“Why?” I asked, and I felt myself slip my gun back into the holster. “How?”
“I knew Mormont was bent all along,” Zollers said calmly, his fingers steepled. “It was proving it without revealing myself that was the problem. You ever try to frame someone for being a traitor? It’s not easy, apparently, even when they are. He didn’t tend to keep any real evidence on hand, and certainly not for long enough for me to nail him on it. Not without suspicion falling on me, anyway.” He let a slight smile crease his face. “And I couldn’t have that.”
“So…” My mind raced, struggling to put things together. “…you’re like some benevolent meta, working to try and help us, protect us from threats like Mormont?”
“Hardly,” Zollers said, and the deep tone of his voice, always so soothing, so reassuring, carried enough of something else that it made me worry – just a little. “I work for…another party.”
“Omega?” I asked, feeling the chill grow.
“No,” he said with little stir. “Omega is a group of toddlers crashing through sandcastles for all their subtlety when compared to my employers.” His usual smile was faded, laced with regret. “They’re fearsome, the people I work for, and I mean that in the most literal sense of the word. You should be afraid of them. Very afraid.”
“Why?” I asked, feeling almost paralyzed. “Omega has been after me since the day I left my house. They’ve sent Wolfe after me, Henderschott, James, and those vampires—”
“These people are worse,” Zollers said without blinking. “And they don’t want you alive, like Omega.” His voice softened. “They want you dead.”
I felt my mouth dry out as I stared at the man I had trusted with as many of my secrets as anyone else. “You were going to kill me that night with Mormont.”
“I was supposed to,” Zollers said, and I saw a well of emotion within him. “But I couldn’t. I couldn’t do it.” I saw wetness at the corners of his eyes and he bowed his head. “They’ll send someone else,” he said, and his eyes came back up, trying to impart seriousness to me. “Next time they’ll send someone harder, someone who won’t be as subtle. My mission was always infiltration, but they have worse. Stone killers, most of them, human and meta, and they won’t hesitate. They’ll die to kill you, if need be.” There was no smile now, just a haunted look in his eyes.
“They were the ones who killed Andromeda,” I breathed. “You betrayed us to them when she was killed.”
He nodded. “You were supposed to die then, too. I should have known you’d outmaneuver them.” He smiled. “They didn’t much care for that, but I warned them that they were underestimating you. They didn’t listen.” His smile evaporated. “They’re listening now, I promise you that.”
I felt my hand slide down to the pistol again, slow, subtle. I felt my control start to return and the fear start to rise the moment he admitted to getting Andromeda killed. My hand slipped onto the gun, and I drew it slowly, no flourish, and I stared at it dully. “You saved my life.”
“Yes,” he said simply.
“I’m going to let you go,” I said, and I knew somehow that he had zero influence over my words now, no dominion, “but not because you saved my life.” I blinked and felt tears run down my face. “I’m letting you go because…you’re the only person I’ve met who ever made me feel…” I blinked again and the whole image of his face was blurred. “…normal. Like I belonged somewhere.”
He stood, slowly, and adjusted his sweater vest as he did so. “I appreciate that you’ve made the choice to let me walk. You were always going to let me go, but you made this decision yourself, without me having to use my power to influence it in the direction I wanted. For that, I’m going to tell you something.” He looked reluctant. “A warning. I don’t know if you’ll believe me, but here it is.” He took a step closer and placed both hands on my shoulders, looking deep into my eyes. “Don’t trust anyone.” He looked at me with those eyes, and I stared back. “No one is looking out for you.”
With that, he broke free of me, and started toward the door. I kept the gun trained on his back as he retreated, and he paused at the door to turn back, his hand on the handle.
“Where will you go?” I asked, not sure why I even cared, or if I expected any kind of answer.
“Far,” he said. “As far as I can go. There is a storm coming, and the people I work for – worked for – are the heart of it. They’ll know I’ve failed, and they’ll want to kill me.” He smiled sadly. “And they probably will, eventually, but I’ll give them a merry chase before they do.” He straightened. “Take care, Sienna Nealon. You are…one of the most unique…” His voice drifted off, and he smiled. “…souls I’ve ever known.”
