“Don’t do anything stupid while I’m gone,” he said, letting his hand rest on my shoulder for another moment before he started toward the door.
“You mean like fighting off an Omega attack on our campus?” I smiled through the screaming crying in my head. “Wouldn’t dream of it.”
He paused at the door and gave me a nod. “You know…I wish I’d told you. Earlier, you know. When we first met. I should have trusted you could handle it. We could have had…so much more time…to talk about it, and whatnot.”
I made my face a mask, tried to pretend concrete had been poured over it so my cheeks wouldn’t move, but even still I felt my eyes get glazed, blurry. “I wouldn’t have believed you,” I said. “I didn’t know what family really felt like until…” I looked around, suddenly a little embarrassed. “I’m glad you waited until I was ready.”
He looked like he wanted to say something else, but he rapped his hand against the doorframe, a nervous thing, a few different emotions alternating on his face. I thought he might speak, but he finally just turned and disappeared into the hallway with a last wave—but no last look.
It was just as well. I felt the first drops coming down my cheeks, hot, stinging, and I wondered when or if I’d see my brother again.
18.
The fading shadows of day were growing long when I reached my quarters. The darkening sky reflected the grim sadness closing in on me as I lay on my couch and waited for the sun to set. I felt like I was being swallowed up in the inevitability of the darkness. I thought of Scott, and how I’d seen him earlier, a shell of his former self, and I wallowed in misery like he did. In spite of my brave face for Reed, I worried about when Omega was coming, about what form their attack would take, and who, if anyone, would be taken. I felt my cheek against the soft velvet of the chair I was lying against, and I watched the darkness descend in my room as the shadows rose along the walls with the fall of day, and I felt hopeless, truly hopeless, for the first time in a long time.
A knock woke me from a sleep I didn’t even know I was in. I hesitated at the door. “Who is it?”
“No one,” came Zack’s voice from the other side. “Well, maybe someone. I dunno. What do you think?”
I opened the door to see him standing tall, wearing a sweater that made him look particularly dashing, kind of…homespun, in a way. I pulled him to me, letting the door close. I kissed him full on the lips for as long as I thought I could get away with, and then hugged him tight, felt the fuzz of his sweater against my cheek. “You’re somebody to me.”
“Whoa, there,” he said. “Take it easy on that meta strength.” I loosened the grip, not realizing how hard I had been holding him, and he smiled down at me. “What’s the matter?” he asked, his smile fading. “What’s wrong?”
“Reed left,” I said, stifling emotion. “His bosses ordered him home, and he didn’t want to go, but Old Man Winter told him to, so…he left.”
Zack did not react to this for a moment, almost seeming like he was rocking back on his heels. “Wow. I guess I figured Reed would stick around no matter what.”
“He wanted to,” I said, leading Zack back to the couch. “He really wanted to, but…he’ll be back in a few days.” I sat down on the couch and Zack sat on the arm of it. He seemed uncomfortable, and I looked at him quizzically but he waved it off. “I don’t know. I think it’s gonna get bad.”
“I don’t get it,” Zack said. “We’ve captured three of their operatives in the last few days, I mean, some tough ones, too, as I understand it. Fries is a pretty nasty incubus from the reports I’ve read. Bjorn didn’t sound like a real picnic; I mean, for strength he had to be top of the scale, and this last one, Madigan—I haven’t seen the report yet, but a Thor-type? Nasty. They’re throwing their A-listers at you, and you’re bouncing them back like they’re nothing.” He gave me an encouraging smile. “Unless this Operation Stanchion consists of stacking all their people in our jail cells until they burst at the seams, it would appear that they are losing this round so far.” He hesitated, and looked to me for approval. “Wouldn’t it?”
“Yes,” I said. “No. I don’t know. The problem is the uncertainty. Yeah, you’re right, we’ve kicked the ass of everything they’ve sent along so far, with some skill, some luck—but it just feels like…they’re in the shadows. They’re unknown. We’re in the dark, waiting for something bad to happen. You ever have that? Where you’re waiting for something you think is gonna be bad, and it comes and it wasn’t as bad as what you anticipated?”
