I checked the rooms; Kat’s was obvious, her suitcase was undisturbed, laid out on a chest at the end of her bed, waiting for her to come in and glam herself up. Augustus’s things were in a smaller bedroom, neatly piled in the corner, top of his gym bag unzipped but unmoved, as though he’d never even taken anything out of them. Ariadne’s were well organized in hers, laid out for most efficient use. The room looked cleaner than the others, too, as if she’d gone over it all with a cloth when she’d arrived. I could see her doing something like that. She’d certainly cleaned up our house enough times for me to be able to picture it easily.
Reed’s room had an IV line with a bag that was still half-full, the needle crusted with blood and discarded gauze pads stained red lying on the floor next to the bed. There was no sign of personal belongings in their room, probably because they didn’t even have time to pack before I’d rushed them off, off to hide here …
Here, where I didn’t know what had happened to them.
J.J. and Abigail’s room was unpacked, things put away in dressers and personal effects laid out on the bathroom counter. I even found Colin’s room, his backpack next to an old, worn suitcase from the 1800s that looked to be Phinneus’s. They were left like their owners were coming back, and I wondered if maybe they’d all snuck out in the middle of the night for an early bite.
Veronika’s things were in her room, too, depriving me of my last hunch. If she’d somehow ambushed or kidnapped my friends, why leave her things behind? There was nothing of interest in her suitcase save for a half dozen of her suits, which were not cheap. She’d also left behind some pretty fancy underwear, which made me wonder what sort of use she figured she’d get out of it on this trip.
I wandered back through the house, checked the back yard, which was empty. The neighborhood was silent, and I wondered if perhaps I should search some nearby houses, see if the neighbors had noticed anything. But it was still early in the morning, I realized, and I walked back to the couch in the living room, where the TV was still going.
I felt drained, frightened, like I’d shattered myself somehow in the last few days. A cold, clammy fear had settled on me, and as I stared at the television, I felt like I was waking up from a nightmare only to find myself in a horror movie.
I couldn’t escape cable news; it was on here, too, that steady flash of images between shots of reporters standing around, trying to look like they knew something. They were live in Eden Prairie, Minnesota, of course, because why wouldn’t they be?
The devastation of the blast was clearer in the daylight. The ground was black, the fire finally put out in my office building. Fire hoses were still pointed at it, dumping a steady spray of water in the windows, just to be sure it didn’t flare back up.
“—No one knows the whereabouts of Sienna Nealon at this hour, but local authorities have assured us that as soon as they have an accurate death toll, they will release that information to us.” The reporter, a young blond lady, looked right at the camera. “As to when we’ll get that number, sources say—”
“Sorry to cut you off, Glynis,” the scene shifted back to another anchor, in a studio, smiling at the camera, “but we are going live now to downtown Minneapolis, where President Harmon is about to give a statement in reaction to last night’s tragic events in Minnesota.”
Harmon. Of course he’d show up to a scene like this. He was like a vulture sniffing a carcass—mine.
I sat down on the couch, sinking into the stuffing. I still felt cold, which was a bad sign now that I was in California. I waited, figuring Harmon would take forever to get out to the podium again, but he didn’t. Apparently he was a lot happier to get out there to make his announcement this time than he had been last time, when he’d been forced to defend against my record of being a persistent pain in his ass.
“Good morning,” Harmon said, not cracking a smile as he took the podium. He looked serious, his hair cut tight around his head, his eyes scanning the room in front of him as he took its temperature. “I’m going to make a very brief statement, and then turn over this press conference to our response team. Obviously, as you know, late last night into the early hours of this morning, Sienna Nealon mounted an attack on the news reporters staked out at her office.” My eyes widened as I took in what he’d said. “In the process, she killed several people and also destroyed several buildings in Eden Prairie, Minnesota. This is, of course, a devastating loss to the local community as well as a terrible blow to the metahuman cause of acceptance. When I announced the arrival of metahumans on the scene five years ago, I urged caution against a rush to judgment. Throughout our history, we have made strangers of others—people we didn’t understand. Our instinct is to isolate and divide ourselves from those we find dissimilar to us. I am pleased that America followed my guidance. The response to the metahuman community has been nothing but stellar, accepting and tolerant.”
