Ruthless (Out of the Box Book 3)

by Robert J. Crane

  It was enough to make her even more livid.

  If she hadn’t had to keep her calm while speaking on the phone with the voice.

  “Where’s my network access?” the voice demanded. Apparently this contingency had not been planned for.

  “I plugged the drive you gave me into their computers,” Natasya said. She was not used to missions going this awry, either. Except for that last one before the gulag, of course. “I have done all I can.”

  There was a pause before the voice spoke again, and Natasya could tell the voice was suddenly alarmed. “What … the hell is going on there? There’s a thermal imaging bloom on your location—on the science building.”

  “Nealon escaped,” Natasya said bluntly. She’d sent six men after the little bitch, and she had a suspicion that they’d been in that building when it had gone up. Damn it all.

  “Escaped how?” the voice asked coldly.

  “Volkov picked a fight with her,” Natasya said. “Just before we took control. The suppressant went off just before they tumbled out a window.”

  There was a pause, and the voice came back as frosted as the ground. “Where is she now?”

  “I don’t know for certain,” Natasya said. “But I suspect she either died in the explosion or used it to cover her escape.”

  “Where is Volkov?”

  “Dead,” Natasya said. “She shot him in the head. Apparently she had a gun, which was something you failed to mention—”

  The voice came laughing back. “I thought four of you with a small army to back you up could handle one depowered twenty-something. Apparently, I was wrong.”

  “This isn’t over yet,” Natasya said, cold determination racing through her. “We’re getting you your link into their network. Until then, I have Vitalik working on the first contingency for the prison.”

  “And their security force?”

  “Neutralized,” Natasya said. “They took the bait, the laden food. We had to kill three or four, but the rest are tied up.”

  “Find the girl,” the voice came back again. “Get me into the network. Open the prison.”

  Natasya fought back a bitter desire to say something untoward. “As you wish,” she said instead and pushed the red button that terminated the call. “Miksa!” she called, sweeping her gaze over the hostages, mewling like frightened kittens. The Hungarian snapped to, hurrying up to her from where he’d stood, staring lazily into the distance. “Do you want to hunt Sienna Nealon or would you rather I go?”

  The Hungarians eyes gleamed. “I would revel in the chance to burn her alive. Slowly, of course.”

  Natasya showed no reaction his proposition; inflicting pain was not something that interested her, not even for the capitalists she so despised. Removing them was a satisfaction, a tiny step forward for the cause, but the act itself? It was a means, not an end. She shrugged. “Of course. Take a few men with you and hunt her down.” She waved a hand at the burning remains of the building in the distance. “I suspect you should start there and see if you can find some tracks.”

  Miksa nodded and jumped out the window without another word. Not that he had much to say in any case, but this was notable even for him. His reaction had been … not entirely unpredictable. Metas recruited from the satellite states behind the iron curtain had had it rough when they’d been brought into the KGB program. Russians were insular, preferred to keep to themselves. The outsiders forged their own connections, found their own friends. It was a tie that was difficult to break, Natasya knew.

  She’d worked with Liliana Negrescu and Miksa before. He had spoken almost normally during those missions. Almost. It was a good sign for how he felt about her, Natasya figured.

  And she wouldn’t have wanted to be Sienna Nealon when Miksa caught up with the girl. She’d been wandering outside for quite some time now. Frigid cold. Perhaps wounded. Already a long day, and she’d fought with Volkov … no, it was best if she’d died in the explosion. Best for her, best for them.

  But if she hadn’t … Miksa was sure to slowly roast the skin off her bones. Of that, Natasya was certain.

  30.

  Sienna

  They’d come to kill me.

  That was my conclusion as I ran across the snowfield, barefoot, toward the training building. They’d attacked the agency, taken hostages, and chemically castrated the metas, which was just my brother and me. Volkov said that they were here to kill me before I shot him in the face. Four Russian metas and who knows how many hired guns, here to kill little ol’ me.

  Well, three Russian metas and six or so fewer hired guns, now. Still, numerically, the odds were not in my favor.

