dressed. We’re going.”

  “Going where?” I was so bleary eyed at that point that my thoughts were coming in fits and starts. For a fraction of a second I wondered if they were there to try and dispose of me.

  “We got a vague report of a meta causing some trouble at Eden Prairie Center—the mall we were at the other night, you remember? Ariadne wants you to come along.”

  “What?” I blinked twice and rubbed my eyes, still trying to shake off the sleepiness. “I don’t work for you guys.” I shook my head and added, “Yet.”

  “She still wants you to come along. She said to call it a ride along, and if you didn’t like that, to call it penance for the cafeteria because M-Squad is busy chasing down a lead on Gavrikov a hundred miles south of here.” He chucked his thumb back at Hannegan, who waited, staring out the window in the hallway. “We’ll wait for you out here. Think you can be ready in five minutes?”

  I looked at him with great pity. “You don’t know many girls, do you?”

  He cracked a smile. “Ten minutes?”

  I shut the door on him. Thirty minutes later and after some insistent knocking at one point, I joined them in the hall, wearing what was probably my eight hundredth black turtleneck and jeans since coming to this place. I’d pulled my hair back in a ponytail and someone had left another coat for me in the closet, the same kind of black, heavy wool that I’d been wearing all along. I was growing a little tired of the flimsy boots they’d been giving me and made a mental note to ask Ariadne for some with a steel toe if I was going to keep fighting people bigger than I was.

  “I don’t get it,” Hannegan said as we walked t
oward the garage. “What took you so long? It’s not like you’re wearing any makeup.”

  I blushed. “Shut up.” I had actually been trying to get my hair to lay flat, but after sleeping it was a mess, which is why it ended up in a ponytail. Again. “What are we going to investigate?”

  Zack frowned as he opened the door to the garage and held it for me. Hannegan darted his bulk through first, drawing a look of acrimony from me. “There was some sort of altercation earlier today, some local youths tried to get tough with a guy and he smeared them all over the pavement.” Zack looked over at me as he let the door swing shut behind us. “Literally. Two of the youths died, and the others said the guy moved so fast that it was like he was blurry.”

  “Why are we doing this now? Isn’t it Saturday night?” I opened my own door to the car and got in the backseat as usual. “I thought people only worked 9 to 5 on Monday through Friday?”

  “Most people do,” Zack said. “But you don’t wanna be normal, do you?” He winked at me and put the car in reverse, backing out of the parking spot.

  I ignored the leering grin from Hannegan. “Perish the thought.”

  When we got to the mall we circled, passing a department store with a roll of police tape staked out in a circle on the sidewalk. “That must be where it happened,” Kurt said.

  “You catch on quick,” I said. “Was it the ‘POLICE LINE DO NOT CROSS’ written in big letters that tipped you off or the fact that there’s a smear of blood on the sidewalk that looks like someone slaughtered...well...you?” He shot me an acid look that brought a big grin to my face. “What’s the matter? Am I annoying you?”

  “Annoying is the Facebook statuses my twelve-year old niece posts. You are a hazard,” he said, shaking his head. “‘Like for a rate’—what does that even mean?”

  I frowned. “A rate? Like an hourly rate? Like a hooker?”

  “It’s for photos,” Zack said. “They ‘Like’ your status and you tell them how you think their profile picture looks.”

  Kurt nodded his head as though a mystery of the universe had been revealed. I looked at the two of them and asked the dumb question. “What’s Facebook?”

  “You don’t need it,” Hannegan said. “You have no friends.”

  His barb hit home and I tried to ignore it, not bothering to come up with a reply. It’s not like he was wrong.

  We parked and walked to an entrance after passing the police line for a quick look. “Without a chance to look over the forensics, checking out the scene won’t do us much good,” Zack said as we entered.

  The mall was much more crowded than it had been the last time we were there. It felt like there were people packed from wall to wall in the place, a throng that was moving, bustling. There was a hum as we passed the food court and the smell of all sorts of goodness reached my nose. I stopped and sniffed, feeling a little bit of salivation in my mouth.

  “Come on, shut-in,” Hannegan said, passing me. “We’ve got work to do.”

  “I’m hungry,” I said. “I don’t know if you heard about it, but someone got into this big fight that destroyed the cafeteria and so I haven’t had anything to eat since lunch.”

  Zack shook his head, stifling a laugh. “Let’s sweep the place once and we’ll grab you a burger as we come back through.”

  “But I want a burger now.” I looked plaintively at the restaurants and took another deep breath through my nose. “What are the odds some meta killed two people earlier and decided to hang around the scene of the crime?” My gaze drifted to a couple cops, standing off to the side, watching the crowd pass by.

  There was the sound of breaking glass behind us and I turned as people started screaming and someone went flying through the air toward us, tossed like a child would throw a toy. “Good odds, apparently,” Zack said, reaching into his coat and drawing his gun. “I’d take ‘em.”

  The crowd started pouring past us, women and men alike shouting and crying out. I jumped onto a nearby planter to get a better vantage point. I made it up in time to see two policemen go down hard under the assault of a familiar figure—a guy with metal plates on his body. “Damn,” I breathed. I used the planter to vault over the retreating crowd, leaving Zack and Kurt far behind.

