Ruthless (Out of the Box Book 3)

by Robert J. Crane

  Note to self: take the tunnel from now on.

  And before you ask, no, I had not dropped the dog off at the pound yet. Because I was busy. Busy missing meetings. And playing solitaire and brooding in my office. (Reed would say sulking, or maybe even pouting, but he can go screw a rude Italian doctor.)

  I’d just made it back to my quarters and greeted Rover (I’m not a pet person, and I’m worse with names, clearly) when the knock at my door jarred me out of a solid reverie, and it opened before I could grant permission to whoever was knocking to enter. Of course it was Andrew Phillips.

  “You missed the briefing this morning,” he said, like opening the door to my quarters was just a normal thing to do.

  “Thanks, Lumbergh,” I said, and he didn’t even raise an eyebrow. Maybe he thought I’d genuinely forgotten his name. I backburnered his invasion of privacy and failure to respect a door and launched right to petulance. “Maybe if I’d known about that briefing, I would have been there. Whose bright idea was it to drop that one on the calendar without mentioning it to me?”

  “Mine,” he said, unimpressed with my withering sarcasm. His arms were still folded, his tone as flat as Iowa. “We’re getting more cooperation from Homeland Security now, as we’re further integrated into the department, so regular briefings are going to be held to keep our people up to date with all the normal intel, law enforcement happenings—anything that might be useful.”

  I withheld more sarcasm because … that actually might be kinda cool. “Okay. I’ll be there from now on. Now that I know about it.” Couldn’t hold back that little dig, though.

  “I’m having the condensed version of today’s report forwarded to you,” he said. “I’m assuming you’re in, since your stuff is in your new office.”

  “I’m in,” I said, grudgingly, like every syllable was parting with a tooth. “For now.” The dog wagged his tail hard enough to strike my leg.

  “The reception is tonight,” he said. The dude still hadn’t spontaneously sprouted an expression of his own. “Jackie talked to you.” This wasn’t a question.

  “I will be on my bestest behavior,” I said and mock saluted him. “Trying to regain some public relations yardage.”

  “She’ll be by your office to coach you later,” he said, “after you’ve had a chance to read your security briefing. Assuming you’re going to be there? Otherwise I’ll just have her stop here.”

  “I’ll be in my office,” I said. “Where are we holding this reception?”

  “Third floor,” Phillips said. “I’m having some of that extra cube space cleared.”

  I felt a frown crease my face. “What about the people who work there? That’s finance, isn’t it?”

  He didn’t even tilt an eyebrow. “A lot of them are being let go. The finance department isn’t needed like it used to be. We’ve got a lot of dead weight down there.”

  “So you’re not just here to make us politically attractive,” I said, shaking my head.

  “No,” he said, “I’m here to make this agency run. In case you missed it, there’s no one left in Congress agitating to give us more funding, and your old methods are dried up. Welcome to the new world.”

  I doubt my expression fully conveyed my feelings, so I reached for words. “I don’t know if I like your new world all that much.”

  “I don’t really care.” He truly sounded like he didn’t. “I’ve got a platform to work with, and the job is minimizing the nuisance and threat of metas, smoothing the public relations gaffes so people can forget about you and the vital job you do. President Harmon is running on his ‘Great Community’ platform, and national security threats distract from that.”

  “Sorry to interfere with the campaign strategy,” I murmured, not really all that sorry. Not that I was gonna vote for the ass for re-election anyway. “Surely even someone with the blinders on as heavy as you must realize that threats like Simmons are always going to be out there, waiting for their chance to strike.”

  He looked at me like I was stupid. “Yes, there will always be criminals out there, regular and meta. But it doesn’t have to be front page news when you take one of them down.”

