“One last play,” I said, reaching down deep. I’d tried the easy way with one pothole. I’d tried the middle road by trying to shotgun these a-holes off my tail. None of that had worked, and I was through being Mr. Nice Guy.
I reached out ahead of me once more, as the roof tore off at the midpoint. Tasha could have probably squeezed in if she’d wanted to. I figured she was waiting to see if we were armed and going to shoot at her, and not for the first time in my life, I was wishing I carried a gun all the time like Sienna. I hadn’t been carrying since we’d left government service—the University of Minnesota was pretty clear where they stood when it came to students carrying guns on campus—but everywhere else was fair game, and this was an oversight I meant to rectify as soon as we got back from California. I couldn't afford to go around unarmed anymore, not in my line of work.
“It’d be nice to put a few rounds in her legs right now,” I muttered to myself as I concentrated.
“Oh!” Kat said, and pulled a pistol out of her handbag. She looked over her shoulder and took careful aim, then shot Tasha once in each knee.
“Aieeeeee!” Tasha screamed. She shuddered, the pain halting her progress at ripping off the roof of the car. Her head was still hidden by the roof, or I would have told Kat to just bust one in her dome and be done with this.
“Yeah,” I said, irritated that Kat hadn’t done that five minutes ago. “Like that.” I put aside recrimination and thought real hard about what I was gonna do, because it was going to take all my focus to pull this one off.
I dug at a section of pavement in front of us, put all my thought into it. This wasn’t no small pothole, and it wasn’t a carwash blast of gravel, either. Stopping these two was going to be a full tilt boogie, and I was about to become the road warrior of freeway combat.
“Here we go,” I muttered, and ripped the loose the first chunk of road, creating another pothole and hurling it at Tasha. She gasped and leapt once more as it soared, yelling as blood spattered on the trunk when she jumped. The asphalt chunk smacked against the peeled-up roof of the car as it shot past then ricocheted up and spun off as I let it leave my control. I was done with it anyway, and on to the second part of my evil genius plan.
Tasha was a badass, no doubt, with mad skills of gymnastics that would allow her to control her body in the middle of her leap. She could twist left and right, and probably dodge bullets in mid-air.
But bullets were small, and Tasha couldn’t fly; she could just twist when she was airborne. Just like Garrett could drive—drive like a mofo, in fact—but he wasn’t invincible in that car, because the Chrysler still had limits to its turn radius and acceleration. The Breedlowe siblings were still bound by the laws of physics, and that was their weakness.
I ripped up three lanes of pavement in front of us, leaving a small hole in the middle, just big enough for a BMW to drive through. I brought all three lanes up in a ninety-degree angle, like a wall in front of us, and then tipped them toward each other as I drove through the little hole I’d left as my own personal escape route.
“AGHHHHH—” There was a SPLAT! as Tasha hit the roof of my impromptu tunnel at a hundred plus miles an hour. Even for a meta, that’s terminal velocity, and I knew she wasn’t rolling away from that shit. Zero point zero, lady; your vault was a fail.
I slammed my foot on the accelerator as we passed under the tunnel of safety. Making like that old Irish blessing, I had the rocky under-road rise up to greet my tires so I didn’t rip my transmission out when we hit the massive gap left by the pavement I’d just torn up. I turned my eyes to the rearview again just in time to see Garrett Breedlowe with his mouth open in a scream that I could just barely hear as several tons of pavement crushed his Chrysler beneath it. The long hood of the car escaped, just barely, and the engine burst out of the grill and rolled along the dirt under-road behind us for a hundred yards.
I guided the BMW back onto solid pavement and then let out a breath of relief. Ripping up that much concrete would have been impossible a year ago, but Sienna had been pushing us all to the limits of our powers. Every day it seemed like she was throwing something new at us, and she’d even had the agency buy a disused rock quarry where I was training.
“It’s all paying off,” I whispered, reaching up to mop my brow. My face was wet, and for a second I worried it was blood. It wasn’t, though. I was sweating like it was midsummer in Atlanta from the exertion, and I looked back again to see my handiwork.
