Badder (Out of the Box Book 16)

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Badder (Out of the Box Book 16) Page 27

by Robert J. Crane


  You could be right at the forefront too, Hamilton said. Look at what they’re doing to her: making her out like one of those comic book heroes people are so damned fond of. You could—

  “To hell with that,” Rose said, slipping her bra back on. She stooped to get it at the side of the bed where Alistair had dropped it, ignoring his hand hanging limply next to her.

  Don’t be stupid, Graham said. She’s a succubus, like you. And she’s got other powers at her disposal—

  We should learn how to do that, Granddad said.

  “Oh, we’re going to, all right,” Rose said, strangely cold again. She slipped back into the dress which she’d left puddled near the entry and picked up her heels. For some reason, now, when she put it on, she felt…

  Different.

  You be a good lass, her mam said, sounding a little more tentative than she had with her previous pronouncements. You can have power now. Walk openly now. Do great things—

  “To hell with your great things,” Rose said, spewing it out as she walked out the bedroom door and headed for the staircase. “To hell with you all—you clingers, you shites, you. I was worthless to you until your own lives were about to end and then suddenly, suddenly Rose has use again. You’re the plague that is humanity, aren’t you?” She breathed heavily, spite oozing out with every breath, as she walked, with a purpose, to the door.

  “Well, now I’ve got money,” she said, “and I’ve got powers—I’ll figure out how to use the powers like this Sienna Nealon.” And she let a mighty fury rage over the souls in her head, and felt them scream in a way they never had before. Usually it was her screaming, but seeing that girl—that Sienna Nealon—she knew, somehow she knew—that determined look in her eyes as she’d been led out of her house—that she needed to be hard. Relentless. That it was all necessary…

  In order to destroy Sienna Nealon.

  “Everybody who ruined my life is dead except for one,” Rose said, opening the door and casting one last look inside Alistair McKinney’s grand house. Maybe she’d come back, make this place her own. She needed to know things first though—how to use those other powers. How to manipulate others who weren’t as malleable or stupid as Alistair McKinney, for one.

  A babble of voices broke out in her head.

  You can’t think this is the way— Granddad said.

  You can do better, be better— Tamhas said.

  You can have the whole world— Hamilton said.

  You’re gonna nozz it all up anyway, you wee scunner, Miriam said.

  Please don’t do this, Graham said softly.

  You’re such a disappointment, Mam said.

  “Fuck all of you,” Rose said, hard eyes determined. She’d run this city, run this country, and someday—she wasn’t particular about the when, just that she’d do it—someday she’d bring this Sienna Nealon down on her knees and leave her naked and scared shitless for her own mortality, the way she’d left Rose out at the village. Terror would be the point. She’d need to feel it, really feel it the way Rose had, and then, eventually—

  “I’m going to kill her, too,” Rose said, and she walked out the door into the warm Edinburgh night, feeling alive again, and unworried, mind free, for the first time in months.

  *

  “Oh, God,” Zack said. They were all standing around the scene of Rose’s innocence, lost like a piece of crumpled carbon paper tossed on a fire. He’d watched her make her choices with a steady, growing horror. “This is…”

  “It feels like when Sienna killed us, doesn’t it?” Eve asked with an even tenor.

  “I watched it happen,” Zack said. “With this…kind of cold horror. She plotted it all out, and came after you one by one. It was like watching someone drive a truck toward a pedestrian, not veering off.”

  “And she got us,” Bastian said, looking around the foyer and up the stairs toward where the body remained. “Just like this girl got him.”

  “Sienna was more calculating,” Gavrikov said.

  “We were pushing her into it, too,” Bjorn said. “Just like these souls moved this Rose.”

  “So they’ve got a common thread,” Zack said, looking at their newest addition. Graham hadn’t said much; he looked like a paler shadow of the healthy young man they’d seen in the earlier visions. “More than one, actually.”

