I heard my breath, falling, rising, felt the slow smile creep onto my face that I had to wipe off by sheer force of will; Charlie was right, it was better than anything, better than the sex—
“I am sorry,” Old Man Winter said, staring down at me. “But you left me no choice.”
“Okay,” I said, trying to regain my breath, pragmatic, wondering how long it would be before I could get away from him, from everybody, torn between what had just happened that made me feel so dirty and violated and yet tingly and warm —I wanted to simultaneously shower and cast myself into the fire of the dormitory, feel it scream across my skin, searing all the yuck off of me along with this horrible feeling of being used, lied to, betrayed—
“I very much doubt that it is ‘okay’,” Old Man Winter said, withdrawing. “You are still unready, unwilling to do what it will take. You will hesitate and it will be the death of you. And with you, all our hopes.” He snapped his fingers at Parks and Bastian in turn. “Free Zack from the net…and bring him here.”
It took about two seconds for my mind to register what he had said, and another one or two before I realized what he was intending. “No,” I said, nauseous, disbelieving.
“Sir…” Bastian said under his breath.
“That’s not right,” Parks said, a little louder.
“You’re beyond the line here, Director,” Ariadne said, stepping up next to him.
Old Man Winter was quiet for a long moment. “When our entire species is in danger of being wiped out…there are no lines I am not willing to cross.” He turned calmly back to Bastian. “Bring him.”
“NO!” I shrieked and fought against Clary’s rock-like grip, flailing and kicking. I felt him wrap his arm around my midsection, snugging me tight to him while leaving my arms extended, holding them tight enough to numb them. “No!”
“You can’t do this, sir—” I heard Ariadne say.
“Kappler,” Old Man Winter said, “take her away.”
Eve grabbed hold of Ariadne, who screamed as Eve bent her backwards, causing Ariadne to hold her side in pain. I watched Eve wrap an arm tightly around her and drag her away, even as Ariadne tried to fight back. They disappeared into the smoke.
“Roberto…Glen…” Old Man Winter spoke again, warning. “This is the moment to decide whether you are willing to do what it will take to preserve our world…or whether you are content to die with the others.”
“I…” Parks mouth opened and shut, no words coming out.
“Come on,” Bastian said, landing a hand on Parks’ shoulder and pointing him toward Zack, who lay watching the whole exchange under the net, strangely quiet. “You know why we have to.”
“No, please…” I wasn’t even ashamed that the begging came from me. I could see Zack watching me. “Please, please, please don’t…Clary…Parks…Bastian…Please….”
They had Zack up on his feet, by the arms, and brought him forward, toward me, toward death. I looked up, away, tried to pretend I was anywhere but here, in the ruins of the only place I’d ever really thought of as a home, surrounded by the people I trusted with my life, with my future.
“Look at me,” Old Man Winter said, and I did, even though he was blurry and I had to strain to see him. “You will hate me for this. And that is the way of things. You will never need to thank me, when you realize what I have done to save us all here, today. But you will know, the day will come, and you will realize that I have done what I have done…for the good of all of us…and for your own good.”
“Please…” I pleaded. “Please don’t do this. I will kill whoever you tell me to.”
“You are not a killer,” he said, quiet. “Not yet, anyway.”
I didn’t look at Parks or Bastian, holding Zack by the shoulders and using their meta strength to carry him, struggling, toward me. He stopped struggling when he got within a couple feet, stopped kicking, probably for fear of hitting me. I looked into his eyes, and I was more afraid than I’d ever been in my entire life, than when I’d been locked in the box, than when Wolfe threw me into a wall in my basement, than when I thought Gavrikov was going to nuke me or Fries was going to gut me—
“I’m sorry,” I said to Zack as Clary pressed my numb hands against his face, as Bastian and Parks held him there and I felt his skin against mine, the cool touch of the night air revealing the perspiration on my palms, the slick feeling of fear that was all that stood between my lover and I.
“It’s okay,” he said, and he rubbed his cheek against my hand, as though he were stroking me. “It’s okay. Just…be yourself, Sienna. Please.” He smiled, a glorious, genuine smile that lasted only a second or two before the first waver came, as I felt the burning in my hands, felt the swimming in my head, the flicker of those coffee-brown eyes that I loved, and I saw the tensing of the muscles, the clenching of his teeth, that beautiful smile wiped away, now, aghast with horror and anguish—
“I’m sorry,” I said, and I screamed it, “I’m sorry!” The swirling picked up in my mind as my brain made way for him, and he started to shout on his own, to scream, to cry, jerking in the grip of Parks and Bastian, and I fought back against Clary again, but it was impossible, he was immovable, and I hated them hated them hated them ALL…
“Be…yourself…” Zack said, the only discernible sound in the hurricane around me, the gale-force wind in my mind, the tempest rocking my body and his in a tornado of combination, as he screamed, louder and louder, the pain a driving agony now and tearing him apart—
And then he was still, the brown eyes dull, empty; the soul gone from them.
I felt the nausea double, triple, mix with something else, a kind of reckless joy and rush of euphoria that was a hundred times more powerful than what the chloridamide did to me when it hit the vein, and a kind of weak drowsiness settled over me, the emotion blown, and now I wanted more than ever to throw myself into the fire.