I watched him carefully. “Worth dying for?”
The ghost of a smile crossed his lips. “Apparently so.” He waved a hand at my head. “They’ll be along for you in a bit – long after I’m gone, I assure you. Until then,” he said, receding from my vision as things started to get blurry, “have a nice nap. It’ll make things easier on you if they don’t know you let me get away.”
“Thank you,” I murmured as I curled up on the floor, oddly comforted, as I had been so many times in this office – and now, never would be again.
Chapter 26
“Another cryptic warning,” Ariadne said. I sat dazed, in her office, a few hours after Zollers had left. She stared across the desk at me, dour. “You should have warned us before going after him,” she said, clenching the pen in her hand. “Instead of—”
“Knocking out J.J. with my powers and rushing off to confront him myself?” I stared straight ahead at her, surprisingly free of emotion. I was weary, even after my nap. “Yeah, I should have. Sorry.” I rubbed my face, letting my glove rub against my skin, the soft leather all the comfort I could find at the moment.
“That’s going to cost us some more money with J.J.,” she said with a sigh. “And Zollers didn’t give you a name for his employer? Nothing?”
I shook my head. “Storm. Worse than Omega. Trying to kill me.” I shrugged. “Those are the highlights.” I could feel my countenance darken. “And they killed Andromeda. On purpose, by the way he told it.”
“But why?” Ariadne chewed on the cap of her pen. “Omega wanted her back alive, and this other group wanted her – and you – dead. Why?”
I sat there for a few minutes, quiet, letting it seep in between us. “That is the sixty-four thousand dollar question, isn’t it.”
She frowned. “The…what? Why sixty-four thousand?”
I felt my face slacken. “It was a show. You should know – you’re old. It’s an old show.”
Her eyebrows creased and turned downward at a forty-five degree angle as her mouth opened in outrage. “How old do you think I am?”
“Not old enough to have watched the Sixty-Four Thousand Dollar Question, apparently.”
I was out of her office a few minutes later. I knew she’d tell Old Man Winter everything, but I didn’t want to wait to hash it over again; I’d had enough. Also, I was starving, having been forced by Zollers to sleep through breakfast after not eating much of anything yesterday.
The sun was high in the sky, beating down with an intensity that reminded me of the week before, when I’d been searching the Wisconsin woods for an Omega installation. It was overpowering, and even in the short walk from headquarters to the dormitory building, my pores opened and I started to sweat. The smell of the grass was in the air, heavy in the heat. I was thankful as I passed through the doors into the building and felt the sweet relief of the air conditioner.
The smell of food caught me as I walked into the cafeteria. It was beautiful, wonderful, the heavy aroma of onions smelling like a feast. I could hear the chatter from the early lunch crowd and I could almost taste the food as I walked to get my tray. I caught the first dirty look seconds later. A lot of hard glares, I realized as I took myself through the line and got another one from the cafeteria lady who splattered gravy aggressively across
my mashed potatoes and onto the tray. I took it back from her, staring at the streak that cut a path across the red tray, like brown blood.
I finished in the line, having reached a point where I was ready to slap the hell out of the next person who gave me a sour expression, and I realized that I was facing something else I didn’t want to: the cafeteria was near full, tables occupied from corner to corner.
I sighed, and looked for a friendly face, any friendly face. I was not even close to seeing any; it was as though hostility was drenched over everyone in sight, and the moment I paused to scan the cafeteria after leaving the line, a hush fell and every head turned to me. I stared at them, they stared at me, and I can’t recall a time when I wasn’t being attacked that I had ever felt so uncomfortable in my life.
“Sienna,” I heard someone say over the crowd. Reed waved at me from a table in the distance, and I breathed a sigh of relief as I headed toward him. When I got closer, I realized he wasn’t alone – Scott and Kat sat across from him, and a seat was waiting, already pushed out as though it had been readied just for me.
