“You’ve got a way with words,” I said, pulling close to him again. “I wish I had a way with words right about now. Instead, I’m fumbling, a mess, all that.”
“It’s all right. But to answer your earlier question, I have to go.” He gently pulled from me. “We have a meeting with the other agents, preparations for when this Operation Stanchion lands on us.”
“What are you going to do?” I asked.
“Stay out of the way as much as possible if it’s a meta assault,” he said, taking a slow walk out the bathroom door and back into the bedroom, fishing his boxer shorts out of a pile of clothing next to the bed. He came up with my underwear as well and tossed it to me. I caught it in one hand. “Our job is to effect an evacuation of the campus, not to get into a rumble with Omega’s metas. We’re assigning out those industrial strength electro cannons like we used on Wolfe, but we’ve only got a half dozen of them. We’ve got some dart guns that will put most metas down, but they take a few seconds to work, so pistols and rifles are going to be option one. We’ve got some shotgun shells that have some extra pop to them, and some slug-throwing shotguns that’ll put a hole in an elephant. Other than that…” He shrugged. “Like I said, we’re evacuating and trying to make way for you metas to rumble to your heart’s content.”
“My heart’s quite content with no rumbling,” I said, and slipped on my panties. “I could use a nice long vacation about now.”
Zack smiled. “Like Italy?”
“Somewhere tropical,” I said. “Somewhere warm. It’s about to get really cold here in Minnesota again, you know.”
“Having lived here my whole life, I was dimly aware of that fact.”
“I’ve never been outside the Midwest,” I said, looking out the window at the sun, already high in the sky. “I remember thinking when Wolfe was coming for me how much I wanted to be somewhere, anywhere else.”
“I remember,” he said. “But you knew he’d find you.”
“Yeah. I should take those vacation days they gave me, and go somewhere good.” I stepped closer to him, rubbed a hand along the smooth covering over his chest as he placed his shirt on and left it unbuttoned. “What do you think? You, me, a sandy beach, warm sun overhead, crystal blue waves—”
“I think that sounds like a vacation that is a little above my pay grade.” He smiled. “But I like the sound of it. It sounds like more fun than that time we took a day off and went to Valley Fair.”
“I had fun with that,” I said, and slapped him on the shoulder. “You remember the list?”
“You mean the list of things you were supposed to do in your life?” he asked. “We did a good number on that list this last summer, you know.”
“We did indeed.” I stood up on my tiptoes and gave him a peck on the cheek that lasted a fraction of a second. “I had another list, you know.”
He turned his head to look at me. “Oh, yeah? What was on it?”
“Well,” I said with a nod toward the bed, “this was right up there.”
He let out a chuckle. “Mission accomplished, huh? Guess you better start making a new list, or things will start to get boring.”
I let a hand slip across his chest again. “I don’t think I’ll get bored with this for a good, long while.”
A flicker of amusement crossed his face as he buttoned his shirt. “That’s a relief. If you were tired of it already I’d be a little worried; like maybe I was out of practice or something.”
“Oh, yeah?” I let my fingers find the buttons he had just done and unbutton them one by one, pulling his shirt down and trapping his arms. “Well, we can’t have that, can we?”
“Sienna…” he said plaintively, “…I’m going to be late…”
“We don’t know what’s coming or when,” I said. “This may be the last breather we get for a while, and I don’t think that Omega is going to launch an all—out assault on the Directorate in broad daylight. All I want,” I said, unbuttoning his pants, “the only thing on my list now…is repetition.” I steered him to the bed and pushed him down, climbing up onto him and staring down. “I think you can handle being late for once in your life.” And I brought my head down to kiss his neck.
“Hmmm,” Zack said, his voice sounding in my head like the moans he emitted whenever we had been together in my dreams. “Maybe just this once…”
20.
I was late for breakfast, and I knew it as I closed the door to my quarters. Zack had left a half hour earlier, but I needed time to shower and doll myself up (okay, I didn’t really do that, but I still liked to feel clean). I paced down the hallway, and stopped at the corner next to the elevator. Scott was waiting there before me, and the elevator dinged, the doors opened, and he started to get in.