  But I’d beaten worse odds.

  I struggled through the field, the cold burning my nostrils inside, forcing the air into my lungs with each hard, ragged breath. My body was numb through and through, and I was pretty sure nerve damage was already setting in. I wanted to lie down in the snow and die, but I struggled on, in my flimsy damned dress, on bare feet that I couldn’t really feel anymore. It was like I was walking on stumps at this point, each step a labor of a thousand years.

  I made it to the training building’s entrance and into the lobby, a ten-foot by ten-foot cube, tops. It was a little warmer there, and I breathed the air that was probably less than normal room temperature like I had been submerged under the water for ten minutes. I gulped hungry breaths, felt a hint of warmth on my skin, and then slapped my hand to the scanner and prayed for a green light.

  It beeped and I struggled with the door again, shoving myself into the tiny crack I was able to force open with my hands refusing to operate normally. I fell to the ground and started to crawl. I wanted to rub my hands together, but the .380 was still clenched tight in my right. I needed clothing. I needed warmth. I needed something to eat, because I was supposed to be devouring miniature quiches right now, dammit. Not crawling through snow and ice with bare hands and feet, powerless and being stalked by a bunch of assholes with a grudge I couldn’t even begin to comprehend.

  Okay, well, I might be able to sort of comprehend it. I do have a tendency to—shall we say—inflame the emotions of people who cross me. But I used to just kill them, so problem solved. Like that guy in the bank vault with the bar of bullion. Splat, done, no more issues.

  Clearly, someone had a grudge, though. Well, probably. My logical mind ran through the possibilities. Assassinating the head of the United States’s metahuman policing unit? Not a terrible idea, not when the supply of replacements is low. I mean, Reed was good, but—

  Aw, hell.

  Reed.

  I’d totally forgotten him in all the hubbub and fleeing for my life. I’d left Reed behind in the party, fetching me a social lubricant to help me make it through the party. Now he was there with the terrorists—

  Or dead. He could well have been dead.

  My stomach sank as I considered that possibility. The idea of my brother dead because these Russians came to kill me … it didn’t sit well with me.

  It made me sick.

  I struggled on, working my way forward into the training building. It had a lobby beyond the glass security one, and I crawled through it at a turtle’s pace. Even the thought that men were coming to kill me couldn’t spur me to move any faster. I just wanted to lie down and sleep, which was probably a sign of hypothermia. This was what you get for going out in a thin dress at negative ten degrees with a wind chill even higher than that.

  If I got out of this alive, I vowed to move somewhere sunnier. Like Mercury.

  I made it down the hall and looked back only to realize that I was trailing blood behind me. Great. Another problem to deal with. Because I didn’t already have enough of those. I looked down and saw that my legs were red, frozen crimson ice smeared along the length of my knees and shins, blanketing the pale flesh. I looked down and saw similar marks on my hands, but I couldn’t find the wound. Blood loss probably wasn’t helping with the hypothermia, though.

  I vowed never to go to a part
y again. This is why I’m a hermit in my off-time. Another decade of self-imposed isolation was starting to sound like a damned good idea.

  I made it to the armory and slapped a bloodied hand on the biometric sensor. It dinged for me and opened the door, but I had to force my fingers into the gap to pry it open. This door was heavier, and I struggled with it for a while before it opened. I managed to crawl inside and shut it, and then I pondered what the hell to do next.

  My dilemma was getting worse by the minute, and my logical mind whirling with the possibilities and inevitabilities. They were here to kill me. They were armed and in force. I’d just left a trail of blood, footprints and crawl marks from the scene of my last encounter with them to here, and for certain there were more of them out there, just waiting to get me. I was bleeding, weak, tired, hypothermic, frostbitten and without my usual powers. Or spunk.

  But I was also pissed off, hurting, backed into a corner and afraid for my life. Not a good place to find me.