Kat was looking, too. “I guess 394 West is going to be shut down for a while.”
“Like anyone’s gonna notice another road closure in this town,” I said, wiping away the sweat as I sped up. I’d feel a lot safer once we were at the airport, with Sienna close at hand. Girl knew how to fight, and I counted myself lucky she was teaching me all the stuff she was. Kat looked at me funny. I just kept my eyes on the road and smiled. “Like they say, Minnesota’s only got two seasons—winter and road construction.” She snorted a little bit and we kept on, rushing like mad to get our asses out of that town before anything else bad happened.
17.
Sienna
I waited on the tarmac at the Eden Prairie airport with J.J. and Abigail, the two of them snuggling ridiculously behind me. I cast the occasional glance back, trying not to look bitter when I did. She was leaning against him, his hand patting her back, her head nestled beneath the crook of his chin, and I felt … sorry for myself, actually. A trickle of regret coursed through me and settled in my stomach. I suddenly wished I hadn’t sent my boyfriend away.
“The plane’s fueled and ready to leave,” Ariadne announced, typically businesslike, her heels clipping briskly along against the tarmac. She was wearing one of her skirts with a blouse and a business jacket, like she was ready for a day of work, roller suitcase trailing along behind her and clicking on the seams of the pavement. She set it upright, the telescoping handle like a dual flagpole, and then set her heavy, expensive leather handbag on top of it. “Now we’re just waiting on the others.”
“Yeah,” I said, tension infusing me. I could probably have used a massage—which was true almost day of my life. Unfortunately, it’s hard to get a massage when your skin kills people. Not impossible, but logistically difficult.
An ambulance came rolling up, and the back doors sprang open to reveal Dr. Perugini, arguing with another paramedic. “You put in an IV like you are stabbing him with a knife! Has no one taught you to do this thing?”
“Ma’am—” the paramedic started.
“Doctor!” Perugini corrected.
“Glad you made it,” I said, trying to head off what looked like an argument. Reed’s eyes were now open, and he was watching the back-and-forth between Perugini and the paramedic warily, like he was expecting things to blow up any moment. The swelling on his face was much reduced already, which made it easier for me to take a breath of relief. “And you’re awake, big brother.”
“I already feel at least a hundred percent better,” Reed said weakly.
“That is the morphine,” Perugini said.
“Oh,” Reed said, looking around. “Well, okay, then.” He looked at me. “How are you doing?”
“I’m just dandy,” I said. “Might go out dancing later, if you all will clear out in an expedient fashion.”
A squeal of tires prompted me to spin around. Augustus’s BMW came surging around the corner of a hangar, its roof torn off and looking like a metal leaf, crumpled and sticking upright. It was barely holding to the front of the car, and I could see him behind the steering wheel with Kat next to him as he pulled to a stop beside us. “What the hell happened to you?” I asked as he popped out, a sheen of flop sweat visible on his forehead.
“Check your messages,” Augustus said, opening the backseat and pulling out a bag. He dusted off a hundred beads of safety glass from it as he extracted it, and I realized his back window was completely missing. “Short answer is we ran into the Breedlowe and Kern connection in Golden Valley.”
&
nbsp; “I never liked those two,” Reed said, voice weak and woozy.
“You’ll like them better now, though,” Kat said, “in their new and improved pancake form.”
I stared at her with brow furrowed, trying to puzzle out what she’d just said. “Huh?”
“I mashed them,” Augustus said tightly. “You’ll hear all about it on the news tomorrow, probably.”
“Did you leave a massive crime scene behind?” I asked.
“It was self-defense,” Kat said. “Honest.”
“Awww, man,” I said, putting a hand up to my forehead and squeezing the tight scalp just above my hairline. “Scott’s totally going to blame this on me.”
“Scott?” Reed asked. “What?”
“He’s in town,” I said, shaking my head. “I saw him at your house after you left.”
“I don’t remember leaving,” Reed said, speaking to the sky above us. “When did I leave?”
“Perhaps less morphine,” Perugini decided.