  “Have you ever been so angry at the world, or at something,” Graham said softly, “that the next thing you ran across that tripped your trigger ended up getting all your ire?” He nodded at the door Rose had shut on her way out. “That’s your girl to Rose. She heard the name, believed the worst, and made her decision. She’s a stubborn one too, not willing to back off it for a moment, even if she had heard something better, something that might change a lesser mind. She’s kept a good mad on for…years now.” Graham shook his head. “Now she’s all in. And your girl…she’s about to be on the way out.”

  “This still doesn’t help us,” Harmon said, pacing the foyer. The usually calm politician was starting to show signs of wear. “I expected her to make a slip by now. To let us see…something other than this dull purgatory of her past idiocies.” He let out a hard breath. “I don’t care about her poor, tortured soul. Lots of people have traumas, trust me. I know. This is hardly the worst I’ve seen, but this reaction…‘to hell with the world, to hell with Sienna’—this is a bratty girl being twisted and self-indulgent because she’s discovered she has godlike powers to back up her angst.”

  “Makes you grateful Sienna didn’t take a worse turn, huh?” Zack said, a little lighter than he felt. “Especially given the, uh…influences she had on her compared to Rose.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?” Bjorn asked, eyes narrowed.

  “It means she’s had a serial killer and you in the forefront of her mind all this time,” Gavrikov said. “And me. Can you imagine a dimmer view of humanity than the one I hold? I don’t care for any of you, save one.”

  “Yes, your precious Klementina,” Eve said dryly. “We’ve heard.”

  “Unaccountable power is the bane of human existence,” Gavrikov said. “I watched my father isolate me and my sister, and then torture us at his every whim. If he felt in a cruel mood, he was free to be as cruel as he wanted. He trampled all over us. This girl—” he pointed at the door “—she is like that. Unsocial. Powerful beyond the ability of men to control. Working quietly in the background, nothing bold or flashy, that would bring condemnation from the world of men. She is the very definition of unaccountable power. Like any petty tyrant in a fiefdom in which they have full control and no detractors with any, she has a left a trail of victims to correspond with that power.”

  “She has detractors,” Graham said, and there was a faint howl in the distance, outside the house, almost like the wind. “But they are…I suppose ‘powerless’ would be the word. Compared to her. In this place…” He bowed his head and shook it. “She’s a goddess, and we’re the worshippers.”

  “And I’m agnostic,” Gavrikov said.

  “Then I suspect you will end up believing in her before long,” Eve said, “because she doesn’t strike me as the type who’s going to go light on the wrath. That will be enough to convince you sooner or later, since you’re just waiting for a display to give you faith.”

  “I don’t think she’s going to show us anything,” Harmon said. “We’re mushrooms down here, unable to even see out the nearest window.”

  “Yeah, we’re a long way from the Lido deck on this ship,” Bastian said. “It’s like one of those troop transports where you don’t even get a porthole to see out.”

  Harmon showed a flash of irritation at the military metaphor. “Yes, like that, only not stupid. She’s surely used her powers by now—”

  “She has,” Graham said. “She’s using them constantly, all the time.”

  Harmon honed in on him. “You can see? See out through her eyes?”

  “Aye,” Graham said. “You might too, given enough time to learn your way around h
er head. But I’ll warn you—it’s not going to be pretty when you do. It’s sort of like…drowning beneath the waves.” He got a far-off look in his brown eyes. “And just as you think you’ll never taste air again, you break the surface…and find yourself in the middle of flaming wreckage, like a ship exploded around you or something.”

  “I’ve had that happen,” Gavrikov said.

  “How do we do that?” Harmon asked. “I need to see, to feel in order to be able to…push my way out.” He seemed desperate, his pacing continuing unabated. If he could have worn holes in the floor of Alistair McKinney’s foyer, he would have, Zack was sure. “In order to get us out,” he said quickly, but Zack caught the implication.

  “I get the feeling,” Zack said softly, “that when it comes time to jump ship…none of the rest of us are going to get a life preserver, or a boat of our own.”

