“It was always going to come down to this sooner or later,” I said. “The kid gloves had to come off; we were eventually going to get serious and mix it up with him. Better now than later.”
“Yeah, that way you can get that pesky dying thing crossed off your To Do list ASAP and leave the rest of us to clean up the mess,” Reed said, and stood, buttoning his suit coat. “This is ridiculous. You want to fight him, fine. I signed on to draw a line against him and Century, and death was always understood to be a risk, maybe even a big one. But what you’re doing now is just pure, patterned suicide.” He took out his agency ID and tossed it on the table. “I didn’t sign on to watch you kill yourself.” Without another word, he left, walking out the door.
I took a close look around the table, watching for any other signs of anyone following him. “Anybody?” I asked, finally. “Anybody?” I waited another second. “Bueller?” No one laughed. “Never mind. We’ve got work to do. I did just work over the face of the supposedly most powerful meta on the planet, after all.” I stood without any other preamble. “You know what to do.” I turned and walked out of the room myself, afraid to stay and hear what they might be saying about me after I was gone.
Chapter 36
I walked into the medical unit without any sort of fanfare. It was quiet in there, the steady beep of Janus’s monitoring equipment set to the lowest audio level. It was still loud and obvious for a meta, and I waited for a minute to see if Perugini would come lunging out at me, shrieking about some perceived evil I’d done or had had committed on my behalf. She didn’t appear, so I made my way slowly over to Janus, who lay on his back, a breathing tube sticking out of his mouth.
I took a slow breath, a long inhale through the nose and a long exhale out my mouth, the cool air carrying its own air-conditioned smell, a filtered, sterile aroma. I looked at him. He was so frail. He didn’t look like the man who had confronted me in the basement of this very building, standing so confidently even as I had a gun pointed at him. I could have easily killed him that day, but he’d faced me down because he knew in his heart that I wouldn’t shoot him. I wondered how much of that was because he could feel and control my emotions and how much of it was motivated by the simple conviction that I wasn’t the sort of person who would do that. A part of me wanted to cry because only minutes afterward I had become that sort of person, and things hadn’t been the same since.
“What would you do?” I asked the empty room, the figure in the bed. All the larger than life personality, all the exuberance had fled, and now he was just a shell. Something that Century made him. “What would you do if you were in my position? Maybe we wouldn’t be here if you were in my position.” I stared down at him. “You knew the secret, after all, the key to whatever the hell Century is trying to keep us from knowing.” I brushed the stringy silver hairs off his forehead where they were out of place. The Janus I knew was impeccably kempt at all times. This man with his hair askew, his glasses missing ... he wasn’t Janus. “You would have led us right through the middle of it. And I would have followed you. All the way to the end.” I sighed again. “You or Hera. Because you both—even though I didn’t know her for that long—actually projected the image that you cared. About me. About metas.” I bowed my head. “But then again, I got taken in by someone else who said the same things once before.”
I drifted toward a brown, plastileather-covered chair that was by the bedside. It had a slight impression in it, a circular pucker where Kat’s bony butt probably sat in it day in and day out. I lowered myself into it, making a much larger imprint and frowning as I did so. “Were you different?” I leaned back and found the chair distinctly uncomfortable. It didn’t make me move, though. “I thought you were. I still think you are.” I felt myself begin to chew my lip. “What is it about me that causes me to seek out these father figures to replace a man I never even knew? Winter, Zollers, you ...” I looked at him, hoping to see some sign, some movement, but all I saw was the motion of his chest moving up and down with the steady pulsing of the ventilator pumping air into his lungs.