  I pushed myself back into the work, crawling through the armory and taking inventory of what I’d need. First aid kit? Yep. Rifle? Yessir, please. With extra magazines. Weight was going to be a limiting factor here, so I went with an M-16 variant. It had quad rails, with some fancy doohickeys on the side. I ditched the laser and kept the flashlight and red dot sight. We didn’t have a quartermaster, per se, and this armory was exclusively for the use of our meta personnel—i.e. Reed and myself—and since Reed only practiced with these weapons when I made him, I knew where everything was. I found an M209 grenade launcher and latched it to the picatinny rail on the bottom of my rifle. That took some doing, what with my hands being in the state they were. The next time I ran into one of these clowns, I wanted them to ask themselves, “Where does she get these wonderful toys?”

  You know, as they were being blown into itty-bitty smithereens.

  The extra weight made the rifle kinda heavy, especially without my meta strength, but I didn’t feel able to walk at the moment, so I wasn’t tremendously concerned yet. One insurmountable problem at a time.

  I was trying to figure out what pistol I should carry when my eyes traced the ceiling. I saw the security camera, one of a million stationed all over the campus. A little light clicked on in my head, and I went from zero to shit-a-brick in 1.8 seconds. They could have been watching me. They could have been watching my every move, playing with me like Kat used to play with her hair.

  Damn, damn, damn.

  If they had access to the network, I was fried. They’d have to be closing in on me right this very moment, because I’d been parading—also known as crawling—around in front of the camera for at least five minutes.

  On the other hand, I was deeply impaired and needed at least first aid, not to mention a change of clothes. Which, fortunately, we had on hand, in the form of the sort of tactical clothing a SWAT team would wear. Oh, how I wished we had a SWAT team at that moment. We even had winter camo, kind of an army surplus thing.

  I grabbed a smaller Glock 19, the type of gun Kat used to carry, with her effeminate little hands, and I cursed these bastards for stealing my power. I hoped like hell it was temporary. It had to be temporary. It had to.

  Right?

  Later.

  With my pistol picked out and a few spare mags ready, I dragged everything I had so far over to a space in the far corner where the surplus crates sat. I dug and dug before I finally found a package of emergency signaling mirrors. With the mirror at hand, I sat on the cold metal floor and inspected both legs, up and down, then tore open a cleansing wipe from the first aid kit and gave them a quick clean. The flesh was dirty, was scuffed, nearly-blue in a few places like my knees, but there were no wounds there. As bad as they looked, my legs were not the source of the bleeding. Neither were my arms, I determined after a thorough inspection. I did this all hurriedly and pulled on some thick, white-digital camouflage pants as soon as I was done. Because I didn’t want to get caught with my pants down. (Har har.)

  Next were my feet. I had never been particularly enamored with how my feet looked; they were kind rough and misshapen, though thankfully not huge or anything. My second toe jutted out above the big toe, which I always thought was kind of weird, and it made me selfconscious enough that I didn’t wear sandals. Were everyone’s feet like that? I dunno, but I still felt weird about it.

  The soles were bluish but not black, giving me a quick sense of relief. I poked at myself and realized I could feel the touch, although it seemed muted somehow. I sighed and dried my feet off, then hurried to pull on socks. One less thing to worry about, because while I had certainly gotten cold as hell, I wasn’t suffering from frostbite thanks to my five-minute journey between buildings.

  I had my dress pulled up over my camo pants and finally just pulled it over my head so I could get the rest of my camo outfit on. It was here that I discovered where the blood was coming from. The back of my dress was shredded, and as I pulled it off I felt something tug loose, then hit the floor with the tinkle of broken glass.

  I had broken glass in my back. Sonofagun. It must have come from my tumble out the window with Volkov, that drunken idiot.

  That drunken idiot who saved my life. If I hadn’t gone out the window, I would have been stuck in the reception, powerless against all those people who wanted to kill me. I felt a moment of grateful thanks to the bearded jackass, but not an ounce of remorse for putting a bullet through his head. Cold, I know. I didn’t care. Clearly, I was a product of my environment.

