Legacy: The Girl in the Box #8 (21 page)

“It’s politics,” my mother said. “You were right when you said it takes us off mission for dubious benefit.”

“No, I was wrong,” I said. “It’s a certain benefit; it keeps the other government agencies we’re relying on for intelligence happy with us, shows we’re willing to do the bidding of our congressional overseers, and builds some good will.”
Hopefully,
I didn’t bother to add.

She frowned at me, her long, dark hair hanging over her shoulders as she leaned over the chair in front of my desk. It reminded me of me when I looked into the mirror in the mornings. “You can’t tell me you changed your mind because of anything besides the way Li just made you feel.”

I felt the pressure of the leather against the back of my head, and the scent of it, still new, filled my nose. “Is that such a bad thing?”

“Playing politics?” She snorted. “It’s a fast way to forget your mission, to lose yourself in useless trivia and bureaucracy.”

“People died,” I said quietly. “We need all the leads we can get. Hildegarde seems to at least have some sense of how to hit Century, and we need that or we’re just continuing to operate blind, striking out into the darkness until they come for us.”

“You let him get to you,” she said. “About what you’ve done.”

“I didn’t let him do anything,” I said, tired. “I didn’t let him do anything I haven’t already done to myself.”

“You shouldn’t feel guilty about Wolfe,” she said. “That was a righteous kill. Same with Gavrikov. They were both murderers.”

“It’s not Wolfe and Gavrikov that I feel guilty about,” I said. “Nor Bjorn, though I had about as much to do with him getting killed as I did Zack.” I let my voice fall. “I murdered Glen Parks. He taught me so much about fighting, about shooting, tracking. He filled in a lot of the cracks that you couldn’t. He was a mentor, and what he did to me that night with Zack tore him up inside. He was drinking his life away, and I murdered him. I killed Clyde Clary, too. Big, dumb Clyde. He was an asshole, every inch of him, but he didn’t want to do what Winter told him to do. I knew that, and I killed him anyway. Eve wasn’t even around when Zack was killed; she dragged Ariadne off to get her out of the way because she was fighting Old Man Winter on it, screaming at him. And Bastian ... he said his piece, followed his orders, and he died for it, ultimately.” I looked at her, and she wouldn’t meet my gaze, hands white-knuckling the back of the chair, staring down at the black pleather. “I killed them all. Plus Rick, the Primus of Omega, and one of the ministers, Eris. I killed them all, killed all those people.” I felt the energy drain from my voice, what was left of it. “I don’t need Li’s judgmental eyes to feel guilty. I am guilty.”

She looked up, slightly stricken. “You—”

“I want you to remember before you say anything,” I said, looking at her with just the slightest amusement, “that you’re the same person who used to lock me in a metal box when I broke one of your rules. Whatever reasons you had for it, telling me now that I’m not guilty when you spent all that time punishing me for infractions much less than murder is going to sound ... really screwed up.”

I saw her bite back her instinct to snap at me, and she looked to her left. “This is the world I wanted to protect you from. I didn’t want you to ...” Her voice trailed off.

“Leave the house?” I asked with bitter amusement but not any rancor. “Get caught up in crazy events? Get in fights? Sleep with boys?”

“Add in drugs and following your guitarist boyfriend around on tour for a summer and I think you’ll have hit all the ‘parenting fears’ high points.” She paused, and I watched the emotions roll across her face. “I didn’t want you to be like me,” she said, and it echoed in the office. “I didn’t want you to have to kill. I prepared you for it in hopes you’d never have to do it.” Her hands left the back of the leather chair and she cradled them, one upon another. “I never wanted you to have to do what I did. I don’t like to kill. Never have. I’m not like Charlie. I’m not like others of our kind. I hated the feeling when I took my first soul.” She ran her thin fingers through her hair. “I never wanted you to know what it was like to kill, let alone what it was like to use your power, to lose yourself in the moment of the drain. And I’m glad you’re not an addict.”

“I’m definitely not that,” I said, staring at her. “How many do you have?”

She blinked. “How many souls? Five. But I’ve got more shadows than I can count.”

“That’s the partials, right?” I asked. “The ones you only take a little of?”

