Control: Out of the Box (The Girl in the Box Book 38)

by Robert J. Crane

  Impervious was humming something under his breath; The O'Jays “For the the Love of Money,” Veronika realized.

  Yep. The payoff was definitely ahead. “Get ready,” she said. She knew they all heard her.

  CHAPTER ONE HUNDRED TWENTY-ONE

  Sienna

  “You ready for this?” he asked as we arrived.

  My eyes were closed, and I sat in the darkness, steeling myself for what was about to go down.

  Chapman had to be stopped.

  But putting myself into a situation like this, against a foe who had – frankly, not a chance in hell against me – well...

  “I don't feel great about it,” I said, taking slow, steady breaths to keep my heart rate down, “but...it is what it is.”

  “There are no innocent parties in this,” he said. “Just tell me when you're ready...and we'll go.”

  He was right about that much, at least.

  One last breath, and I nodded.

  “Let's do it.”

  CHAPTER ONE HUNDRED TWENTY-TWO

  Veronika

  “That's the bunker wall,” Metalmind announced as Rockrigger moved aside the last of the earth.

  And there it was, surely, a smooth, steely obstacle in the center of the tunnel, impeding all forward progress.

  Veronika took a deep breath of the dank, earthy smell that permeated the tunnel, then another, reveling in the cool air, trying to transfer the chill feeling to her skin, to her belly, where the butterflies seemed to be dominating.

  “This is it, ladies and gents,” Impervious drawled. “The moment you've all been waiting for.”

  Veronika stepped up as Rockrigger moved back, his broad shoulders impeding her path for a second til he shuffled aside for her.

  Metalmind was waiting for her, looking at her almost impassively, but with a glint in her eyes. And not just from the glow sticks. “How do you want do this?”

  Veronika ran a hand over the metal surface of the bunker. “You can't just pull it open?”

  Metalmind shrugged. “I could. It'd be loud and messy. Take a minute or two at that thickness.”

  “Let's keep it quiet, then,” Veronika said, lighting up her hand into a pure blue of burning plasma. “I cut, you clear the metal out of the way?”

  “Sure thing,” Metalmind said, smirking, as she took a step back.

  Veronika brought a finger up to the metal and it slid right in like she was pushing it into...butter. Warm butter, yeah. That was the ticket.

  She sunk her hand in, burying it up to the middle of the forearm, the whole thing glowing bright blue as she carved a square the size of a man in the wall and stepped aside.

  Metalmind waved a hand and the metal square, still glowing around the edges, soared back through the tunnel, weaving past the members of the team before clattering somewhere out of sight.

  There was noise ahead in the bunker, and Veronika nodded at Shinyman. “Lead on, big guy. Metalmind – you're behind him.”

  Shinyman didn't need to be told twice; he barged right past her, in through the opening, Metalmind three steps behind with a hand held out in front of her to catch bullets.

  “Clear,” Metalmind announced a moment later, and in went Veronika–

  Into the presidential bunker, her team of assassins with her.

  CHAPTER ONE HUNDRED TWENTY-THREE

  Chapman

  “They are walking across the lobby,” Devin said, and sure enough, there they went.

  They crossed the room as Chapman watched. “I really regret not booby-trapping the hotel room before I left,” he said. “But I guess that kind of thing is probably illegal in Washington, huh?” He flashed Chase an irony-laced smile.

  “Probably,” she agreed.

  “Oh, well,” he said. It was illegal in California, too, but he'd had his door here loaded up with a particularly nasty booby trap of that sort. “The shock of her failure's going to have to be the consolation pr–”

  A flashing alert on the screen – Devin's screen, shared to him – lit it up with a scarlet warning.

  Chapman stared, trying to decipher it at first.