“Tough room,” I said as I sat. “Whose cornflakes did I unwittingly pee in?” I looked at the three of them, but with the exception of Kat, who made a face and looked down to her food, I got no reaction. “Seriously, guys, what did I do? Everyone hates me.”
“Well,” Scott began, “it’s not so much any one thing. It’s more a…combination of things.”
I waited for him to go on, and when he didn’t, I sighed and stabbed my fork into the turkey with excessive violence. “Don’t be shy,” I said, “just say it.”
“Well,” Scott went on, “you did get perp walked in front of everybody by Clary, and a rumor went around that you were involved with all the agents dying—”
“Are you freaking kidding me?” I said in disbelief. “I—”
“I’m just telling you,” Scott said. “I don’t believe it, and I’ve certainly tried to spread the truth, but…it’s bad.” He hesitated, and I could see the regret on his face. “Really bad.”
“They think I…what? Killed agents myself, with my bare hands?” I looked at the three of them, and once again, Scott was the only one to speak.
“The rumor was that you were the traitor,” Scott said. “And when Zollers killed Mormont, everyone kind of took a breath and thought for a minute maybe you weren’t. But then it turned out Zollers was a traitor too, and you let him get away…”
“Plus, you hurt J.J. and you let your mom walk, too,” Kat added. “Apparently a lot of people were pissed at her for kidnapping me, and thought she should have been punished for it.” She froze, and her face went white. “Not me, of course; I’ve been defending you to anyone who will listen, but…” She looked reluctant. “Nobody’s listening. Not to us, anyway.”
“Great.” I tossed my fork onto the plate, not hungry anymore. “Just great.”
“Also,” Reed said, and I turned toward him, “people heard about you breaking up with Zack and then—”
“Oh. My. God.” I said it while holding my hands over my face. “You’re not even from here.”
“Which probably gives you an idea of how pervasive these rumors are,” he said, hesitant. “I don’t understand it, personally, because he’s a douche, but apparently people really like this Zack guy you broke up with. And then proceeded to cheat on.”
“I didn’t cheat on him!” I bowed my head. “I didn’t actually do anything; I mean we didn’t…” I looked at Kat. “You know! You were there, you stopped me!”
Kat shrugged. “Once again…no one’s listening. They’re saying you slept with the guy from Omega, that you betrayed Zack and the Directorate and all for…uh…” She blushed. “…sexy time.”
I was beyond mortified. I wanted to cry right there, but part of me wanted to laugh at the utter absurdity of it all, that I would go through hell to try and make things better, and still the crap could not help but fall upon the fan and blow squarely back into my face.
Reed must have sensed my despair, because I felt his hand on my shoulder, and he gave me a supportive squeeze. “Sorry, uh…sis.”
I peaked from behind my fingers. “That’s just weird.”
“Oh, well,” he said, sounding mildly embarrassed, “I don’t have to say it anymore. I just thought—”
“No,” I said, “it’s fine. I like it; it’s just…” I took a deep breath. “It might take some getting used to.” I looked squarely at him. “Brother.” I felt a twinge of oddness as I said it, a feeling that settled as I rolled it over in my head again. “Brother.”
He broke into an easy smile. “I’ve been waiting to hear you say that for kind of a long while.”
“Maybe you should have told me earlier, then…like when I first climbed into your car and pointed a gun at you.”
“Are you kidding?” He raised an eyebrow as he smiled at me and took a bite of a chicken nugget. “You had a gun. You might have shot me.”
I laughed, somehow, in spite of it all, and I heard Kat and Scott join me a moment later. I held my head in my hands, felt the soft leather on them. It was comforting again, that old familiar feeling, but something different, too, and soothing in its own way. Surrounded by a bunch of hostile people in the cafeteria at large, but the ones close by weren’t hostile at all. I looked from Scott, his wide grin and face flushed red from laughing to Kat, her tanned and pretty cheerleader look, her eyes riveted on Scott as he let out another peel of laughter, and she joined him.