  Harmon’s eyes flashed, cagily. “You know how to keep crabs in a bucket? It’s easier than you think. You just put them in there. Every time one is close to climbing out, the others will pull him back down. It’s a strange animal instinct, one I always thought was more appropriate for humans; it’s like the very embodiment of envy. ‘Oh, you can get out of this prison—let me stop you right there.’” He turned away, seething, his control slipping. “If I can get out with all of us, I will. If I can get out by myself, in an instant—” He turned back around, and anger and determination split his face. “Can any of you blame me for seizing that kind of opportunity?”

  “I always expect a rat to escape a sinking ship if given a chance,” Gavrikov said with a faint smile.

  “You’re such a worthless turd, Harmon,” Zack said, his own anger rising in him, blinding him. “I’m still sorry I voted for you.”

  “Well, the campaign is over, my friend,” Harmon said. “No takebacks. Which is a rule that extends to life, and ours has ended. Now we’re here, trapped together, and—be assured, I hate you all as much as you hate me right now.”

  “You’d sell her out in an instant, wouldn’t you?” Zack just shook his head.

  “Rose?” Harmon frowned. “Of course I would. I have no loyalty to her and neither do y— Oh. You didn’t mean Rose.”

  “I meant you’d sell Sienna out to Rose in an instant, if you thought there was an advantage in it,” Zack said quietly. “You’d use those telepathic powers of yours to her benefit without thinking twice.”

  Harmon blinked. “We’re stuck in her head, genius. She can compel me to help her through pain, and unlike you, perhaps, you brave soul, I’m not used to being tortured. I would almost certainly fold given about five seconds. I know myself; I know this to be true. So why would I put myself through prolonged agony when I could just give up and spare myself the trouble?”

  The image of Sienna flashed through Zack’s mind, and a cold truth fell over him as he stared at each of those trapped with him in turn. “You wouldn’t, I guess,” he said, hollowly. “You have no reason to.”

  “Just like Wolfe in that regard,” Harmon said, turning away again. “And speaking of…where is he?” He turned back again, to Graham this time. “With her? Is he her new favorite?”

  “Aye,” Graham said. “He’ll be with her all the time now. Top of mind, because of what he can do. She’s got others like that.” He stared at Harmon. “Given what you can do…she’ll probably come for you, next. She’s got plans right now, though. Hasn’t slept in a couple days, but…when she gets a breather…she’ll be on you, I expect.”

  “Oh, goodie,” Harmon said, but it rang hollow, sarcasm like an ineffectual shield for the small dose of dread that leaked out.

  “She’s got thousands of us in here,” Zack said, looking right at Graham. “Why are you the only one that’s talking to us?”

  “I’m the only one that cares, I guess,” Graham said. “Most of the new ones…you wouldn’t believe the state they arrive in. They come in ones and twos, no connection to each other, hardly. Those that do know each other before she absorbs them—families and whatnot—they’re huddled together like you lot, unless she splits them off. Which she does sometimes. Isolates them.” He folded his arms uncomfortably. “I guess what I’m saying is…not many know their way around like I do, being here since the beginning. It’s a big place now, not like it was when we started. Every soul she absorbed…it’s like they added a little space to the world. Now it’s so big, a new person would get lost without a guide.”

  “Are you our guide?” Zack asked.

  Graham looked right at him. “Maybe. I’m a bit caught between worlds, you see. She doesn’t want me with the others from the village—for obvious reasons, I suppose.” He looked away, and the regret was almost a tangible thing, the roads not taken plain to Zack—for he had a few of those of his own. “So I wander. Most people are shuddering fools when they get here. Hardly a will of their own, being newly minted metas when they’re absorbed. She cows them quick, breaks them down if she needs them. They become servile little slaves to her mind. And that’s that.” He stared at each of them in turn. “You’re the first ones she’s brought in in a long while that had minds of your own still. Which is funny—” he smiled “—because you haven’t had bodies of your own in a long while, too. You should be just about dissolved to your succubus’s will, I would have thought.”

  There was an uncomfortable silence, with Eve and Harmon looking away, Bjorn and Gavrikov staring down. Bastian answered for them: “Sienna…wasn’t like that.”

