Legacy: The Girl in the Box #8 (31 page)

He seemed to grow smaller in her sight. It took her a moment to realize he actually was drawing away, hovering out of her reach. “I’m going to leave now. I’m sorry for your loss.” His face grew hard. “But don’t make me take more from you. I’ll be watching.” With that, he flew straight up, disappearing into the low-hanging clouds that covered the night sky. Sierra could see them burning with light from the fire.

I’ll be watching.

She felt a bitter taste of disgust in her mouth and leaned over again toward Jon’s body, felt it cold under her hands. The burning was gone, the fire he let her feel sometimes when they’d touch skin to skin for too long. She pulled her hands back, touching her own neck. She could feel the bruising from where the man had grabbed her.
No one’s ever done that to me before. No one. Never. Not even Dad ...

“Sierra?” The voice was cold, the accent Germanic, and she looked up to see him coming toward her—Winter. Erich Winter. “I saw you talking to him. Was it you? Did you tell him where to find us?”

I’ll be watching.

She thought again about the hands on her neck, the tightness in her throat. She thought she felt a quiver in her belly.
Maybe it’ll be a little girl like you.
Sierra felt the cold chill run through her even as she looked past Erich at the fire raging in the remains of the Agency building.

Maybe she and I will meet one day.

With a loud, groaning crack the upper floors gave way and came crashing down, sending the building into a flaming destruction, a burning mess throwing clouds of smoke and debris across the parking lot. Winter disappeared in the dust and smoke, as did Jon as she staggered back. She thought about fighting her way back to him for one last touch, one last kiss, anything.

I’ll be watching.

Touch hadn’t been the thing that they’d built their relationship on. The smoke covered her, the dust concealed her, and she made her way, as quietly as possible, to the edge of the parking lot while everything was obscured. One thought pounded in her head with the blood, even as the pain from where he’d gripped her faded with every step. She crept off into the night, mind outracing her body by a factor of ten.

Have to lose him. Have to hide. I will not let that ... man ... ever meet my child. Not ever.

Sienna Nealon

Now

I read three FBI criminal activity reports after I got my wits back about me. That took me until well after midnight, at which point I sat back in my chair, leaning at a forty-five degree angle, pondering just giving up and going to sleep right there. I heard the creak of the chair again, wondered if it was saying something about my weight and my sedentary lifestyle, and shrugged it off. I let my head loll to the right and looked out the window.

I blinked as I stared out, something catching my attention. There was movement in the construction site of the new science building. I turned the chair around and leaned closer to the glass. A light was bobbing around in the unfinished windows of the first floor, where they were still doing the basic framing. I stood and moved closer to the window, peering out, trying to catch a glimpse of whatever it was, but it was far, far too dark of a night and the view was partially obscured by the dormitory building. I frowned as my mind raced, wondering at the possibilities, from the mundane (a construction worker doing some unscheduled overtime, a thief using our building site to improve his home at a rock bottom discount) to the fearsome (the entirety of Century hiding in the site, preparing to stage an assault on us.

I crossed my office and flung open the door. “Who’s still here?” I called out, and waited a beat for an answer.

“Me,” Ariadne’s voice came from the office next door.

“I am.” I saw Scott appear toward the end of a cube row, peeking his head out into the main aisle.

“We’ve got something going on,” I said.

“Hooboy,” Scott said and pounded his way down the aisle at a fast jog. I moved aside and led him over to the window. Ariadne followed behind a moment later.

“See that light?” I pointed out the window. “In the construction site?”

“No,” Ariadne said, and I watched her squint into the darkness.

“Yes,” Scott answered immediately.

“I’m thinking ...” I looked again. “I’m thinking it’s probably not a construction worker or someone doing some thieving.”

“The odds are definitely a little too coincidental for that,” Scott agreed.

I flashed a look at Ariadne. “Can you take care of Li? I don’t want things to get fouled here.”

“Yep,” she said and disappeared back into her office.

“I’m gonna go scout,” I said, opening the cabinet behind my desk and pulling out a submachine gun, pulling the strap over my shoulders.