“Let her go,” Old Man Winter said, and Clary dropped me to the ground, where I lay huddled, my head overwhelmed, too many thoughts and minds, even behind the wall of chloridamide that remained. “You will remember this day, and look back, and know that I was right.”
“I will look back on this day, and remember…” I said, “…and I will kill you…the next time I see you…” I looked up at him with all the hatred, all the venom, everything I felt down to the last inch of my soul.
Old Man Winter was above me, Bastian and Parks flanking him, and Clary sidling into line behind them. The old man’s face was indecipherable; there wasn’t any expression. It was like it was when I’d first met him, as though I’d never known him at all.
With that, he turned, and strode off through the carnage, the grass and leaves of the dead summer crunching underfoot. Bastian followed first, then Clary, and finally Parks, though he waited a moment. I didn’t look at them, not at any of them. I didn’t want to dignify them with so much as a glance. I clutched my shoulder tight to me, rubbed my arms, which I could not even feel, and lay on my back, looking up to the sky. I didn’t want to look at the body; I knew they had laid me next to him. I reached out for a hand and found it, his bare skin on mine, but his was cold, and lifeless…and mine was not, no matter how much I wished it were. I curled my face against his chest, and it wasn’t moving now, not like last night or this morning, and I knew I could sleep here next to him, undisturbed by his breath because now there was none.
I stared into the black sky overhead, the smoke and darkness lit only by the fires of the burning Directorate, and I felt a touch of something on my forehead. Another followed, and another, and I opened my eyes. Snowflakes fell in little flurries, wending their way toward the earth, falling down around me, around the chaos of the destroyed campus, the destruction of my life, the end of my world, and I lay there, Zack’s cold hand in mine, as they fell.
27.
Interlude
Chanhassen, Minnesota
The Cadillac’s wheel was tight against his hands; the ache was in them, from the weather , he told
himself, the first flakes of snow hitting the windshield, illuminated by the headlights as he drove down the darkened highway.
“I can’t believe you left Bjorn behind,” Fries said from the backseat. “How could you do that?”
“He disobeyed my order,” Janus said, and gave a reassuring smile to Klementina in the passenger seat, “and he paid the price for it.”
“You let him remain a prisoner of Old Man Winter—” Fries said.
“Hardly,” Janus said. “He’s quite dead, now.”
“Dead?” Fries said into the silence. Madigan, for her part, did not question, did not say a word. She knew. He had worked with her many times before, and she understood the way of things. “You let them kill him?”
“I did not let them do anything,” Janus said. “But I believe Erich Winter has hit his breaking point. You see, Winter is afraid, and Bjorn will suffer the rather unfortunate consequences of that. It’s all part of the plan, you see. All expected.”
“You manipulated him?” Klementina asked, a look of awe on her face. “Old Man Winter and Bjorn?”
“Only Bjorn,” Janus said. “Erich Winter needed no manipulation. Over a hundred years ago, in Peshtigo, Wisconsin, he saw the truth of what we now face, the leader of Century. He knows now how critical Sienna is to the survival of our people, and he will not hesitate to…push her in the right direction.” Janus smiled. “Which, coincidentally, is our direction, though I doubt he fully realizes that right now.” The smile evaporated. “Not that he would care, even if he knew. Meta survival is somewhat higher on his list of concerns than our petty disputes, after all.”
“What is he?” Klementina asked, and even Fries fell silent. “The leader of Century, I mean. I’d heard—well, Kat had—from Old Man Winter that Sienna was important, was vital, but no one seems to want to explain why.”
Janus felt the cold chill run through him too, the remembrance, of a meeting long ago. “So you want to know about the most powerful meta on the planet, do you?”
He could see the hunger in her eyes. “I do.”
“I can only tell you so much; his abilities are beyond that of any class of meta you have ever heard of,” Janus said, with a smile that he didn’t feel. “He is…adaptable. He has powers that no meta should have, abilities you have seen before but in combinations never before possessed by anyone else.”
“Does he have a name?” Klementina asked.
“A thousand of them, Sweetness,” Janus said. “A million perhaps. Excuse me for a moment.” He lifted the disposable cell phone to his ear, and waited to hear the receptionist on the other end. “Message for Alastor. Stanchion went as planned. One casualty, Bjorn Odin-son. All other operatives returning to duty stations. Mission was a success, and Sienna—code-name Savior—will join us within a month.” He halted. “Did you get all that, dear?” The voice repeated it back to him and he listened carefully. “Very good.” He hung up the phone and tossed it back into the center console before closing it.
“‘Savior’?” Fries said from the back seat. “She’s the same kind of meta I am, you know.”
Janus shrugged. “She has something you don’t.”
“What’s that?”
“A soul of her own to start with, I would think,” Janus said, and smiled at Kat. “Enough. Our plans are our own. You will remain in Minneapolis and wait for her to make contact.”
“Are you kidding?” Fries said, dull astonishment from the back seat. “She shot me! What’s going to stop her from killing me if she comes after me again?”