I turned then to Reed. He wore a grin of his own, his long dark hair hanging back in a ponytail, swept over his shoulder. I smiled at them, at the thought of them, actually, and I laughed again, against all odds. After a moment I stopped. “You’re going to tell me about him, right? About…Dad?”
“Absolutely,” Reed said with a nod and a half-smile of his own. “Anything you want to know.”
“Mind if I join you all?” I turned at the sound of the voice, and my jaw dropped more than slightly, my eyes fluttering in surprise. Zack walked up with his tray supported in his hands, a neutral look on his face.
I turned back to the table, and met the three of them looking to me, and realized that the decision was mine. “Have a seat,” I said, and nodded at him.
He turned and pulled an empty chair from a nearby table, and slid it up to sit next to me with a nod to everyone else. “How are you holding up?” he asked.
I thought about it. My mouth came open, and a million responses, both probable and improbable, threatened to fall out, every one of them carrying far more detail than was actually needed. “I’m…” I blinked, and a thousand more ran through my mind before I settled on one that came out. “I’m good,” I said, and I wondered if it was true. I thought for a second, and decided it was, or as close to it as was possible at this stage in my life. “I’m good. How are you?”
He chewed on a french fry, and averted his gaze. “Not as good as you, it sounds like.”
“Well,” I said, swallowing a bite of food, “it’s a tall order to fill, you know, what with all the awesome life events I’ve experienced lately…”
He broke a slight smile at that one. “Sure. Tons of fun stuff has happened, right?”
“Exactly,” I said, nodding. “Lots of big stuff. Crazy stuff. Like, I have a brother.” I reached back and slapped Reed on the shoulder. He looked up from his meal, surprise turning to annoyance from my slap.
“I heard about that. Well, I’m glad it’s all been going good,” Zack said, and paused, searching my eyes for something.
“Not all of it,” I amended. “There are some things that haven’t been so fun.” I lowered my voice a notch. “Some things I regret, if you know what I mean. Things I’m…sorry about.”
I caught the flicker in his expression, the subtle nod. “Yeah. I’ve…had one of those myself.” He cleared his throat. “I hate regrets.”
“Me too,” I agreed. I tried to smile, and did. “I don’t really like having regrets. I tend to like to…resolve
things, if I can.”
“Me too,” he said with a shake of the head. “What do you do about something like that? You know, to resolve it?”
I took a deep breath and pretended to think about it. “You know…I think it depends on what the wronged party wants to do. For my part…I’m sorry.”
I thought I caught a little relief, and he nodded. “Me too. Things happened…that I wish had never happened. And…if I could have anything I wanted, it’d be to go back to the way things were before.”
“Really?” I raised an eyebrow at him. “Even after…everything?”
“Yeah,” he said finally, after clearing his throat again. “Because…’everything’…isn’t as bad as…what would happen if…” He looked up, as though trying to straighten out what he was trying to say in his head. “Oh, geez, I just…” He met my eyes, and his hand reached out for mine, and I felt his hands take mine, watched his bare skin stroke against the leather of my glove. “The physical isn’t everything to me. I just want to go back to the way things were.”
“You sure?” I waited, and he nodded. “I wouldn’t mind that either, because…you’re right. It’s not. But going back to the way things were is a better deal for me than you, so…yeah. I’ll take it. And…I really am sorry.”
“I know,” he said, and he looked me in the eye as he said it.
“Wait…” Kat said, staring at the two of us with squinted eyes, “did you two just get back together? Is that what that was?” She blinked twice. “No, really. I honestly have no idea.”
Reed laughed, followed by Scott, and then Zack. Kat finally let out a little guffaw of her own, and I started to join them but stopped. I was here, in my little oasis, hostile people all around, but my friends closest, surrounding me.
And yet Zollers’ last words, his warning, came back to me, and as they laughed, the sound was cold to my ears, and I was alone in the midst of them all. I felt those little hairs on the back of my neck tingle, the nerves firing off one by one, as the laughter grew at the table around me. I felt the feeling fade, and slowly, painfully slow, I let a smile spread across my face as I put that thought out of my mind.
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