“Are you freaking kidding me?” Scott asked, looking at me in disbelief. “That is not in the plan.”

“The plan is for an attack,” I said. “This could just be a prowler, in which case I need to scare the bejeezus out of him.”

“Umm, or it could be a Century ambush, designed to lure one of our best people out by themselves so they can sucker punch them,” he said. “Walking into a dark construction site in the middle of the night? Not your smartest move ever.”

I hesitated. “You have a point.”

“Thank you,” he said graciously. “I may not present a compelling argument very often, but when I do, boy, is it a doozy.”

I started to answer back when my phone started ringing, making both of us jump a little. I started to reach for it, and Scott slapped my hand away. I looked at him with irritation, a
What was that for?
kind of look. “I’ve seen this movie,” he said. “Do not answer that phone.”

“This isn’t a horror movie,” I said, “and I’m not played by Neve Campbell.” I picked up the receiver. “Hello?”

“Sienna Nealon?” The woman’s voice was a little out of breath but recognizable.

“Katheryn Hildegarde?” I asked, though I was sure it was her.

“One and the same,” she replied, still trying to catch her breath. “We’re, uh ... out on the construction site on your campus. Me and my crew. We, uh ... ran across something. If the rumors are true, you can even call it a gift for you.”

“Oh, really?” I asked, and shared a look with Scott, who was giving me the
Don’t be an idiot
look. I knew it because I’d sent it his way enough times while working with him.

“Yeah,” she replied, sounding pretty matter of fact. “Caught someone snooping while we were making our way to your front door. I think you know him.” I heard the sound of flesh hitting flesh, a dull thud, and then Hildegarde spoke again. “Say hello, asshole.”

The voice that followed was deep, pronounced, a familiar one that would be burned into my memory until my dying day.

“Hello, Sienna,” Erich Winter said. “I believe you are sitting in my chair.”

I crossed the campus, the combination of minimal light sources and my meta eyes keeping my feet on the straight and narrow, avoiding the subtle dips in the lawn where I might twist an ankle. It was a warm night but not hot, still being early summer, and I drew a deep breath as I went along toward the building site.

Scott had argued, had tried to dig in his heels, had fussed, but ultimately conceded that he’d stay back. Which was fortunate, because I wasn’t looking to spook Katheryn Hildegarde. I needed to keep things on a cool level. I needed to assess the situation. I tried not to think about the other thing—the other person—who was with her.

Him.

I made it past the dormitory at a steady walk, not running. I didn’t want to raise my heart rate any more than I had to. I needed to keep calm heading into this situation. I ducked under a low hanging wooden beam that hadn’t been properly placed yet and looked into the dark. “Katheryn?” I asked cautiously, looking down what appeared to be a long hallway to my right. The science building was different than the one that had been here before, something new because the old one’s design was a remnant of the time before the Directorate when the campus had been a failed junior college.

“Over here,” came a voice from the corner of the building. I saw stacks of rebar and concrete blocks crowding one of the walls of the hall where were they were building it in, making it as strong as possible, and I picked my way around and cut through the open center of the building. Looking up, I saw the latticed rebar where they were starting to construct the floor, like a net of metal that hung over a large, open, square space. I came out in the middle of the building and found them there. Katheryn Hildegarde, one of her cronies ... and Erich Winter.

He stood nearly seven feet tall, head slightly bowed, and he was wrapped tightly in a light mesh around his chest and shoulders. It took me a minute to realize that it trailed off to Hildegarde, and she smiled as she gestured to her ponytail, which connected to the mesh via a snaking segment on the ground. “Medusa type,” I said, and she nodded. “That hair is really quite something.”

“Thank you,” she said, a little brusquely. “You didn’t bring any of your other people with you?”

“We’re running a little low on staff at the moment,” I said, smiling tightly. “Figured I’d make it a little easier on you, not coming at you with overwhelming numbers.” I shrugged. “I wanted to keep things polite and on the level.”

She flattened her lips like she was giving it all due contemplation. “That’s ... very considerate of you. Really courteous and thoughtful.” She turned her neck to try and look past the incomplete walls. “And did you station snipers at the corners of the building to keep overwatch?”