  “That's the gait analysis software,” Devin said, squinting at his screen. “It's saying – but this is impossible–”

  GAIT ANALYSIS MATCH – 3%

  “Are you matching it to Sienna Nealon or is it just matching to some random subject?” Chapman asked, lurching forward, as if by getting right up to the TV screen he could somehow insert himself into the situation, change it somehow–

  “No, it's to her, but – I mean, it's impossible!” Devin was hammering at his keyboard. “It's her, it's got her facial recognition trick thingie, that's her – her EMT guy–”

  Another alert popped up on the screen.

  FACIAL RECOGNITION MATCH

  “What is it?” Chapman said, leaning in. As if he could get any closer to the TV screen without bumping his face.

  “The White House search you just asked for,” Devin said, looking frazzled as he switched views. “It triggered an alert. Pulling it up now.”

  The screen switched to a view outside the White House, a nice view of the fence in front of the place. It looked pretty quiet at this hour, except for a lone visitor in a wheelchair up at the fence, a hand extended through the metal barrier–

  “That's the guy from the Washington Monument,” Chapman said, straightening up so quickly he almost sprained his lower back. “And the FBI office heist – the one that stole Bilson's journal! He's in cahoots with Nealon, has to be – but what's he doing at the White House while she's at the hotel–”

  “It's not her,” Chase said, ominous dread permeating her warning. “She's not at the hotel at all.” Her voice rose with every word. “You need to warn Veronika,” she said as Chapman scrambled for his phone, fumbling with it against the grip of the cord connecting it to the TV. “Warn her it's a–”

  CHAPTER ONE HUNDRED TWENTY-FOUR

  Veronika

  The inside of the bunker was, in fact, clear. There was only one man in the room, which didn't look like it was in a bunker. It looked like a sitting room of the Victorian style, though absent any of the windows or daylight one might expect to find.

  And yes, there was one man in the room other than them.

  “What's the meaning of this?” President Richard Gondry was sitting at a makeshift desk, blinding light from work lights drenching the room in shocking amounts of illumination. He rose, staring at the hole in the wall, and at the six of them looming there.

  “Good evening, Mr. President,” Metalmind said. There wasn't much respect in her high, mocking voice.

  “Looks like we're a little overmanned for this mission,” Vamp said, grinning as she popped out.

  “Looks like,” Rockrigger agreed, hovering near the entry. Clear he wanted to get out first once this was done. Veronika couldn't blame him; she, too, was hovering near the exit.

  “Let's do it then,” Impervious said, still smiling, “and go get paid.”

  “I am all about that,” Vamp said, sashaying toward the president of the United States. “Going to finally get me a drink of presidential blood, and then–”

  Vamp stopped less than three feet from the president, jerking back as though she'd struck something. Her nostrils were flaring as she spun, eyes wide. “That's not him – that's not even a person!”

  “The hell you talkin' bout?” Impervious asked, taking a step forward. He grabbed a pillow off the nearby couch and tossed it – quite hard – at the president–

  It passed through the man as if he were a ghost.

  Vamp hissed and jumped back. “What is that?”

  “It's called an illusion,” came a calm voice from the other side of the room. Veronika turned–

  And there she was, right on time.

  “Holyyy shitballs,” Impervious muttered, taking a step back.

  “No way,” Vamp whispered, a hint of eagerness slipping into her voice.

  “Consolation prize for you, Vamp,” Metalmind
said, stepping up. “You asked for it, after all.”

  “I didn't want this,” Rockrigger said, sounding like he was ready to run for the hills. “Do. Not. Want.”

  “Impossible,” Shinyman said.

  “Sweety,” the woman at the other end of the room said, staring them all down with her constant, perpetual, hell-to-pay glare of a woman who'd been there, done that, killed 'em all, let God sort 'em out more times than anyone could count– “Nothing's impossible where I'm concerned.”

  Because Sienna Nealon...was right. Effing. There.

  CHAPTER ONE HUNDRED TWENTY-FIVE

  Sienna

  “Where's the president?” the bald metal man asked, leveling his head at me like he was going to charge.

  I pretended to look at myself in the reflection on his face. “Sorry, what did you say? I was checking my hair. It's looked better.”

  “She's hiding him here somewhere,” the pale goth queen said, sniffing around. “His scent is fresh.”