“Whatever, you’re all here,” I said, shaking off the bad mojo that seemed to be thick in the air around me this last day. “Let’s get you loaded up and outta this state, okay?”
“Private plane, here we come,” J.J. said, relinquishing Abigail. It was awkward. Not her—she extracted herself flawlessly. He kinda bumped around, the little geek, swinging his bag around and nearly taking her out at the knees. She deftly avoided it at the last second, and he said, “Oops. Sorry.” She just smiled and started toward the plane, which had its stairs/door down and waiting for them. “Hey, Sienna?” J.J. gave me a look before he followed her. “I’ll let you know what I find, okay?”
“Counting on you,” I said, patting myself on the back for not commenting at all on his clumsiness. “Go get ’em, J.J.”
“I will,” J.J. said, “if they have wifi on the flight. Otherwise, you’ll hear from me when we’re in Cali.” And he disappeared up into the private plane with his girlfriend—which I guess goes to show you that miracles can happen after all.
“You’re flying escort for a while, right?” Augustus asked, stopping about a foot from me.
“All the way across South Dakota,” I said with a nod. “Wyoming hasn’t cleared me, so …”
“We’ll be all right from there.” He leaned in and gave me a hug with one arm, squeezing me tight. “You gonna be all right?”
“As long as you all are safe, I’ll be fine,” I said. I was lying, but not much.
“I rate that as mostly true,” Kat said. I saw she was bleeding from a scalp lac, and the dark liquid had left a trail down her otherwise flawless face. “Sienna can handle herself.” She leaned in as Augustus stepped back and gave me a very light, very European kiss to each cheek. “Mwah, mwah. Take care, all right?” And she strolled toward the plane and up the stairs, not once tripping on her damned high heels.
“We’ll keep an eye on Reed,” Augustus said, and I could tell he was making me a promise.
“Keep an eye on yourself, too,” I said. “PERSEC, remember?”
“I remember everything you teach me,” he said with a nod, then slung his bag over his shoulder. “And, uh … you were right about the gun thing. We’ll talk about getting me a permit when I get back, awright?”
That one came as a surprise. “Sure thing,” I said, and he headed off.
“I notice you’re not saying goodbye,” Ariadne said, rolling her luggage behind her. “I don’t know if I should read that as confidence or you trying to keep us from worrying.”
“I’m pretty sure I’ll be fine,” I said, “but it’s not like any of us know our expiration date. And I do have a couple of very dangerous assassins supposedly after me.”
She looked at me very evenly, betraying nothing. “Are you going to ‘smoke them out,’ as I think you’d call it?”
“I’m gonna smoke ’em, all right,” I said. “Take ca—”
Kiss her goodbye for me, Eve said, bursting into my thoughts unasked.
“Ugh, no,” I said, drawing up short. “Boundaries.”
Ariadne blinked at me as she pulled away. “… What?”
Do it, Eve said.
“Compromise,” I ground out through gritted teeth and leaned in to give Ariadne a hug that caught her completely off guard. Her eyes were wider than my ass as I broke from her. “That … was mostly not me.”
She stiffened, bristling slightly. “I …” She stood there, composing herself. “Very well,” she said finally, and walked off with her suitcase clattering behind her, her head down. She didn’t look back.
“You really do have a way with people,” Reed said as Perugini and the paramedic rolled him up to me.
“I went to the Sierra Nealon Homeschool of Charm,” I said, watching Ariadne wobble a little in her heels. That wasn’t normal. “What do you expect?”
“What I get, mostly,” Reed said. He grabbed my hand. His was cold and clammy. “Where’s Hampton?”
“I sent him away.”
“Sienna,” he groaned, sounding very disappointed in me. “Why?”
“Because it’s hard times, Reed,” I said. “On a normal day, we’re the hunters. Today, we’re prey to some of the most dangerous people on the planet. The natural order is flipped, and I don’t want the rest of you to have to hold on while I turn it back over, so …”
“So you’re gonna go it alone,” he said. “Haven’t you learned your lesson about that by now?”