“Yeah,” she said. “It’s not the most pleasant thing you can do to a person, but leaving them missing a memory is better than taking their life.” She sighed. “I’ve killed a lot more than that, though. Most were in the line of duty.” She looked away. “But some weren’t, early on. Some were ...” She brought her eyes back, slow, and I could see depths in them when she turned back to me. “Some were personal. Things I did before I got a tight handle on myself.”

“I lived a pretty disciplined life while I was growing up,” I said, staring back at her, but not really looking at her.

“I know,” she said tonelessly. “Ever since we moved into the house.”

“I think I went off the rails this last year,” I said.

“It could have gone worse,” she said. “Teenage rebellion is always hard.”

I looked at her almost pityingly. “What? Like this is my rumspringa, and soon I’ll go back to following the ordnung? I killed people.”

“So did I,” she said quietly. “So did I. But there’s nothing you can do about it now except—”

“Penance,” I said. “That was what I figured in England. That what I’d done ... seeking revenge was testing the ends of my powers—”

“Pushing societal limits and finding that there aren’t that many for a meta, right?” She cocked her head at me. “Not with the old structures of power falling away under Century’s scythe.”

“I decided I was going to make up for it as best I could,” I said. “Try and atone, protect as best I could.”

She nodded. “Redemption’s a word that gets thrown around a lot nowadays. When I was hiding in Gillette, I watched a lot of TV and inevitably ended up seeing some of that awful reality television. Hollow, vain people clawing for fame and whatever droppings it brings with it. They toss around the word redemption after a failure like it’s something you do after you make a simple slip up, like bumping into someone in the street.” She looked at me, and I could feel the power in her eyes, the truth, that she knew what she was saying. “You and I both know it’s deeper than that. Redemption isn’t as simple or cheap as they’d suggest; not as easy as winning some vapid and pointless competition. Redemption for us means saving our souls from the abyss that most of our kind dwell in.” Her blue-green eyes glimmered in the half-light of the office. “I saw my sister go down that road, and there’s nothing in this world that can redeem her now.”

“I know how that feels,” I said, and I did, all the way to the bone, my body feeling like it might suddenly sink through the chair, it was so heavy.

“You’re not her,” my mother said. “The ones I killed ... they still weigh on me, every day, even the ones I killed in the line of duty. You don’t have to sink like Charlie. There is redemption out there, if you want it badly enough. This might just be your chance.”

“I don’t know that I can ever make up for what I’ve done,” I said, shaking my head.

“Not make up for it. Not even offset it. Just ... do your best to try and tilt the balance back in the other direction.” She sighed. “Live a life where you’re doing your best to fight back from what you were, what you did. Become a person who’s the opposite of what you were when you dove deep into the waters of revenge. Someone who stands up for what’s right.”

“I may have to kill again before this is all over,” I said. “I may have to kill Weissman and Sovereign. There aren’t any easy solutions for these men, there are no prisons that can hold them, no places to send them where they won’t harm others.”

“Then we’ll have to kill them,” she said. “And that’s part of your redemption, too. You’ll have to make the hard decisions others can’t because your soul has taken damage that others shouldn’t have to experience.” She caught my gaze, and hers was haunted. “It’s a terrible burden. A terrible price. But because of what you’ve done—if you really want to redeem yourself in your own eyes—you have to carry it without complaint.”

I nodded. “I had a feeling it would come down to me.”

“You got yourself into it,” she said sadly, “and you’re the only one who can carry you through. Trust me on that. I’ve been carrying it myself for more years than I can count.”

“Yeah,” I said. “Take Reed and Karthik and go to Portland.” I thought about it for a piece. “Bring Kurt with you.”

She frowned. “That pudgy agent?”

“Yeah,” I said. “He’s good in a scrape.” Kurt Hannegan had been one of the first people I’d had Ariadne hire back when I got put in charge, though I’d kept him at a distance because we didn’t necessarily work all that well together.

She nodded. “We’ll get out there, see what we can find, and get back in a day or two, at most.”

“Take your time,” I said. “Do it right. And while you’re out there, have Karthik, Reed and J.J. try and locate local Omega safehouses—”

“I’m not a rookie,” she said with a hint of impatience. “I was planning on working all the angles to find Hildegarde. I’ve tracked a person or two, after all.”

“Sorry,” I said, more tired than contrite. “Just covering all my bases. When you get back, I need to debrief you again about your encounter with Sovereign.”

She stiffened. “All right. I’ll start thinking, see if I can remember anything else about it.”