I followed him, sneaking in just as the doors began to close. “Morning,” I said as he acknowledged me with a nod. He had a suitcase in one hand and a backpack on his back. “Umm…are you…” I tried to find a way to not come out and say it, but failed, “…bailing out before it hits the fan?”
His jaw set, and I could almost hear his teeth grind as the elevator dropped, floor by floor. “I’m leaving, yeah.”
“Why?” I felt a sudden deprivation of oxygen, and wondered what the hell had happened to the atmosphere in the elevator car.
“Because I’ve been ordered to go on medical leave by Dr. Perugini and Ariadne,” he snapped at me, turning his head long enough to give me a searing look. “Because when I try to use my power, I think about Kat and this happens—” He held a hand out and a tiny squirt of water came forth, no more than a few droplets that fell immediately to the carpeted floor of the elevator, making little dark spots in the beige carpet. “Because I’m pretty much useless to everybody now, Sienna, so they’re sending me home, out of the way, where I won’t be a danger to anyone but my parents and my siblings, and not much of one at that.”
The elevator doors opened to the lobby and Scott’s hand returned to his suitcase, which he dragged along behind him. “Scott, wait,” I said, and he slowed. I ran to catch up with him. “I’m sorry,” I said. “Sorry for Kat, sorry for everything.”
“I told you it wasn’t your fault,” he said with his lower jaw jutting out, as though he was encouraging me to aim for it, to hit him or something. “And now I’m pretty much out of the fight because I’ve gone and turned my head into a spaghetti noodle of twisty ties.” He waved a hand at me. “Or something. I don’t know.”
“Have you talked to Kat?” I asked.
“No,” he said, sullen. “I tried a couple times…the first, she didn’t even recognize me.” He adjusted the backpack over his shoulder. “The second time I couldn’t even find her to say goodbye. I’m sorry I’m not more use. Sorry I can’t…” He shook his head. “I’m just sorry, in every definition of the word.” His eyes came up, and met mine. “Get out of here, Sienna.”
“Can’t do that,” I said. “Not after last time. How many people died? You should know.”
“I should,” he said, “but I guess I don’t. I was too hard on you last time.” He broke a weak smile. “Kinda hard not to be scared when you don’t feel like you have any power to fight with, huh?” He looked at me soberly. “Good luck, Sienna.”
“I’ll need it,” I said, as I watched him wend his way to the exit doors, the suitcase he carried looking like a burden that was almost too much for him, though I knew for a fact it wasn’t at all what was causing his shoulders to slump.
When I walked into the cafeteria, they were already starting to clean up the buffet from breakfast, and there was no one else standing in the line. I caught a few dirty looks from the cafeteria ladies, but that wasn’t exactly new for me, so I didn’t sweat it. I filled my plate with cold eggs, colder toast, and a mug of coffee laden with a ton of cream and sugar, then made my way to one of the countless empty tables. The glass windows that surrounded two sides of the cafeteria provided me with an expansive view of the autumn-laced grounds; leaves were everywhere. Presumably, the gardening
crew would normally have dealt with them, but they were now off work for the week. The cafeteria was also emptier than it normally would have been, and I wondered if the administrative staff was also off work because of the pending threat.
“You’re not real social, you know that?” I turned at the sound of the voice, unaware that anyone had even noticed me. Standing a couple tables away was the kid whom I had seen staring at me only a couple days earlier. “You don’t really talk to anyone but your little group of friends, you know? You kinda put out a…‘get lost’ vibe.”
“Oh, good,” I said, “it’s still working. Or, apparently not, since here you are, talking to me.”
“I can leave,” he said, beginning to turn away.
“What do you want, kid?” I asked. He wasn’t really a kid, probably only a year or two younger than me, but if he was gonna make with the fawning puppy eyes, I wanted to start putting some distance between us now, rather than later.
“I’m not a kid,” he said, as he turned back around. I disagreed with his assessment, but then, I couldn’t fault him for trying. I would have said the same thing at fifteen.