  “There's no shower down here and he's been bunkered for a few days,” I said, “so I'm not sure I'd call it 'fresh,' exactly...”

  “Darlin.'” This from a handsome fella with a Southern drawl, who stepped up toward me. They were all sorting themselves into a line – two lines, really, because four of them were up front – metal guy, goth girl, a skinny lady with a really bad attitude, plus this Southern gentleman.

  Two were hanging back. Clearly the brains of the operation. One looked like a roughneck straight from an oilfield, and the other...

  “Hey, Veronika.” I waved.

  “Hi,” she said tautly. She, too, was hanging by the hole in the wall.

  “Care to arrange introductions?” I asked, looking right at her. “You know...before we fight.”

  Veronika just stared at me, then pointed them out to me one at a time. “Shinyman, Metalmind, Impervious, Vamp, and Rockrigger.” She ended with the dude cowering beside her.

  “And you can call her 'Hot Stuff,'” Vamp said, grinning at me, clearly possessed of depths of self-confidence that were borne of either delusion or mania. Maybe both. Vampires were not the most psychologically stable of metas, in my experience.

  “Probably going to stick with 'Veronika,'” I said.

  “Fine by me,” Veronika said stiffly.

  “Darlin,'” Impervious, Mr. Southern Charm, said, taking another step toward me. “I know you're the badass of badasses. We all know that nobody goes up against you without losing a major organ or a limb or a life,” he said all this with a smile, “so let's just...acknowledge that elephant in the room right now.”

  I looked at Shinyman. “Is it you? Are you the elephant in the room?”

  Shinyman just stared back at me, steely lips moving in confusion.

  “But you are facing...beyond deep odds here,” Impervious went on, ignoring my quip. “Again – no disrespect intended. Much respect, in fact. Massive amounts. You have taken out – well, just shit tons of our kind. But...”

  I looked right at Veronika. “Everything before the 'but' is bullshit. You know that, right?”

  “I've heard that somewhere before,” she said.

  Impervious chuckled. “...But...you can't win this fight.” He put a hand on his chest, ruffling his trench coat. “I'm an Achilles.” He reached back, patting Shinyman right in the middle of his steel, muscular chest. “Look at this feller. I hear you've got some ice working for you now. That's good. It's a good power. But it ain't going to do much for you here, you know what I mean?” He gestured in a sweep, from Veronika to Vamp to Metalmind and finally, because he was cowering and Impervious had to look for him, Rockrigger. “You see how it is, right?”

  I tried to keep the smile off my face. “I see how it is.”

  “I mean...you are trapped,” he said, still chuckling, favoring me with a knowing look. “What's a...well, forgive me, but...what's a vanilla succubus with a little ice goin' do...against all of this?” And he waved his hand around again.

  “Well,” I said, as I let out a long, high chuckle, and it wiped the smile right off his face.

  Though not as much as what I did next.

  I snaked a hand out, planting it in the middle of his chest–

  As it burst into flame–

  I channeled the fire right into him, all over him, and he stumbled back, aflame, screams echoing in the confined bunker–

  As I floated into the air, a foot off the ground, ice pouring off one hand, fire crackling off the other, and my eyes glowing with fairy light–

  “Now...” I said, “...who's trapped?”

  CHAPTER ONE HUNDRED TWENTY-SIX

  Brentwood, Tennessee

  Three Months Ago

  Holy hell, I was falling.

  I caught myself on my fingertips, hanging from the latticed support of the WSM radio tower. The support wires removed, the structure damaged, the tower lurched and paused, tipped at a forty-five-degree angle.

  I looked down, then gulped.

  It was a solid five hundred plus feet to the ground.

  And I could no longer fly.

  “Craaaaaaaaap,” I muttered.

  Brance Venable was screaming so loud to my left that I could barely hear myself think. Reaching out with one hand, I grabbed him by the arm and swung him over to my back. He anchored on my neck like I was his last chance at holding onto life, because...well, I was.