“Human restraint and little else,” Janus replied, “but your life is a sacrifice I’m well prepared to make. Remain here until she makes contact, then we’ll work out some sort of arrangement to her satisfaction.”
“You really think she’s gonna come to me, after everything we’ve been through?” Fries asked in disbelief. “That she’ll be willing to deal? That she won’t shoot me again?”
“Yes to the first,” Janus said, “yes to the second, maybe to the third, but I’m indifferent on the outcome of that one.”
There was a lengthy pause. “What makes you so sure she’ll come to us?”
“Because,” Janus said, and there was little satisfaction in it, “she has nowhere else to go.”
28.
Sienna
I stole a car out of the Directorate employees’ lot. It was Zack’s car. I doubted he’d miss it. It rattled a little—the transmission, a small voice told me, one that I didn’t want to think about yet. It carried me down the road though, the old windshield wipers shrugging off the slowly accumulating snow as I drove down U.S. Highway 212 in the middle of the night, the headlights illuminating the snow that was falling ever faster now, little dots of white that flurried past the beams.
It was well after midnight by the time I had managed to peel myself off the snowy ground and get going. Not a single police siren was to be heard, nothing, nada, and no one was around when I came to. No one but him, his body. I didn’t know whether I had fallen asleep or passed out, and I didn’t much care, either. The car smelled like him, and I wanted to burn it, burn me, make one giant funeral pyre and be done with it. But I couldn’t. Not now.
Not yet.
The freeways were starting to get slushy when I hit Eden Prairie and Interstate 494. I followed the road I’d driven a million times in the last year, took Minnesota Highway 62 toward the south side of Minneapolis, then headed up Interstate 35W. I could see the skyline in the distance as I drove, getting closer and closer. The houses grew older as I went, and when I exited in my old neighborhood, I rolled down the window, felt the flash of cold rush into the car, and realized that the cold was like home to me. The snow was insignificant. It covered the ground the first day I left my house, and for the longest time it was my whole world, a snow-covered, frozen-over hell. Let it snow, I thought, let it come down in volume enough to bury me.
I pulled onto my old street, the trees catching the headlights and casting twisted shadows on the walls of the houses as I drove past. Like the shadows from the flames of the campus, they seemed to take on a life of their own, as though they would reach out for me, take hold of me, shake every bit of decency and life out of me until there was nothing left…
Well, they were welcome to try. I suspected there wasn’t much of either remaining, anyway.
I pulled into my driveway and killed the engine, leaving the keys where they were. I didn’t care if someone stole the car. I almost hoped they did, because it smelled like him, and I could hear the engine the way he heard it, could almost taste his kiss again, as I sat in it.
My feet crunched in the first accumulation of snow, one step at a time as I made my way up the walk. I opened the door to the porch and it swung wide, closing behind me. I felt the handle of the door to the interior of the house, remembered my keys had burned in my dorm room, and twisted the lock until I heard it break. I pulled out the guts and used my finger to twist it. It broke the skin, but I didn’t care. A bleeding finger was insignificant compared to the other things that were on my mind.
I opened the door and stood silhouetted in the darkness of the living room. I felt a flash of memory, a thought of his, not mine—of him and Kurt, making their way across this room. Kurt hit the coffee table with his leg, making a noise. I could hear their breathing, steady, the motion, the smell of the outside—my memory now, intersecting with the other. I shook my head, tried to forget it, to put it out of my mind. I closed the door behind me, shrouding the room in darkness.
Darkness. Peace. Quiet. Nothing moved, there was no sound. Bliss.
I looked to the hallway, and I could see my old bedroom from here, remembered I had been lying there when—
I put it out of my mind again, tried to quiet it, to shut it up. “I don’t want to think about that now,” I said to the empty room. “I don’t want to think about it.” My eyes went back to my bedroom door, and in the midst of the familiar sights and smells of my childhood, I smelled another.
; Zack’s cologne.
I walked to the bedroom door and looked at the bed where I had lain when he woke me up the first time. My prince. Not with a kiss, but his very presence, jarring me awake. And I’d hit him for it. In the groin. I pulled the door closed, put my back against it. “No,” I whispered. “No— no— no…”
I drew a deep breath, the ghosts of memory plaguing me. I tried to separate myself from it, from the smells, from the sounds, the phantom thoughts and memories that wouldn’t stop. “Fine,” I said, “just fine, be that way.” I walked ahead, to the old, wooden door, and turned the handle. The steps led down, turning on a wooden landing below, though I couldn’t see it. I knew every step by memory, having walked it a thousand times, and I closed my eyes and felt for the handrail. I heard the creak of the floorboards and the rattle of the water heater over in the far corner of the basement, but I didn’t care. All these sounds were familiar, but they weren’t intimidating. I didn’t fear them.
I didn’t have much left to fear.
When I reached the bottom step, I took a few more forward. The neighbor’s porch light shone in through the window I’d had replaced almost a year ago after Reed broke through it while making an escape. I could see the light through the snow, the definition gone but the light remained, just a little bit, almost like moonlight shining through the glass. It caught my face, and I turned, looking toward the corner for it, for the shadow.
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