He paused for dramatic effect. “And in this case, entirely too tolerant. Sienna Nealon is a clear and present danger to the safety and security of the citizens of the United States of America. She is now number one on the FBI’s Most Wanted list. Every state and local law enforcement agency will be receiving bulletins to be on the lookout for her. Ms. Nealon has proven herself the single most dangerous person on the face of the planet.” He still didn’t smile. I wondered why not; he had to be enjoying this. “Be assured … we will bring her to heel.” He extended an arm off camera. “With that, I want to introduce the response team that will be leading this manhunt. There are some familiar faces, obviously …”
The camera panned to Harmon’s right, and my breath caught in my throat. I expected to see Scott and Friday there, and I wasn’t disappointed. But the other two men standing beside them …
If I hadn’t already been sitting down, I probably would have landed on the couch hard enough to break it.
My brother, Reed, took the podium, his dark hair pulled back in a tight ponytail, Augustus only a few steps behind him. “I come before you today not as the brother of Sienna Nealon, but as the man most committed to bringing her to justice.” There was no trace of sarcasm, or lies, or any of the thousand other emotions I wanted to see hidden in his brown eyes. He was serious, he was staring right into the camera, and Augustus was right behind him, doing the exact same thing. J.J. was there, too, I realized, a little off to the side. The camera angle didn’t let me see anyone beyond him, but …
… But really, that was enough to finish the job of breaking me.
“… have always backed my half-sister,” Reed was saying, “but this time, she’s simply gone too far. Whatever it takes, whatever measures must be used … even lethal ones … I will not hesitate to employ in her capture. For too long, I have stood aside and made excuses for her unconscionable behavior, have looked into the eyes of a murderer and heard her explain away her actions, hollow words from an empty soul …”
I turned off the TV with a simple push of the remote. I sat in the quiet room, listening to a bird chirping somewhere in the distance, strangely cool.
The whole country was against me.
My enemies had come to kill me.
And now my brother and my friends had turned on me, too.
I expected to feel cold, but I’d been cold for days—out in it, in the autumn wind, fighting against people who hated me and wanted me dead. My hand didn’t shake, didn’t shiver.
I stood up and walked out the front door, taking care to put my hood up. I closed the door behind me gently, so as not to wake anyone in the neighborhood with the sound of it slamming. I didn’t fly off, didn’t take to the skies. I started to walk back the way I came, threading my way through the neighborhood, then out onto a main street, out of the sheltered confines of suburbia, and back into a world that hated me and wanted me dead.
I was alone.
Again.
Epilogue
The White House
Washington, DC
“Sorry I’m late,” President Gerry Harmon said as he
breezed into the Oval Office and plopped himself behind his desk. “Well, you know my schedule. It’s been a day.”
“A day I warned you would be long,” Cassidy Ellis said. Harmon stared into her eyes, and knew there was so much going on behind them. “You can’t back Sienna Nealon into a corner without expecting some consequences.”
“I told you when we first met,” Harmon said, leaning back against his chair, “I don’t really care what sort of blowback comes from Sienna Nealon flailing ineffectually around. All I care about is building a better future, and if that means getting her out of the way, well, you can’t make an omelet, right?”
Cassidy smiled thinly. She lacked social graces, Harmon had noticed. “Am I going to be one of those eggs?”
“You’re much too valuable to be a discarded egg, Cassidy,” Harmon said. He put on his most reassuring smile to do it. “You have one of the foremost minds in the world. But …” He smiled. “Do you know your weakness?”
“People,” Cassidy answered instantly.
“People,” Harmon agreed. The girl was so thin he wondered if she’d break if he put a reassuring hand on her shoulder. “But, see … I know people. And you know … everything else. Which is why we make such a good team.”
“But I didn’t kill her,” Cassidy said, flushing. “Again.”
“I didn’t expect you to,” Harmon said, coming around the desk and resting on the edge. “I did hope that Borosky and Shafer would, but … unfortunately, even they couldn’t seem to just shoot her in the head and get the job done. That’s all right, though. She’s pushed into the margins now. Hurting. Her own little construction of a family has turned on her.”
“She’s wounded,” Cassidy said. “Like an animal. Don’t you think that makes her dangerous?”
“Oh, almost certainly,” Harmon said. “But dangerous we can deal with. And besides, once you get that last … little detail ironed out for me … she won’t be any threat at all, will she?”