  “That’s nice,” Graham said. “But ultimately pointless now.” He extended his hands out. “Welcome to your new world. Bid adieu to the old. Because this is your new normal,” he said, and he was rueful as anyone Zack had ever heard. “You’re here now, with us now…” He shook his head, looking once more at the door that Rose had closed on her way out. “She’s got your girl, by the way…and that end is coming up soon.” Zack felt his heart catch in his throat, but Graham did not stop. “So you might as well give up hope of rescue…because this—” and he looked around again “—this is where you are from now on.” He looked pointedly at Harmon. “And escape? Is a fanciful dream.” The president’s eyes dropped. “You may not like it, but this is simply the way things are.” Graham’s voice was low, bitter, and streaked through with sadness.

  “This is how it’s going to be,” he said, a little sadly, “forever and ever. And no one…not your girl Sienna, and not any of you…will beat Rose. You’re here forever…and that’s just a fact.”

  40.

  Reed

  “Reed?” Her voice like a hollow thing, brittle and easily broken, on the edge of cracking.

  “Sienna?” I asked the question of the darkness, because I couldn’t see her. It was all darkness, all around us, deep in the dreamwalk. It always a little dark, but this was an inky, all-consuming sort of black that threatened to drown me in its depths.

  The last thing I remembered was sitting on the airplane, the thrum of the engines the background noise as my brain worked through the impossible fact that we’d been ambushed, that we’d lost Colin somehow, and that we’d nearly lost Chase and Veronika, maybe would have lost the entire crew if we’d disembarked fearlessly.

  “I’m here,” she said in a hushed voice. I still couldn’t see her.

  “I came for you,” I said, and it was a plaintive sort of excuse. “I was in York, and—”

  “Did she get you?” Sienna’s voice was quiet. Terrified.

  “We got away,” I said. “I managed to get the plane in the air. We lost our pilots, but…everyone made it out okay except—”

  “Colin,” she whispered.

  “I sent him after you,” I said, still probing the dark. Why was there no light?

  Why couldn’t I see her?

  “He betrayed me, Reed,” Sienna said. Now she was cool, almost resigned. “He took me out when Rose had me on the ropes.”

  “I might have gotten her, Sienna,” I said, hoping I was right. “She was coming after us, and they’d sent missiles. I steered the
m into her. Maybe…maybe I got lucky—”

  “You didn’t.” The air of finality was punishing.

  “How do you know?” I asked.

  “Because it wouldn’t have finished me.”

  “You’re not invincible,” I said, then strained, feeling like that was a poor point to make at this juncture. “And she’s not, now. You killed Wolfe. You’ve killed…or beaten…everyone you’ve come across.”

  “She got me, Reed,” Sienna said, and I still couldn’t see her, no matter how I tried. “I’m…she got me.”

  “I’m gonna come back for you,” I said, listening to that thin, reedy desperation. I couldn’t remember a time when the hope had so gone out of Sienna’s voice. “I will—I’m going to find a way and—”

  “No.”

  “You can’t stop me,” I said with a smile of pure, false bravado. “The others—we’re not done, Sienna.”

  “If you come back,” she said, “Rose will capture you. And she’ll kill you in front of me.”

  I gritted my teeth, bearing down against the darkness. “Sienna, listen to me—just because I can’t reach you right now—just because it looks like there’s no hope—”

  “There’s no hope.” So quiet.

  So final.

  “You need to hold on,” I said. “You have to—”

  “It’s over, Reed,” she said, and it was like the darkness got more complete. “I’m sorry.”

  “You don’t have to apologize to me!” I shouted, and it echoed in the space we were in. “Sienna—I know who you are, even if you’re forgetting. No one beats you! You don’t let them! And this Rose—she’s not going to w—”

  “I think…” And she emerged out of the dark, a haggard figure, bloody and bruised. “…we should say goodbye now, Reed.” Her eyes were red, but clear, and the slump of her shoulders just…killed me. “Because I don’t know that we’re going to get another chance.”

  “Sienna…” I tried to grab at her, but she was just out of reach. Tried again, and she slipped farther away. “This isn’t over. It doesn’t have to be. You can still fight! You can still—”

 

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