  Full Metal Jackass held one of the police officers by the arm. The guy was screaming and crying, probably because he was on his knees and his arm was twisted in a way that would not be comfortable at all. After a moment, Henderschott yanked him up in the air and brought him down with sudden, violent force. I heard the snapping of bones and sinews and the officer went still. I stared at Henderschott, he stared back at me, those eyes glaring at me from tiny slits in the metal helmet. “I feel like we haven’t been formally introduced,” I said. “I’m Sienna, but you probably know that. And you’re David, right? David Henderschott?”

  He froze, then nodded once, slowly. He had yet to make an offensive move toward me. “So, David—hope you don’t mind if I go on a first name basis with you, since you’re trying to kick my ass—you’re all alone in the big city, you’re supposed to hunt down a girl, and so you decide to murder a couple of locals to draw out the group she’s hiding with, get a bead on them and follow them back to where they work, am I right?” He nodded. “But something happens you couldn’t possibly suspect—they actually bring the girl with them! What fortuitous luck! You must be having the best day.” I stared him down. “What a contrast with your life thus far.” He was frozen in place. “What’s the matter, David? Wolfe got your tongue?” I smiled at him wickedly.

  That lasted about two seconds before he grabbed at his belt and threw something at me. It was small and circular, and I flipped back as it sailed only an inch over my nose. I hit my back and sprung to my feet like Mom taught me, already in a fighting stance. I heard a strangled cry from behind and chanced a look.

  Kurt and Zack had made it through the crowd and were standing behind me. While I had dodged what he threw, Hannegan hadn’t. It was a collar of some sort and it had caught him perfectly, locking around his neck. He was shaking like a cartoon character caught in an electrical current, screaming, and I could have sworn I smelled urine and worse. Zack took a step toward him, but stopped, afraid to touch him as the big man fell to his knees.

  I turned back and dodged another thrown collar. I watched it sail by and as I got back up, Henderschott charged at me. I jumped on top of the planter closest to me, vaulting up and running down the side of it toward him. I came off in a running jump side kick, the kind I used to break boards with Mom. I hoped the heavy sole of my boot would protect me from hurting myself on his helmet.

  It mostly did. I hit him where his face would be and I felt the shock of the impact up my leg. It hurt, but not too badly. My knee was locked into place and it held. He had been barreling toward me full steam when we hit and the strength of my kick lifted him off his feet, delivering him on his back as I landed just past him. My leg buckled when I hit the ground, but I managed to stagger and recover, keeping my footing as I swung around to deal with him.

  He was flat on his back, legs and arms in the air as he tried to rock to his side. “So, who are you really, David?” I said as I took a couple steps toward him. I reached down before he could roll over and grabbed him by the bottom edge of his helmet. I hoped two things—one, that Wolfe hadn’t lied to me, that his skin wasn’t going to unstick to his helmet while I was doing this; and two, that I was strong enough to pull off what I thought I could. “Just some asshole working for the same people as Wolfe, hunting down innocent metas who don’t stand a chance against your superior experience?” I heaved him up and swung him by the head like a hammer at a track and field tournament (thank you, Olympics).

  He flew twenty feet through the air and made solid contact with the wall, crashing through the plaster and leaving a massive hole. I knew I had to press the attack now, while he was dazed, or risk getting stomped when he got his bearings again. I didn’t know if he was stronger than I was, but he certainly didn’t take damage l
ike I did, not with his armor on. I stepped through the hole and saw him on the ground against a concrete wall. We were in a passageway only a few feet wide, with lights overhead.

  “Or are you just some sick douchebag who got a hard-on reading Iron Man comics as a kid?” I grabbed him by the leg, dodged the kick he aimed at me, heaved him into the air a few feet and brought him down on his forehead. “Were you the kind of guy who got way too excited at the thought of being Tony Stark? You know he’s not a real person, right?” I repeated the process twice more, producing a satisfying clang of his face meeting the concrete before he managed to twist and kick, sending me flying back.

  I blasted through the drywall and hit the floor out in the mall. With a cringe, I rolled to my feet.

  “You okay?” Zack appeared at my side.

  “I’ll be fine once I mash this comic book geek into paste in his own suit.” I rubbed my chest where the kick had landed. “How’s fatboy slim?”

  “He’ll live,” Zack replied as I walked to a nearby wall and opened a box containing a fire extinguisher and pulled it out. “What are you doing?”

  “I’m on a roll with these things. Shhh.” I held a finger up to my mouth and positioned myself next to the hole in the wall after I pulled the pin out of the spray mechanism. I waited and sure enough, Henderschott didn’t disappoint, sticking his head out of the opening. I jumped out and yelled “BOO!” mostly for effect, and depressed the trigger. Foam shot out, covering his face, the slit for his mouth and the eye holes—which was the point. He staggered back, clawing at his face. I ducked through the hole and went beneath his flailing arm to get behind him. Once I was, I put my back against the wall and jumped as he edged backward toward me, using the strength in both my legs to give him a hearty shove.