Cassidy swallowed uncomfortably. “That’s … not a small detail. And the people who worked on it before me—”
“Didn’t have half your intelligence,” Harmon said. “Your meta ability is literally brain power.” She puffed up a little, as he knew she would. She really didn’t know people, including herself. She was absurdly susceptible to flattery, but then most people were. “Don’t worry about Sienna Nealon. You take care of your part of this, and she won’t be a problem.” He lowered his voice, soothing her. “You finish this … and we won’t ever have to worry about her again.”
Sienna Nealon Will Return in
Unyielding
Out of the Box, Book 11
Coming November 22, 2016!
Author's Note
If you want to know immediately when future books become available, take sixty seconds and sign up for my NEW RELEASE EMAIL ALERTS by CLICKING HERE. I don't sell your information and I only send out emails when I have a new book out. The reason you should sign up for this is because I don't always set release dates, and even if you're following me on Facebook (robertJcrane (Author)) or Twitter (@robertJcrane), it's easy to miss my book announcements because...well, because social media is an imprecise thing.
Come join the discussion on my website: http://www.robertjcrane.com!
Cheers,
Robert J. Crane
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Editorial/Literary Janitorial duties performed by Sarah Barbour and Jeffrey Bryan. Final proofing was handled by Jo Evans. Any errors you see in the text, however, are the result of me rejecting changes. I owe a special apology to Jo for boobtacularly forgetting her incredible acknowledgments to the Sanctuary Series as I was thanking everybody in volume eight. Mea culpa, mea maxima culpa on that one, Jo.
The cover was once more designed masterfully by Karri Klawiter of Artbykarri.com.
The formatting was provided by nickbowmanediting.com. Well, by Nick, anyway.
Once more, thanks to my parents, my in-laws, my kids and my wife, for helping me keep things together.
Other Works by Robert J. Crane
World of Sanctuary
Epic Fantasy
Defender: The Sanctuary Series, Volume One
Avenger: The Sanctuary Series, Volume Two
Champion: The Sanctuary Series, Volume Three
Crusader: The Sanctuary Series, Volume Four
Sanctuary Tales, Volume One - A Short Story Collection
Thy Father's Shadow: The Sanctuary Series, Volume 4.5
Master: The Sanctuary Series, Volume Five
Fated in Darkness: The Sanctuary Series, Volume 5.5
Warlord: The Sanctuary Series, Volume Six
Heretic: The Sanctuary Series, Volume Seven
Legend: The Sanctuary Series, Volume Eight
A Haven in Ash: Ashes of Luukessia Trilogy, Volume One* (Coming Early 2017!)
Ghosts of Sanctuary: The Revenants Series, Volume One* (Coming 2018, at earliest.)
The Girl in the Box
and
Out of the Box
Contemporary Urban Fantasy
Alone: The Girl in the Box, Book 1
Untouched: The Girl in the Box, Book 2
Soulless: The Girl in the Box, Book 3
Family: The Girl in the Box, Book 4
Omega: The Girl in the Box, Book 5
Broken: The Girl in the Box, Book 6
Enemies: The Girl in the Box, Book 7
Legacy: The Girl in the Box, Book 8
Destiny: The Girl in the Box, Book 9
Power: The Girl in the Box, Book 10
Limitless: Out of the Box, Book 1
In the Wind: Out of the Box, Book 2
Ruthless: Out of the Box, Book 3
Grounded: Out of the Box, Book 4
Tormented: Out of the Box, Book 5
Vengeful: Out of the Box, Book 6
Sea Change: Out of the Box, Book 7
Painkiller: Out of the Box, Book 8
Masks: Out of the Box, Book 9
Prisoners: Out of the Box, Book 10
Unyielding: Out of the Box, Book 11* (Coming November 22, 2016!)
Hollow: Out of the Box, Book 12* (Coming January 2017!)
Southern Watch
Contemporary Urban Fantasy
Called: Southern Watch, Book 1
Depths: Southern Watch, Book 2
Corrupted: Southern Watch, Book 3
Unearthed: Southern Watch, Book 4
Legion: Southern Watch, Book 5
Starling: Southern Watch, Book 6* (Coming in Late 2016 – Tentatively)
*Forthcoming
Table of Contents
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24.
25.
26.
27.
28.
29.
30.
31.
32.
33.
34.
35.
36.
37.
38.
Epilogue
Author's Note
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Other Works by Robert J. Crane
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