  “Don’t you think people deserve to be at least made aware of the threat?” I asked. “I mean, I’m not talking a full-fledged cable news-style fear campaign, but … something. A little vigilance? There are metas out there who don’t fit into ordinary criminal activity, who—”

  “A normal human being has a lot higher likelihood of dying of cancer, heart disease, car accidents—” Phillips’s lips twisted at the side and he looked like he was displaying emotion for the first time—loathing, “any of the top list of causes of death. There are fewer than one thousand and probably more like five hundred of your people still left walking this earth. The entire planet. Yes, most of the remainder are in the United States, but thanks to Sovereign, metahumans are less of a threat than ever.” He stood with folded arms. “No, I don’t think people need to worry about metas. I think there are other priorities.”

  I stared at him in numb disbelief. “You might feel differently if you’d ever met Sovereign face to face.”

  “But I’ll never have to, because he’s dead.”

  “Because of me,” I said, snapping slightly. “Because I was—”

  “Because you killed him,” Phillips said, and I felt the dog at my leg, panting. “Well done. You got a medal for that, right?”

  “Or something.” I stared him down. “Some people don’t want to be part of your ‘community,’ great or otherwise. They want to douse it and everything in it with gasoline and watch the flesh sear off bones while they try to figure out if they feel anything one way or another about it.”

  “Are you one of those people?” Phillips asked.

  “In the world of metas,” I said, skipping barely over calling him ‘dipshit’ to start the sentence, “I’m the only one left standing between you and them, and if you ever looked one of them in the eye, you wouldn’t even need to ask me that.”

  Phillips stared straight at me. “Really? Were you that sort of line for Glen Parks, standing between him and the ‘forces of evil’?” He let no amusement creep into his voice, just hard steel, and I flinched. “Eve Kappler? Clyde Clary? Roberto Bastian?” I knew he sensed my horror, but he showed as little care for it as he had for anything else I’d said. “Because you killed all of them too, didn’t you? And you weren’t protecting anybody, it wasn’t even heat of the moment like with Rick, it was careful stalking and cold-blooded murder—”

  “You don’t know what you’re talking about,” I said, but I didn’t believe it.

  “You killed them,” he said. “It’s in your file. Revenge. Agent Li wrote a long, extensive report on it. So you’re the … wolfhound, I guess? The protector? But you’re also a wolf. If the people of the United States have a meta threat to worry about, don’t you think it might be you? Because it’s seems like you’re the most likely cause of death—”

  “I am not—” I’d had to deal with this before, the past rising up to choke me. “It was a long time ago. I did my part, my penance, to make up for it—”

  “Can you really make up for it?” Phillips stared at me. “Because if I went by the arguments you’ve made for the prisoners we’re keeping … you’d be in a cell right next to them. Forever.” There was no threat there, but he’d doused me with a fair amount of verbal cold water. Or possibly gasoline.

  “I’m not the same person I was back then.”

  He leaned in a little, eyeing my dog. “Without powers … you’re just a criminal. With them, you’re worse. You have the potential to be the biggest active threat this agency could face.” He didn’t even blink. “Just so we know where each other stands.”

  “Where do you stand, Mr. Phillips?” I asked, feeling more than a little sick.

  “I have a job to do,” he said. “It sounds like you’ve chosen one for yourself. I’m not threatening you—”

  “If you have to keep saying
that, you’re probably being threatening.”

  “—but if you’re going to work here, I’m not going to hold you up or cover for you,” he said. “Play by the rules, do your job, keep things quiet. On a tight leash.” He looked down at my dog. “The election will be over in less than a year, and I’m sure I’ll be out of your hair before you know it.” He frowned. “Speaking of which, you should go have something professionally done to your hair. For the reception.” He turned his back and started to walk away from me.

  “You just called me a criminal,” I said to his receding back. “You know I’m dangerous. But you keep going out of your way to rub it in my face, if not threatening me then at least inflaming me. Why in the hell would you do that if you think I’m no better than anyone locked up in the cages below?”

  He didn’t even glance back as he hit the button for the elevator and it dinged. “That’s the difference between us, Miss Nealon. I know who you are, and you’re still trying to figure me out. One way or another, I don’t have to worry about you anymore.” He stepped into the elevator and disappeared, leaving me wondering exactly what he meant by that.

  22.