“I mean, what did he really leave me?” I asked. “I didn’t even know his name until I was eighteen. Jon. Jonathan. Traeger.” I smiled almost morbidly. “I guess I could be Sienna Traeger if I wanted. Would she be a different person?” I felt the smile disappear. It wasn’t real, anyway. “No, he didn’t leave me anything. At least Winter gave me something.” I clenched my hand on the arm of the chair. “He gave me pain. Motivation to go past the moral line I’d drawn against killing. That could end up being important.” I looked at the stainless steel surface of the wall by the door and remembered one exactly like it in the old medical unit of the Directorate. “I’ve been past that line more times than I can count now. I live past that line, killing whenever I feel like there’s a need.” I sniffed and sat up straighter in my seat. “I killed half a dozen men in the last week alone. Watched even more than that die.” I stared straight into the distance, at the metal wall, and wondered if I’d see Wolfe’s face in it this time.
I didn’t. Just my own looking back at me.
I leaned toward Janus. “Do you remember that time in the elevator at Omega? When I asked you if I was monster?” I felt myself fill with emotion. “You told me a monster wouldn’t care.” I held my hand over my mouth, like I was trying to hold in what was attempting to force its way out. “I’m not sure I care anymore, not when it comes to Century. I want to stop them, mostly, but it’s more than that now. I want to hurt them. Hurt Weissman for what he did to you, to the others. For how he made me feel—powerless, like I was a nothing. I want to break him,” I said, and felt the burn in my words. “I want to crush him, him and his boss.” I felt myself sniff a little. “It makes me wonder if you would think me a monster for wanting to do that, or if you’d reassure me the way you did in that elevator.” I felt a little warmth in my eyes. “Because I can’t remember anyone doing that for me before, not like that.” I sniffled, and felt the wetness on my cheeks. “Like my dad maybe would have done, if he’d been alive to do it.”
I heard the door swish open and I hurriedly wiped my cheeks clear. I kept my head turned away from the door even as I heard light footsteps make their way over to me. I kept my eyes on Janus, turned away from the figure approaching me, even though I knew who it was.
“It’s so sweet of you to come visit,” Kat said as she stopped next to the chair. “I know it means a lot to him.”
“Yeah?” I rubbed my wrist under my nose and tried to avoid sniffling. “I’ve heard they can hear us, even in a coma.”
“I’ve heard that too.” She put a hand lightly on my shoulder.
“I need to get him out of here,” I said, and stood abruptly. “We need to move him quietly to somewhere safe, off campus, like a hospital elsewhere in the country. No one’s going to know who he is if he’s at Abbott Northwestern in Minneapolis. Here, with us, he’s a sitting duck. It’s an invitation for Century to murder him while he’s sleeping.”
“No,” Kat said quietly. I had yet to look her in the face. “He trusted you, Sienna. He believed in you. He would want to be here.”
“The storm’s here, Kat,” I said, toneless, watching the monitor above his bed. “The one we’ve heard about, it’s arriving, and it’s going to hit us right here on campus—again. I practically called it down on us. I need the few metas who can still fight, and I need them up front with me, not protecting others.” I looked sidelong at her, just a glance, and saw her trying to catch my eye. I quickly looked away. “He’s not safe here.”
“He’s not safe anywhere,” she replied. “He wouldn’t want to leave. I don’t want to leave.”
“Did Karthik come talk to you?”
“He did,” she said. “Sienna, you don’t need to worry about us. We’ll stay out of your way. I’ll protect him as best I can, and if I can’t ...” She shrugged, and I saw it out of the corner of my eye. “Then it’s the way things will be. I’m not going to run from them. Not now.” She
took his hand, holding it carefully in her own. “I’m tired of running from them, and he wouldn’t want to hide in anonymity, waiting for the world to end around him.”
“Here he’s just another lightning rod,” I said, staring at the frail figure on the bed. “Just another target that Century wants dead.”
“Maybe we’ll buy you some time to hit them back,” she said, and I caught the hint of wistfulness in her voice.
“I don’t want you to buy me time,” I said, and looked up at her. “I don’t want anyone to buy me time.”
There was a silence for a few minutes after that, a kind of peaceful calm punctuated only by the beeping of the machine.
“What is it about him?” I asked, and looked at her. “What brought you two together?”