“Wouldn’t matter if I did,” I said with a shrug, “since they can’t see into the building.” I gestured at the unfinished walls. “This would be a sniper’s nightmare, trying to find a way to manage a shot through this, don’t you think?”

“Yeah,” she said, like she was surveying it all over, giving it thought. “So, we’re here. What’s on your mind? What are you thinking?” She glanced down at her wrist, then put her hand down to her leg and tapped her fingers against her jeans. She really was an elegant woman but severe.

“The end of our world,” I said. “It’s all I think about. What’s on your mind?”

She looked around again, as if looking for something unexpected. “We’re free to talk here? The FBI isn’t listening in on us?”

“Nope,” I said. “I’m trying to keep my FBI liaison out of the loop at present since you killed a bunch of his fellow agents.”

“Nice,” she said. “I didn’t mean to do that. When they’re coming at you with guns, things tend to get out of control pretty quickly. Anyway, yeah. Century. The greatest threat of our time. Probably the greatest since ... I dunno, I wasn’t around for it, but I heard the Hades situation was pretty bad. World War One still gets mentioned quite a bit among the older crowd. Anyway, yeah, it’s bad.”

“What do you know about Century?” I asked.

She shrugged. “Standard line. Sovereign, the most powerful meta in the world, a man capable of things that don’t really seem possible given normal meta abilities, has joined up with a hundred of the world’s mightiest. Together, they’ve successfully wiped out around twenty-five hundred people so far, with about another five or six hundred to follow.” She smiled thinly. “Including anyone who’s not in that Top 100.”

“You make it sound a little like a Who’s Who list.”

“Maybe it is,” she said. “Anyone who doesn’t make the list is definitely not getting an invite to the world’s most exclusive party, where the door prize is survival.”

“What are they going to do after that?” I asked, watching her carefully.

She walked to a nearby wall and leaned against the corner, her hair still stringing behind her, binding Old Man Winter, who stood, stoic and silent, watching us talk. “Take over the world? Give each other facials and perms?” She gestured to her long knot of hair. “Which, in my case, would be an expensive proposition. Hell if I know.” She looked to Winter. “What about you? Do you know?”

“I know it is nothing good,” Winter said in his low, slow timbre. “One does not start a plan by wiping out all of metakind and end with something benevolent, such as a benefit to raise money for the American Red Cross.”

Hildegarde looked at him before giving him a concessionary nod. “The old man’s got a point. For those who aren’t on the bus for the select few, it’s not looking so grand.”

I looked over at her. “You keep mentioning the select few. Any idea how they were chosen?”

She tapped her fingers against her leg. “No idea.”

I watched her, sussing it out. She set her jaw, and I looked over at her compatriot. He was big, almost swollen. “You must be a Hercules,” I said, and he nodded. “My grandfather was one.”

“Interesting bit of family history,” Hildegarde said. “He still alive?”

“No,” I said with a slight smile. “Omega killed him.”

“Oh,” she said, and things just felt awkward. “Uh, gosh. That’s, uh ...”

I shrugged lightly. “It was a long time ago and across an ocean, plus I didn’t know him, so ...” I looked at Hildegarde again. “So how do you want to do this?”

She froze, and I got the sense that her head was spinning as she was looking for a response. “Do what?” The pitch of her voice was off, was wrong somehow, but I couldn’t quite put my finger on how.

I didn’t get a chance to ask my next question, either, because a hand reached out from behind the wall and grabbed her head, slamming it into the concrete block. Hildegarde dropped to the ground as someone stepped out from behind the wall, a shadowy figure that glared coldly down at her before looking up at me and giving me a slight nod.

I recognized him even though it had been months since I’d last seen him; his short brown hair framing his young features. He was missing his glasses, though. When last I’d seen him he was wearing ridiculously oversized glasses, like the biggest nerd on the planet. They were gone now, and he looked young, handsome. He took a deep breath as he watched me through his brown eyes and then sighed. “Hey, Sienna. Did you know that she was betraying you to Century?”