  I was more or less dressed when Reed knocked at the door a few hours later. I’d had an angry rallying of my souls, desirous of slitting Andrew Phillips’s throat for that last snub (I told them no). I’d also had my meeting with Jackie, I’d read my security briefing, I’d sat around fretting for a while, thinking about how much things had gone to suck—yeah, actually I’d spent most of my time thinking that. My souls, randomly agitating for violence as they were, weren’t helping. Wolfe kept floating images of Phillips in various states of disembowelment up to me, presumably for my entertainment. It didn’t help.

  I was taking a break from it when Reed knocked, though, and I answered the door to find him standing out in the hall in a tuxedo. “Very 007,” I said as he came in.

  “You look nice,” he said to me as he entered. The dog was back on the heating vent, and Reed’s gaze caught him immediately. “You’ve kept the mutt, I see.”

  “I didn’t even have time to get my hair done,” I said, selfconsciously fiddling with the chopsticked style I’d put it into. Of all the things Phillips had said to me, I had to admit that the petty crack about my hair was in the running for most aggravating. What did that say about me? “I’ll get to the pound.”

  “Sure you will,” Reed said, giving the good boy a rub on the belly where he lay. “How you holding up?”

  “Other than feeling pretty damned powerless?” I asked, heading back to the bedroom to take a look at myself in the mirror. I was actually wearing a dress this time. A real, legit dress. Hold the shock.

  “You’re like the most powerful meta in the world,” he said, voice muffled where he stood out in the living room. “How is it you’re feeling powerless?”

  “Because the ability to destroy everything is kinda meaningless unless you’re willing to employ it, duh.” I put in my earrings. I don’t wear earrings often. Because I heal rapidly, I basically have to pierce them myself anytime I do. I’d formed some scar tissue on my body once upon a time, before I gained Wolfe’s healing powers, but it had long since dissolved. This is why I don’t do formal occasions, reason #85,764,938. It stung a little as I pushed them in, then I dabbed away the blood as it welled and then stopped in seconds. “So, while I could level entire cities with my amazing powers, imprison countless people in nets of light, heal from numerous bullet wounds or even turn into a dragon and start devouring people like the miniature quiches that I’m hoping they’ll be serving tonight … that’s not really me.” I stared at myself in the mirror, looking at the drops of blood on my fingers. It certainly wasn’t the first that had rested there. “Is it?” I whispered.

  “No, it’s not,” he said, leaning in the doorway. I hadn’t meant for him to hear that.

  “For all our conversations about how brutal and uncaring I am about our prisoners,” I said, building a brick wall inside to keep these overwhelming, hot-running feelings from running over me, “I would think by now I’d have come to a point where I’m just … numb to it.” I looked up at him. “I’ve killed enough people I ought to be numb. I shouldn’t feel … like this.”

  He stared at me. “Like you want to kill Phillips?”

  “I don’t want to kill Phillips,” I said. “Don’t get me wrong, I don’t like him. I wouldn’t mind bopping him on the head and watching him pitch into unconsciousness in a snow bank—in formal wear, just for fun.” Even that image didn’t do much to make me smile. “I’m not Wolfe. I’m a smartass, and I can be violent, but … I don’t want to kill everybody. I don’t want to kill anybody.” I looked up at myself. “I’ll do it when necessary, but it isn’t a joy for me.” I looked sideways at him. “Not even when I killed that turd in England a few months ago.”

  “Getting soft in your old age, huh?” Reed cracked a grin. “Or am I just starting to influence you?”

  “No,” I said. “No. I guess it’s hard to explain.”

  “You use your powers for good,” he said. “You don’t want to use them on the basically defenseless. You’re not a murderer, Sienna.” He stood up in the doorway, my tall brother. “You’re a—”

  “Don’t say ‘protector,’” I said, looking away. I stared at the few little tins of makeup and stuff in front of me. “Or anything similarly sappy. I just do my job. Whatever it takes.”

  “But you do make the world a safer place, right?” he asked. “I mean, I know you do. But is that how you see yourself?”