“Sure you’re not,” I said, laying the patronizing tone on thick. I figured if I gave him enough reasons to leave me alone by being both a smartass and condescending, he couldn’t fail to get the message that I wasn’t interested in him in any way.
“I’m not.” He said it with a decent amount of confidence. “But I don’t suppose that matters.”
“Not to me. What do you want?”
He gave a subtle nod to the chair directly across from me. “Mind if I…?”
I stared at the chair for a beat before turning back to look at him again, his dark hair, overlarge glasses; he looked as though he were trying devilishly hard to be the biggest geek possible. “Do I mind if you…what? Take that chair, turn it upside down and sit on it? Be my guest, but do it elsewhere.” I smiled and took a bite of my eggs.
“Wow,” he said, and his face didn’t fall from my insult, not even a little bit. “I guess it’s true what they say about you?”
“Oh, yeah?” I asked, and turned my head to look down at my food. “What do they say about me? Am I a ball buster? A pain in the ass? A personality wrapped in barbed wire and coated in rubbing alcohol?” I looked back up at him and smiled. “If that’s what they say, then yeah, it’s true. I’m not the greatest people person you’ll ever meet.”
He squinted a little bit through his glasses, adjusting them to look at me. “That’s the gist, I guess. Some less flattering, more succinct ways it’s put, but you captured the common theme there.”
“You’re not telling me anything I don’t already know,” I said, and took a bite of my bacon.
He faltered, as though he was going to walk away, but he didn’t. “But you’ve got friends. You’ve got people who seem to enjoy your presence, so I’m guessing you’re not like that all the time, at least not with everybody. I don’t see you act like that with your boyfriend.”
“You’re rapidly entering the territory of being a creepo,” I said, looking up, taking my coffee and sipping it while I watched him through half-closed eyes. “Why are you watching me?”
“I’m not stalking you or anything,” he said, unabashed. I was a little put off by his self-assurance; it was annoying. “We eat in the same place every day, so it’s not like it takes a special effort on my part to look across the cafeteria and notice the difference between how you are when your friends are around, and how you are when I run into you elsewhere on campus.” He laughed, mirthless. “I saw you stomp your foot and make a move toward a lower classman a few weeks ago. We all laughed at him, because he almost soiled his pants. People are scared of you, and you want ‘em to be scared. Why?”
“Maybe I had a rough childhood,” I said, not really believing that was an excuse, but wishing he’d take it and leave me the hell alone.
“Maybe a lot of people did,” he said, not moving.
“True,” I said, “but I’m not in charge of their lives.”
“Do you…” He paused. “Do you really just want to be left alone?”
“Right now? Yes.” I sipped my coffee.
“I see.” A nod of the head. “Is it because you genuinely always want to be alone, or is it because I’m asking you questions that are making you really uncomfortable?”
I sighed and set my coffee down. My appetite was dwindling from annoyance. “Are you some kind of shrink in training? Did Dr. Zollers have a powerful influence on you before he left? Give you direction for your life? Or are you just incredibly nosy and personally grating?”
“I’m just curious about you,” he said, and didn’t even bother to blush. “Is that wrong? I watch you, I think you’re pretty, the other guys think you’re pretty, but everyone but the upper echelon is scared to death of you—all the underclassmen, hell, even the cafeteria workers.” He waved a hand around. “And you don’t seem to give a damn about your bad reputation.”
“What can I say? I was inspired by Joan Jett.”
“Why?” He looked at me, and I caught a hint of something in his eyes, some undying curiosity, and in his mousy face there was something else, something unplaceable and yet familiar. And oddly cute, in a deeply annoying way. “Why are you trying so hard to keep everyone at a distance? You’re the leader of the second generation M-Squad…you’re looked up to and feared by every one of the kids at school here. Why don’t you care? Why do you want everyone at arms length?”
“Listen, kid…” I put aside my annoyance. “What’s your name?”
He looked around, as if afraid someone would hear him. “Joshua. Josh. Harding.”