“Sure,” Zack said. “That’s exactly what I’m saying. The fact that you’re beating their best, taking down every meta they throw at you…doesn’t that give you some confidence that with everything we’ve got at our disposal, that we can take whatever they push at us and cram it right back down their throat?”
“Maybe. I just know that what they’ve thrown at us so far hasn’t exactly gone down painlessly.” I pointed to the wall, on the other side of which lay Scott’s quarters. “Look at what happened to Kat. She’s never gonna remember a thousand things about her relationship with Scott. And that’s pretty mild as far as consequences go, but it’s devastated him. What if they kill someone? What if their attack is focused, and determined, and draws a bead on one person and just…takes them out?” I bit my lip. “That’s what I’m afraid of. That this time they’re not coming to capture me at all, that they’re coming to kill Old Man Winter so that they hit the Directorate in a place where it never recovers.”
Zack slid off the arm of the couch to sit next to me. “It’s sweet that you’re more worried about the Director than yourself in all this.”
“I worry about you, too, lunkhead,” I said, and put my head on his shoulder, letting my hair flow down his chest. “Humans are just disposable foot soldiers to Omega.”
“I haven’t forgotten,” Zack said, and I could hear the tightness in his voice. “A lot of my buddies died when they decided to wipe out our agent ranks, you know.”
“I know.” I let my hand run along the front of his sweater, coming to rest on his collar. I wasn’t wearing my gloves, because I hadn’t bothered to replace the ones Eve had sullied with one of the numerous spare sets in my closet yet. I avoided his skin, instead rubbing the soft threads between my thumb and forefinger. “You should get out of here for a few days. Maybe take a vacation.”
I felt his head turn more than saw it. I didn’t want to read his reaction, but I heard it in his voice. “You know I’m not leaving you.”
I felt the weight of my head against his shoulder, and I wondered if it felt like the weight of the world to him. “Yeah. I know.”
He took his hand and ran it across my cheek and I realized for the first time he was wearing a glove, a very soft, almost skin-like glove. I glanced down, expecting to see fabric but saw a flesh-toned color in its stead. “You like it?”
I ran my hand across his, felt the ripple of my nerves, my flesh, as we touched for longer than we ever had before. “Did you…?”
“Picked it up this afternoon,” he said with a ready smile. “Doc Sessions made it more flesh-colored, said he thought that’d be less…I dunno, odd or something.” He pulled his sleeve up and I saw his arm, covered with the material of the suit. I ran a hand up his to his bicep and gave it a squeeze, as though I were touching him, really touching him. “You like?”
“I like.” I let my fingers stay on his arm, then ran them further up his sleeve to his shoulder. “And it goes…?”
“Pretty much everywhere,” he said, pulling down his turtleneck to reveal the top edge of the suit around his neck. “Hands, feet, toes, and uh…” he hesitated, “everywhere in between. It stretches, too,” he said, suddenly looking uncomfortable, “so, you know…it uh…it works uhm…well. And whatnot.”
My hands found their way down to the bottom of his sweater, and I lifted the bottom edge of it, sliding my hands along his waist, working the material of the suit between my fingers, feeling it give and stretch as I kn
eaded it. “And you can feel everything through it? It’s not…”
“Oh, yes,” he said, nodding. “I can feel everything. It’s thin, really thin, and it’s almost like touching, no barrier in the way.” I leaned in and nuzzled his neck, kissing the area covered by the thin sheen of the suit, and I heard him take a sharp inhalation. “Yep. I can definitely feel that.” I broke away and came up after a moment and my eyes met his. “Are you sure you’re ready?” His whole face was patient expectation mixed with desire, and I could read it in him as though it were written in letters across his chest, his face.
“I’m ready,” I said. “I’ve been ready for this for…so long. I just…we still have to be careful.”
He smiled. “We’ll take our time.” His hand ran along my arm, taking my hand, his fingers threaded through mine, no glove, as real as if he were truly touching me. I felt the warmth, the pressure of his squeeze, and I closed my eyes. “I love you.”