  I stared at myself in the mirror. “I’m having a little trouble at the moment separating the flagellated ego from the drive to do what I’m supposed to.”

  Reed stood there in silence. “Wha … what?”

  I took a breath. “Phillips … he hurts my ego. My sense of self—”

  “Have you been reading psych textbooks or something?” Reed asked, glancing toward my bookshelf in the corner. “Is this New Age mumbo jumbo?” He looked at me seriously. “Have you been doing affirmations?”

  “No,” I said, annoyed. “Listen. I’ve got this sense of duty, all right? That I’m supposed to do things with my power that can help people. Because of the—” I waved a hand. “The thing. With Wolfe.”

  The time he massacred hundreds of people while I hid.

  Reed gave me an eyebrow. “I would say that debt was paid when you saved the whole city of Minneapolis.”

  “That debt is never paid,” I said. “Anyway … my purpose, my duty … is the reason I have this job rather than something else, like running security for the Hope Diamond or working for a private military contractor, something that would pay better. People who cross my purpose—like that dipshit in England, like Sovereign—get scratched off the list of still-breathing persons. That’s easy. But Andrew Phillips hasn’t—I mean, he’s threatening to interfere with that by messing with the agency, but I’ve known all along that this place belongs to the government, that it’s not mine.” I looked over at Reed, who was studying me all through this diatribe. “He’s not in danger of life and limb, or taking all his meals through a feeding tube for months or years to come, okay? He’s just an ass. As much as I’d like to smack him, I won’t. Because he’s not like Simmons, who had already crossed the line on the purpose thing. Get it?”

  Reed frowned, his whole face screwing up. “People who personally offend you live, people who are threats and also personally offend you either die or get the hell beaten out of them? Is that how it works? Roughly?”

  I sighed because that was the closest approximation I could come up with to express how I felt. Exasperated and not really understood by the only person left who might stand a chance of understanding me. “Roughly.”

  “Well then, I guess I’ll work not to be a threat to the balance of civilized society,” he said, and I could hear his smirk, “while quipping merrily about you all the while.”

  “And I will happily fire back with endless witticisms,” I said, picking
up the mascara … uh … doodad. When was the last time I wore this stuff? A thought occurred to me. “You ever have that time in your life you wish you could go back to?” I felt him rustle in his tux as he stood there. “When things just felt … right?”

  “Sure,” he said. “Lots of people feel that way about high school, or college.” He paused. “Why, what was it for you?”

  I dropped the mascara in frustration without even touching it to my lashes. Screw it, they were full and hearty enough. “Believe it or not … when we were still in the Directorate, and Omega was dogging my footsteps every day.”

  I could tell I stunned him because his answer was slow to come. “Um, okay.”

  “I’m fully aware of how crazy that sounds,” I said. “But I never had a high school, and my life before the Directorate was … well, you know …” I sighed, and stared at my pale face in the mirror. At least I hadn’t been crying. I’d born my suffering in silence. I stared at this black dress in the mirror and had a revelation. “Crap. This is kinda like the prom I never wanted.”

  Reed laughed, and shook his head. “The ball approaches, Cinderella. Are you done trying to figure out how to apply makeup?”

  “This is as good as it gets,” I said, running a hand over myself. The selfconsciousness leaked out. “How do I look?”

  He smiled. “You’ll do just fine.” He offered me his elbow. “Shall we?”

  I took it. “Yeah.” I tugged at my dress, which ended just below the knees. I was feeling selfconscious about everything, including my calves. “Are you sure it looks okay?”

  “It’s wonderful,” he said as we started out. “I mean, unless you start a fight in it. Then it’ll probably inhibit your movement or something. Plus I’m guessing it will inhibit your ability to carry.”

  “Ass,” I said as we headed out the door. “I’ve got a Glock in my purse and one of those new Smith and Wesson Bodyguard .380s at the small of my back.” I checked for the dog, but he was still asleep on the vent. I left the light on for him because I was still new at this dog thing. “Besides, what makes you think I’d be the one starting the fight?”