“Again,” I said, feeling like I was having to explain this once more because of the morphine, “any other day, we’re a team. You guys are awesome. You’re getting better all the time, and I’m proud of you. But this is the world turned on its ear, this is hell and high water rushing in, and we can’t even tell which direction it’s coming from.” I kept a stiff upper lip. “I know you’re all strong. That you all can fight. That none of you are weak.
“But you … are my weakness,” I said. “If Cassidy is running this show, like she did last time … she knows that. She knows the way to hit Sienna is to hit you, Augustus, Ariadne, J.J.—”
“And me, of course,” Perugini drawled with sarcasm.
“Of course,” I said, looking at her with all sincerity. “If anything happened to you, Isabella—” she blinked at me using her first name, “—I’d go mad with rage. I’d kill whoever did it, and it would be bloody and slow.”
She stared at me, eyes wide. “I … thank you?”
“It’s her highest compliment, killing people in rage,” Reed said, patting her on the hand. He looked back at me, and his eyes were bleary and a little unfocused. “Do me a favor, though. This Hampton thing? Keep him on speed dial. The guy wants to help you.”
“I’ll think about it. But—”
“Dark and difficult times, I heard you,” he said. “But sometimes … you can use a hand during those times. And not just so you have another fist to beat your enemies to death with.” He slapped my hand gently, clasping it for a full five seconds. “You’re not invincible, Sienna, even without us standing around to give your enemies targets. You have feelings. You can get overwhelmed, I’ve seen it. Don’t cut yourself off from everybody while you go do this thing, okay?”
I didn’t know quite what to say. “I …” I swallowed hard. “It’s not like I can say, ‘Please, just hold my hand,’ when it comes to comfort … you know?” I sniffed, doing that thing where I try and wall myself off from my emotions.
“Let him in, Sienna,” Reed said softly. “Don’t let Zack be your Vesper Lynd, okay?”
Zack bristled in my head. He’s calling me a girl.
“Shut up, you’re proving him right,” I muttered under my breath, causing Reed to look around, as if trying to see who I was talking to. “I’ll … try,” I said.
“If you really try,” Reed said, as the paramedic started to wheel him away, “you’ll succeed! It’s not like this should be hard for someone who singlehandedly killed the most powerful man on the planet!” He tried to twist to keep speaking to me as they wheeled him
off, but grimaced as he moved. “Okay, okay. Maybe not move like that just yet. Owwww.”
I watched them go, Augustus standing at the bottom of the stairs, apparently to help bring Reed into the cabin. My phone started to buzz, and I answered it. “Oh, now you hear it ringing?” Augustus called back to me.
I waved him off. “Hello?”
“Sienna,” Dr. Zollers said from the other end, and I could hear road noise whooshing in the background. “I got your message.”
“And?”
“I’m on my way out of town now,” he said. “I’ll be in Iowa before sunup.”
“My condolences.”
He chuckled. “It’s not that bad. I’ll find somewhere to lay low.”
“Destroy your phone as soon as we finish talking,” I said. “Memorize my number, and don’t call it except in an emergency.”
“How will I know when it’s safe to come back?”
I smiled. “You’ll know.”
“Oh, it’s going to be one of those, is it? Big mess?” He sounded a little sad. “Take care, Sienna. Usually after those big messes, you’re not exactly copacetic.”
I knew what he meant. “I’ll hold it together as best I can,” I said. “Try to be a danger to others who deserve it rather than myself.”
“You do that,” he said. “I’ll check in on you … the usual way … every now and again.”
“See you in my dreams, doc.”
“Go get them, Sienna.”
I hung up and turned around just in time to see the door to the airplane closing. The engines were thrumming to life, and it started to taxi toward the runway. I took a long breath of cold autumn air as I stared out at the sky. I couldn’t see a single star under the blanket of light pollution that the Twin Cities metro area gave off. My breath fogged as it came out. The plane started to head toward the runway, speeding up as it cornered. It paused, and then the engines throttled up; it surged ahead, zooming toward the end of the runway as I lifted off the ground. Its nose pulled up, and the wheels left the ground, and I accelerated after it.
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