“Oh, I don’t know,” Kat said, and took his hand in hers, holding his limp fingers in her grip. “When I met him, I was ... completely blank. I didn’t know my name, what had happened, I had no idea what I was or anything about myself.” She squeezed his hand in hers as the respirator pushed up and down behind us with a gasp. “He was so kind. My only friend, really.” She looked at me, but I didn’t look back. “Do you know what that’s like? To be alone in a sea of people, not really sure about yourself, trying to figure out if there’s a friendly face in it somewhere?”
“Yes,” I whispered. “I believe I’m familiar with that.”
“It’s a lonely experience,” she said. “He was there for me during that, guiding me along, making me feel like someone cared.” Her hand let his go. “He made it easier, learning again, finding out who I was. He helped me define myself, figure out who I was just by being him.”
“But you forgot him,” I said, staring at Janus’s closed eyes, his slack face.
“Yes,” she said. “I did.” It was barely a whisper.
“How did it happen?” I asked, cocking my head to look at her.
“I ... I don’t remember,” she said. “I honestly have no idea. Sometimes I think I get ... little flashes? But nothing that sticks. It’s like there’s a wall, and the things I can see of him are on the other side of it, but there are things I’m missing now, too, like ...” she looked over her shoulder, “... like Scott. It’s still so uncomfortable to walk past him in the hallways, did you know that?”
“I can imagine,” I said. “I don’t think it’d be easy to deal with the fact that your first love has completely forgotten you.”
“Yeah,” she said. “Anyway, I can’t imagine leaving this place again before the storm. If nothing else, maybe we draw some of Century in and keep them busy for you.” She turned and looked at me. “He was in this fight. He believed in beating them, believed you could do it, that you’d save us all somehow. I can’t take him away now, even if it means his death. He’d be so upset with me.”
“All right,” I said, and tasted the bitter reluctance. “You can stay. Just ... be careful. And ...” I looked her over. “Are you armed?” She nodded. “Good. You’re a fair shot with a pistol, and you may be dealing with mercenaries again. Either way, aim for the head and the heart, because if you’re fighting metas, that’s the only thing that’ll kill a strong one.”
“I’ve got my powers, too,” she said with a little twinkle in her eyes. “I can do things you haven’t seen yet.”
“I’ll take your word for it,” I said and brushed past her on the way to the exit. “Take care, Kat.”
“Sienna,” she called to me, and I turned, looking back as the doors opened for me. “I believe in you, too. That you can save us. I believe it with everything I have.”
I tried to take a breath, tried to feel the calm of her words, but there was no solace in them. Not for me, the person everyone was counting on. “I wish everyone felt the same as you did.” I turned and walked out, thinking to myself that what I really wished was that I was one of them.
Chapter 37
Night fell, darkness swooping down on us like an unwelcome guest. Preparations had been made, quietly, and some were off attending to them even now. Karthik and my mother were absent, as was Reed, still. I hadn’t seen him since he’d thrown his badge down at the meeting. I stared at Scott, who sat on the arm of my couch, rubbing his fingers against his leather jacket. Ariadne sat in the chair across from me, as did Li, who was studying the smartphone in his hands as though it carried the secrets of life itself. Kurt was in the corner, looking surly but representing the human agents, what few of them we had.
“Where are we at?” I announced, breaking the grim silence.
“Dormitory is locked down,” Kurt said. “Only way in or out is through HQ, the basement tunnel.”
“Good,” I said, nodding, my stomach churning.
“All non-security personnel are furloughed,” Ariadne said, looking up at me. “All the essential ones are working out of the FBI building for the foreseeable future. Hopefully Century will restrict their activities to our metahumans, for now.”
I nodded. That was a careful calculation; honestly Sovereign could jump the rails at any time, could go hold someone like J.J. hostage in his apartment, but I simply did not have the resources to try and protect every employee in the Agency. “Just like old times, huh?” I asked Ariadne with a weak smile.