“I love you, too.” I tried to return his smile but it faltered.
“You sure?” he asked, and I felt the concern in his touch this time, the way the pressure was different, no leather between my hand and his, no cold cowhide holding back the subtleness of his caress.
I opened my eyes. “I’m sure.” I kissed him again, and then stood, taking his hand in mine. “Never been surer of anything.”
He ran his hand over my cheek, a caress I’d felt a thousand times briefly. This time it lingered, sweetly. I felt his hand in mine, and I looked in his eyes. I led him toward my bedroom, just as we had a hundred times before. But this time was different, new, unfamiliar, and when we passed through I shut the door behind me, as though I could close out all the distractions, all the worries, all the thoughts of Reed, and Omega, and Old Man Winter, and leave them outside. I closed the door and we went inside, and left everything of the outside world behind until morning.
19.
I awoke to the steady in and out of breath being drawn, and light sliding across the floor from the enormous windows that lined the wall of my room. The sun was streaming in from overhead, already high in the sky, shining bright light on my entire apartment.
I felt Zack close to me; for the first time, I’d tried falling asleep on his shoulder, something that was never truly possible before. I hadn’t stayed that way, unfortunately, because I’d discovered after an hour or so that his every breath, every move was jarring, and I had rolled over but remained close. His every movement wasn’t quite so distracting this way and he was still so much nearer than he’d ever been before we had the suit.
I watched his face as he slept, the closed eyelids and relaxed look upon his handsome features, the easy comfort. I didn’t want to wake him, and I didn’t want to leave. I pondered tiptoeing to the bathroom because the need to go was urgently rising, but I held out as long as I could, then used meta strength and agility as well as a tremendous amount of patience to move as slowly as possible to extricate myself from the covers without disturbing him.
I followed the beams of light across the floor to the bathroom, shutting the door before I turned on the light. After I finished taking care of my business, I washed my hands and leaned forward on the marble counter, looked at the mirror above the vanity. The bathroom was spacious, the toilet a solid eight feet from the door and the glass-encased shower just beyond it. There was an independent heating unit that began to run when I turned on the light, cutting the chill in the air as I felt the prickle of cold cause my flesh to goosepimple as I stood there, staring at my face in the mirror.
Little doll , came the voice of Wolfe, just a whisper, in the back of my mind. The image of myself, nude, in the mirror, didn’t change, but it was almost as though I could see him looking out from behind my eyes. Once, it would have sent me in a scramble to find clothes. Now, I didn’t even move. I just let him stare, because that was all he was good for. Staring and some chatter.
“I’ll get to dealing with you in a minute, Wolfe,” I said, looking into the darkness of my own eyes. I had heard Wolfe and Gavrikov, the voices in my head, in the past when they had something ridiculously urgent to tell me, but I suspected the effort they had to expend in those instances required cooperation by both of them to be heard. The chloridamide I injected lasted for a good twenty hours and forgetting my dose, which I had last night, was the only way I ever saw them like this. And then, it was only ever one of them. Ironically , it was the one of them I couldn’t stand and would never have voluntarily chosen to share my brain with, not in a million billion years.
They’re coming for you, little doll .
“This I’ve heard,” I told him, far more casual than I felt. “You want to tell me why?”
Don’t know , he said, his voice a rasp. I could feel his eyes using mine to study my curves. Letting him do what he was doing now was my ultimate show of disdain for him. I could feel the disgust somewhere deep inside, but I couldn’t tell if it originated from him or me. Wolfe went where Wolfe was told, didn’t ask questions when it came to playing with little dolls like you .
“Well, I bet they were all just as charmed by you as I was,” I said to the mirror, to my image and the one deep behind it. “It’s a shame none of them ever had the ability to kill you before I came along, because it would have been worlds better than having you stuck in my head—”
They’re coming for you , Wolfe’s voice came again, urgent. Janus isn’t like the others they’ve sent. Vampires? Henderschott? Even that delicate little morsel Fries…they are insignificant compared to the Wolfe. But Janus …There was almost the sound of a hiss inside my head, as though Wolfe were drawing away at the thought of the name.