  I clenched my chin to my collarbone to keep him from choking me, and started to climb down, dropping ten feet at a time, catching myself on the next support, then dropping again.

  “Easy does it,” I said as Brance’s screams gave way to whimpering. “Easy, easy.”

  “We’re going to fall and die,” Brance said.

  “No one likes a whiner, Brance,” I said, his wrist rubbing against my chin. “Get your shit together and put on your big boy pants. Screaming about it is not going to reverse gravity. In fact, if you hit the wrong note right now, it’s going to hasten me giving way to gravity, and then your survival chances are going to get a lot slimmer, a lot quicker.”

  “O-okay,” he stammered. He was still shaking, but at least he’d stopped crying. “Have you...been in a situation like this...before?” Brance got out between stammers of fear.

  “Yeah, this is just like that freaking tower in Revelen,” I said. “You know, on the news? When the building collapsed with me inside?” I swung down and caught a lattice of steel, this one white. Some were red, barely visible in the light of a half moon. I’d made it down almost a quarter of the way already by dropping and catching myself. Well, us.

  “Oh,” Brance said, and his voice dropped an octave or so. “Well, you made it out of that.”

  “Yes, I did,” I said, timing my next swing. I dropped us about twenty feet this time, accelerating things somewhat. “And we’ll make it out of this, too, if—”

  The tower let up a terrible groan, vibration coursing through the metal and my fingers where they gripped the antenna’s structure.

  “Uh oh,” I muttered. I couldn’t drop down aggressively right now, so I dropped down quickly to the next lattice and the one beyond. The tower was shifting, straining—

  And I had only come down about a third of the way from the top, still some four hundred feet from the ground.

  With a groan, the antenna support finally gave up, and the tower lurched sideways, surrendering to the forces of gravity.

  My grip failed as Brance’s weight twisted me and I tumbled, Brance still wrapped around my neck, toward the dark fields waiting hundreds of feet below–

  I was certain, in that moment, that I was going to die. Nothing was going to stop it, nothing.

  Brance didn't scream, to my surprise. Maybe he'd taken my words to heart.

  The ground flew up at my face, darkness, faint hints of green grass lit by distant freeway lights.

  Man. This was not how I wanted to go out.

  “Wish you were here, Aleksandr,” I whispered, and a final memory of Gavrikov popped into my head, as he
was when I'd faced him on the rooftop of the IDS Tower–

  The ground was right there, right there coming up–

  Wait.

  The ground wasn't coming up...at all?

  I hovered, less than ten feet from the ground, Brance's weight on my back.

  “We...we're alive,” Brance said. “Are...are you doing that? Because we're kind of floating here.”

  “Gavrikov,” I muttered under my breath, still thinking of him. There were no words, no voice, but...

  “I can fly,” I whispered, and slowly – ever so slowly – I brought us, gently, to the ground. A soft, warm, tingling feeling permeated me, some distant sense that I hardly felt any more–

  Like I wasn't alone.

  “And thank God for that,” Brance gushed as his boots touched solid earth. He hit his knees like he was going to pray, but it really just sounded like he was having a nervous breakdown.

  Ummm, wow, Brianna Glover's voice rang out in my head. Did you know...?

  No, I answered. It must be some sort of residual effect or something. Because those guys are...gone. A single tear slipped down my cheek.

  Even dead, Gavrikov had saved me again.

  “Sienna!” Chandler's voice called into the night. I'd missed it in the sudden surprise/delight of realizing...I could fly! But the tower had come crashing down between him and us. His voice reached me over it, and got more urgent when he called the second time. “SIENNA!”

  “I'm fine!” I called back. “I'm over here! Brance is, too.” And I plopped down next to my singing “villain.” Chandler sounded like he was a ways off.

  “Oh – oh, good,” Chandler called back. “I thought maybe you – well, doesn't matter! I will work my way over to you!”

  “Take your time,” I said, and gave Brance a solid pat on the back. “Take your time.” The wheels in my head were spinning.