“You mean like just before the last time our campus was utterly destroyed?” She was completely devoid of humor. “As I recall, the aftermath of that one left us with quite the prodigious body count as well.”
“You should get out while you can,” I said gently, staring at her. “Just ... go, run.”
“To Bora Bora?” She looked like a world of sad had descended on her. “Now more than ever, I don’t have anywhere else to go.”
“Any clue where Reed went?” I asked the room, pretty sure I wasn’t going to get an answer.
“Your mom talked to him,” Scott said. “He’s with her.”
I blinked. “Really? Like ... dead in her trunk?”
Scott let out a low guffaw. “I don’t think so. Pretty sure he’s guarding the metas with her and Karthik.” He gave me a sideways wink. “He’s still pissed at you for picking suicide detail, but he knows he’s got a role to fill, and he’ll fill it.”
I turned my chair sideways so I could look out the window to the dark campus behind me. In the distance I could see the dormitory building, a dark shadow on a dark night. I knew that just beyond it, the science building was still out there, and I could see the faint hints of the girders rising above the woods that circled the campus. “Good for him,” I said. I turned back around and looked at Li, his smartphone in hand. “Mr. Li, I believe it’d be better for your health if you joined our associates at the FBI building for the next week or two.”
He looked at me with something that looked like burning fury, just for a moment, and then I caught a hint of relief. “I’ll think about it.”
“They could use some watchful eyes on them,” I said gently. “And if we fall out here, someone’s going to need to be in place to pick up where we leave off.”
I saw him grit his teeth. “I’m no coward.”
“Not saying you are. This isn’t your fight, though.” He started to argue, and I held up a hand. “Not yet, anyway. If you wanted to delay, you’re certainly welcome to an off-campus assignment.”
“I think I’ll stay here, thanks,” he said tightly. “But if there’s nothing else, I’ve got a few more reports I should be checking on in my office.”
“Sure,” I said with a nod, and he stood, leaving in a smoking big hurry.
Kurt watched him go then looked over at me. “I’m gonna go line up the agents one more time, tell them that as crazy as they are, at least their families will get a nice payout if they buy it.” I started to say something, but he stopped me. “That’s not really what I’m gonna say. I’ll come up with something appropriate.” He licked his lips. “Maybe something from Patton. These kids are young enough they’ve probably never even seen it.” With that, he exited, letting the door shut behind him quietly.
“I
suppose I’ll go comb some reports, too,” Ariadne said and stood slowly, like an old woman, weary and aged. She probably wasn’t but a year or two over forty, but she walked like someone who had had all the life taken out of her. I wondered how much of it was my fault and decided to take the balance of the blame on myself.
“Ariadne,” I said, and she stopped at the door. “For what it’s worth—and probably zero, I’m sure—I’m sorry.”
She stiffened, not even turning back, and then walked out, shutting the door behind her.
“That was tense,” Scott said. “It’s like these people think they’re going to die or something.”
“I’m surprised you can find room for a joke in a moment like this.”
“Reminds me of that time when Century was about to shoot us dead,” Scott said with a slight smile. “And you called me an asshole.”
“I did not.” I frowned at him.
“Well, that was the subtext,” he said and shot me a grin.
“You didn’t have to be here for this,” I said and looked at him sadly.
“Last time, I checked out before the big dance with Omega,” he said, “and ... Zack died. I should have been here. Maybe I could have done something, changed things somehow.” His expression turned serious. “I’ll always think I could have done something, even if the truth is that I might have died right along with him.”
I nodded slowly. “I doubt Winter would have killed you. Probably just had Clary knock you out or something.” Scott sauntered on over to my desk and made his way around the edge. “You know, because he was looking to turn me into a killer, not just murder people for the sake of it.” I paused, frowning. “Well, except for Bjorn.”
Scott gingerly lowered himself down onto the desk in front of me, sitting at an angle, legs hanging over the edge. It was a more natural way to talk, I supposed, than doing so from across the office. “Do you remember that road trip we took?”
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