  This was rapidly becoming a time sink that could cost me my life. I used the mirror to look at my back, and it was messy. The good news was that it was one laceration that appeared superficial, not a deep and penetrating wound that hit bone or anything. The bad news was that I was not exactly a trauma surgeon, and the thought of trying to stitch myself up with weak and shaking fingers while looking into a mirror over my shoulder was unappealing, at best.

  Fortunately, I had butterfly bandages in the first aid kit, and if I ended up with a scar, so be it. I was more worried about survival than having an immaculate, scar-free back. Besides, I was never going to wear an effing dress again.

  I haphazardly placed the butterflies, about six or so along a four-inch laceration, and then ran tape around a big ol’ gauze bandage and slapped it on. Then I reflected on how much it hurt to slap a gauze bandage on an open wound, and decided—while screaming a bevy of curses into the armory’s cool, dry air—that I would try to make better choices in the future. If I ended up having one.

  But now I was armed, with my M-16 and my pistol. I strapped on boots, lacing them tightly around my still-numb feet. I tried to take it easy on my back by not making sudden movements. I slipped the first aid kit in a backpack with extra mags (so thankful I didn’t have to load them myself with numb fingers), along with a bandolier with a half-dozen grenades for the underslung M209. The M-16 felt heavy, but manageable. I put the stock against my shoulder, hoping the recoil wouldn’t be too much for my newly weakened self to handle.

  I tried to ignore the nagging doubts inherent in going from the most well-known, superpowered person on the plane to just another ordinary human.

  I was John McClane in Die Hard. I was Steven Seagal in Under Siege. I was Shia LeBoeuf in every day of his delusional life.

  Crap. Didn’t Reed accuse me of doing affirmations earlier? Well, whatever, I was doing affirmations because I needed them. My everything hurt, and people were trying to kill me. I was a long way from the top of my game, and I needed all the help I could get. I adjusted my pack and realized just how heavy everything felt. Then I took off the pack and put on a heavy jacket, because I’d need it if I was going to be out in the cold. A ski cap and balaclava went on after that, and I tucked my hair up, suddenly glad I hadn’t wasted time or money on the professional styling that Phillips had suggested. I finished the ensemble off with a holster for the Glock and a Gerber knife on the other hip, just in front of the spare mags for the M-16. Then I put the backpack back on a
nd stood there for a minute, just feeling the weight of it all. It was heavy.

  Crap. This was going to suck. But still, I was dressed a lot more comfortably than I had been for the reception.

  I stowed a couple extra surprises as I prepared to exit the room, and stopped at the door when I heard a strange buzzing sound. I frowned, trying to figure out where it was coming from. It sounded like it was in the ceiling, and then I traced it back to the camera in the corner, the little black dome that was watching over me. It was making a frantic noise, like something inside it was moving constantly, back and forth.

  I wanted to stand on something and reach up to touch it, take the dome off, maybe see what it was doing under there, but I realized in a second that the lens had to be shifting back and forth rapidly enough to make noise. Someone was clearly controlling it. Someone was watching me.

  But why would someone watching me give away the fact they were doing so? It made no sense at all, unless they wanted me to know it and come to the conclusion that I was being watched—

  Aw, hell squared.

  I felt a cold worry shiver my whole body as I came to two possible conclusions. Either one of the bad guys was working the camera in order to make me question my decision to walk out the armory door, which was—well, a flimsy possibility compared to the other, which was …

  … that someone—some fellow member of the agency—was watching me through the security camera. Watching me, and warning me not to go out the door because something—someone—was waiting for me on the other side.

  31.

  When backed into an impossible situation, most people tend to despair. They think about what’s happened, how it could have been prevented, what they’d do if they had a chance to try again, to make different decisions. It’s the paralysis of analysis, and we’ve all done at various points in our lives. Being in a life-or-death situation is a shitty time to re-examine prior decisions and reflect, though. And the worst time to get in a feedback loop of “Should I have done this?” or “Should I have done that?” is when armed and superpowered enemies are standing right outside the door of your military armory, waiting to ambush you the moment you set foot outside.