I nodded. “Do that. We need every bit of information we can get about him. Talk to Ariadne on your way out, have her charter a plane for you.”

“Will do,” she said coolly and headed for my office door. She stopped, her plain, unpainted fingernails resting on the frame. “Foreman made the right call putting you in charge.”

I blinked. “What?”

“You’re all grown up,” she said, a little wistful. “You’re making the right moves. It makes me wonder what happened to my little girl.”

I didn’t even think to go with a bitter response, because all my bitterness toward her was nearly gone at this point. It had dissipated sometime over the last six months. Still, I didn’t know what to say, and after a few seconds she drummed on the edge of the doorframe with her hand and left. She disappeared into the bullpen, leaving me sitting in my office chair, marveling at the fact that we had made it through an entire conversation without any hostility at all.

I stayed in my office until well after midnight, as was my habit of late. I was combing intelligence reports that had nothing to do with any of our suspects, hoping that somehow one of them would hold a little nugget, a key to what Century’s next move was. Murder rates were within fairly normal parameters in the border cities, and the list of metas known to the U.S. government wasn’t getting shorter because of unexpected deaths—yet. I knew it was coming, but based on what I was looking at, it seemed that Century wasn’t in position yet.

These thoughts were swirling in my head as I slept, and the smell of my office laser printer was still hanging in my nose as I curled up on my couch, which sat against the wall next to the office door. The soft leather had its own distinct smell, and it filled my nose as I lay there, cheek pressed against it, mind still sprinting even in my exhaustion.

Little Doll worries too much.

“Thanks, Wolfe,” I said. “Your concern is touching.”

Little Doll should worry about herself, not others. Sovereign is coming, the telepath told you. Said he was coming for you.

“Not much I can do about that,” I said. “Except be ready.” I had a Glock 22 in my shoulder holster and a Walther PPK in my ankle holster. I knew I was tough enough to take a meta in a fair fight, but I was under no illusions after being captured in the airport that I was in any way faster than a speeding bullet. The best I could do was dodge maybe one guy with a gun if I was lucky. A firing line would be the end of me just the same as it would anyone else.

There is no preparing for ... him.
This from Bjorn, who always sounded a little scared when he talked about Sovereign, like the guy was going to jump out of the nearest closet and rip Bjorn’s soul clean out of me.

“I’m as ready as I’m ever going to be,” I said.

Little Doll should run. Run far, far away. Even she can’t stop Sovereign. Best not to try.

“Because I hear you telling me what to do, I immediately know to do just the opposite,” I said, settling in on the couch.

He is too strong, too wily, too powerful. He has crushed metas who would make Little Doll look like ... a little doll by comparison.

“You know, if you really tried, Wolfe, I think you could be even more sneeringly condescending.” I paused for comic effect. “No, wait, no you couldn’t. I’m making my stand here. If anyone doesn’t like it, you know where to find the door to your little cages.”

Don’t be foolish, Little Doll. We can help you, help you hide from him.

“I don’t want to hide from him!” I said, my fury boiling over. “I want to go straight at him, to feel my fingers around his neck as I sap the life from him! If I knew where he was right now, I would go to him, find him, and do my level best to kill him just so we could get this over with, one way or another.” My anger spent, I felt the seething on my lips die down. “I’m tired. I want to be done with this.”

Little Doll should not be so cavalier with her life—

“What life?” I said with a laugh. “What life do I have? I’m in the service of my government now, in the service of my people, and that’s all I’ve got going. Forgive me for trying to figure out the shortest way possible to end this crisis. I just want it to be over so that maybe I can take a breath, maybe feel like I’ve paid some of my debt to society. I’d even be glad to be hunting troublesome metas again if it meant I didn’t have the extinction of my entire species hanging over my head. So again, Wolfe, what life? The one where I wake up in the morning, think about this all day long, and go to bed wondering if this will be the night that it starts here in the U.S.? Where I wonder when the axe will begin to fall, and if I’ll even be able to stop it when it does? So I can wake up to another day and wonder if this is my last one alive, if they’ll be coming for me now or at the end of it all, after I’ve seen the body counts rack up? Another day to wonder if I’ll get to watch every one of my friends die because Sovereign wants me alive and all of them dead?” I sighed. “And I don’t even know why he wants me alive.”