“You’re afraid of him. He frightens you.” I felt the umbrage at my words, the hiss of anger. “Why? Why does he scare you?”
Wolfe fears no man , the words came, no man and no beast, either. But Janus…is strong. Powerful of body and mind. And he has the ear of those at the top of Omega, he is the loudest voice of their old guard, still at odds with the new regime . The others fail. Henderschott failed, constantly. Wolfe owned a piece of his face after one of his failures. Janus does not fail. Not ever.
“So now we’ve progressed from the unkillable man,” I said, pointing at Wolfe’s image behind mine in the mirror, “to Iron Man, to a guy who tried to get in my pants before smooth talking me into joining Omega, to vamps and a traitor, and more recently the three stooges.” I took a deep breath, drawing confidence from the lineup I’d just listed. “Now they’re sending me a man who won’t fail. Got it. I bet they didn’t think any of the others were failures, either.”
You’ve gotten the dregs since me because they’re dealing with bigger matters, Wolfe said in a low hiss. You were always in the back of their minds, always at the side of their focus. Now they turn all their attention on you, and you will feel the strength of Omega descend on you, the power of the gods of old will rain down hell upon your life.
I tugged the little leather kit from of the drawer by the sink and pulled a needle free from the stock I had, then drew a few milliliters of chloridamide into the syringe and pressed it into my vein, the same one I used every day, because it healed to perfection between doses thanks to my meta powers.
You will break, little doll . The eyes stared at me from behind mine as I looked up to the mirror, those black, soulless eyes, pools of nothing but darkness. You will look back on this moment and wish that you’d listened to the Wolfe…
I pushed the plunger and felt the rush of the narcotic as it hit home; it was always a curious sensation, as though the world went slightly muted when I injected, a little feeling of drowsy satisfaction. “I don’t think I’ll ever be sorry that I don’t have to listen to you, Wolfe.” I didn’t hear a response from him, his voice quieted, and I smiled, my own smile, all the way up to my eyes, visible in the mirror. Nothing of him remained with me now, not even the faintest trace.
I saw movement in the mirror and the door opened as Zack stepped inside, his naked body visible under the thin
mesh of the suit he still wore. “Good morning,” he said as he wrapped his arms around me and I felt the press of him against my back—in several spots of my back, actually.
“Hi there.” I turned to face him, pressing my flesh against him, feeling his warmth even as my feet touched the cold tile floor. I ran a hand down his chest, felt the firmness of his muscles and let out a little sigh of contentment. I gave him a long, sweet kiss and broke just when I heard him gasp slightly. “Sorry.”
“It’s all right,” he said with a smile. “Just in time, it was starting to get that first feeling of ow.” He squeezed me in his arms and I lay my head against his chest.
I held there for almost a minute, just enjoying the feeling of being close to him, then a devilish thought lit my mind and I raised my head to look at him. “Do we…have time?”
He looked pained. “Again? I have to tell you…other girls I’ve talked to, you know, after the first time, they’re not really as…um…enthusiastic, let’s say. I mean you seem fine and all, I just mean I hope it didn’t hurt too much.”
“I barely felt it at all,” I said, putting my head against his chest. I froze there for a second, and then pulled myself off his chest to look him in the face. “That’s not what I meant,” I said, watching him raise an eyebrow. “What I meant is that compared to the pain I’ve experienced in my life, it was fairly small. Pain-wise, I mean.” I slapped myself on the forehead. “A small amount of pain! Not that I didn’t feel it, because I did, and it felt good, but…” I sighed. “You know what I mean. I hope you know what I mean. It was very good. I liked it a lot. I would like to do it again, as soon as possible.”
“I think I got what you mean,” he said, with almost a smile. “You were already…prepared…and so the little pain you felt was not that big of a deal compared to the beatings you’ve experienced in the last year.”
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