“Nice,” I said. “Listen, Josh, Joshua, Mr. Harding, whatever. I’m a prickly person, okay? I’ve had a few…shall we say…incidents here at the Directorate, some things that might have turned a few people against me. Now, maybe I reacted poorly to those setbacks, maybe I could have used more social skills to smooth things over. But no, I went in a different direction and embraced it. I’ve got a circle of friends, people I trust. There’s only enough room for a few on that ship at any point in time. Understand…it’s nothing personal. Forgive me for my limitations, and I’ll forgive you for imposing on my personal time and space.”
He looked at me, then surveyed the area around us. “Personal space? I’m like ten feet away from you.”
“To a succubus,” I said, taking another slow, casual sip of my coffee, “that’s like an inch. I could take your soul from here.”
He cracked a smile. “Now you’re just lying. You have to touch a person to use your power.”
“Damn. And I was hoping the rumor mill would spread one about me that I could take souls with a look. It’d keep people out of my way.”
He shrugged. “You really want people out of your way bad enough that you’re okay with them thinking things that aren’t true about you?”
I felt my coffee grow cold in front of me, and I struggled to fake a smile. “Look, I’m a soul-taker…being a succubus is kind of a metaphor for my personality, too. It makes my life easier, having everyone think I’m a badass who just doesn’t care.”
“Huh,” he said, and he didn’t really let off with the eye contact, which was annoying in a vaguely Old-Man-Winter-Jr. sort of way, “I just thought it made you kind of lonely. But hey,” he said, and smiled under the glasses and bushy hair, “I get it. Your boat is full. I’ll leave you alone. But…” he smiled. “If you ever maybe get a space open on that limited engagement boat of yours…I might know someone that would clamor to get on it.”
“Purely out of concern for my loneliness and well-being, I’m sure.”
“Hell, no,” he said. “I kinda got a crush on you. Are you blind or something?”
I rolled my eyes. “Kid, my touch kills people. I’ve been trying politely to tell you to ‘spin off’ this whole time—”
“That was ‘politely’? You need to read How to Win Friends and Influence People .”
“
I’ve never read that one. But I have seen the movie Die Hard a good dozen times,” I said with a little sarcasm, “and it strikes me that it might be more useful in my line of work.” I waved my hand for him to scram. “I appreciate your well meaning attempts to ingratiate yourself with me, but people who get close to me do so at their own risk. And, as mentioned, I do have a boyfriend. And he is…considerably older than you. No offense. So…yeah.” I smiled at him. “Thank you, Josh Harding.”
He shrugged like he didn’t care. “Don’t be a stranger, Sienna Nealon.” He walked away, and disappeared out the doors of the cafeteria. I hadn’t met a lot of adults who carried themselves with his level of swagger, let alone seen it in someone younger than myself.
I finished my coffee in two swallows and made my way out of the cafeteria a few minutes later, tracing a path across the grounds, ignoring the blustery wind that fought me the whole way. I entered the lobby of the headquarters building to find it quiet, the usual hum of workers absent. I stood by the elevator bank alone, and rode up in the car by myself. When the doors opened on the cubicle farm on the fourth floor, I saw no one; I half expected a lone tumbleweed to blow by as I stepped out. The overhead fluorescent lights weren’t even on.
I walked to Ariadne’s office, where the door stood open. I saw Ariadne through the viewing window, Eve standing just behind her, Kappler’s hands on her shoulders in a familiar way, pushing aside Ariadne’s red hair. Eve massaged her neck while Ariadne worked on the computer, her reading glasses perched on her nose.
“Hey, Sienna,” I heard a voice call from behind me. I turned to see J.J. cutting through the main aisle of cubicles, heading toward me.
“J.J.,” I said calmly. “What, are you too important to be allowed some shore leave?”
“Yeah. This is the problem with being the linchpin of the Directorate’s electronic intelligence efforts…no time off.”
“At least you’re fully appreciated for your efforts,” I said, trying to reassure him.
“I think I’d rather have the time off.”
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