Power (28 page)

“S—s—stop it,” he said. “I don’t like when you r—r—read my mind!” he said.

“You must be Griswold,” I said, staring him down. He looked up at me in surprise.

“How did you know that?” Claire asked, remarkably composed, though I could tell there were hints of fury peeking through her expression.

“R—r—read her mind,” Griswold said, stepping closer to me.

“I can’t,” Claire said, turning away from me. “Zollers is blocking everything.”

“But he’s gone,” Griswold said, shaking his head, eyes tracing her path as she took a short—and I mean short—walk across the room in front of me. She paced in front of her minions. “The Agency chopper t—took off without her, and with the whole staff—”

“I guess you guys will have to make do without turndown service,” I cracked.

Claire looked back at me, and her annoyance turned to a poisonous smile. “Just so you’re not left thinking wise-assing us will get you something … it won’t. We disarmed your bomb already.” She held her palms up. “Ooooh. Planning to blow us all up?” Her expression went flat. “I believe the kids call that ‘epic fail’ nowadays.”

“That’s so yesterday,” I shot back, sounding like the teenager I still was. “But I wouldn’t expect anything less from you.”

“Fine, yesterday, uh huh,” she said, taking pains to cover her annoyance. I could see it anyway, just creeping out at the corners of her eyes. “Let me tell you what’s today—I don’t need you alive for very long.”

“Then kill me,” I said.

“Not yet.” There was a gleam of triumph in the eyes as she said it. “And before you get any ideas about escaping using those Wolfe-powers of yours, be aware that we outnumber you so badly that you’ll have your brains dashed out quicker than you can summon the will to stitch your skull back together. And believe me, plenty of us here would be glad to do that.”

“So I’m bait?” I asked. I glanced around the room, took the temperature. They were angry. “For what?”

She laughed like I was an idiot. “Sovereign, of course. We just have to wait for him to come save you.”

I blinked. “You want to lure him here? Why?” My head swiveled, looking for some explanation in the crowd’s faces. There wasn’t one, but I caught some self-satisfaction breaking through the fury. “There are easier ways to commit suicide.”

“Let’s just say we’re ready for him,” Claire said with a certain amount of satisfaction.

“He’s otherwise occupied right now,” I said, and tested my bonds. That only took a second, and I was satisfied that strength alone was not going to get me out of this.

“Because he surrendered and you have him bound up in chains?” Claire rolled her eyes. “Please. If he’s not already roaring his way here, he’ll be along as soon as your crew of merry morons informs your headquarters that your plan went sour. He can’t possibly resist the opportunity to ingratiate himself to you by saving you when you’re in distress.”

I felt my skin crawl at that one, and I’m pretty sure I made a face. “Ugh.”

Claire smiled at me. “What’s the matter? Still resisting your inevitable fate? You could do worse.”

“Yeah, like Weissman,” I said, playing a hunch. Her face went dark immediately, fury descending on her as though a curtain were closed over her expression. “Ooh, looks like I hit a soft spot. And this time I don’t even have a broken leg to play with—”

She took two steps forward and smacked me one right across the face. I’d be lying if I said it didn’t hurt, but I’d been hit worse. I smiled a bloody smile at her and she hit me again, a little harder this time. I stopped the smile because I was just pissed now, and I gave her the full venom of my eyes as I rolled my head back around.

“You can look at me like that all you want,” she said, voice low. “You look because you’re impotent to act.”

“I’m not technically capable of impotence,” I said.

“You talk the best game,” she said, smarmy and vicious at the same time, “but you are constantly in over your head. You pick fights you can’t win, and when luck comes to your rescue, you add a notch to your belt and think you’re the best.” She snorted. “You’re nothing, little girl. Your luck is gone. And your boyfriend—when he comes to rescue you, which should be soon—he’s gonna die.”

“You call Sovereign my boyfriend again, I’ll kill you.” I let that loose with all my anger. All of it. People in the front row took a step back and everything. I’ve got a good resting bitch face, that’s no secret. But when I put my game face on, even people who have never met me before apparently take notice.

“You’re going to kill me?” Claire said, and shook her head, letting out a little laugh that let her show just how pitiful she thought I was. “Sweetie, you are tied up to the point you can’t move. Your friends just ran—just left you behind, and you’re surrounded by the most powerful people in the world.” She leaned down, just a little, to look me in the eye. “So … why don’t you tell me, short of Sovereign coming and trying to save you, little princess—how you’re gonna … kill me?” She let that little snorting laugh again. “Poor little girl, all alone.” She turned her back on me.

“Hey, Claire,” I said, and I could hear my voice change. A thrum of nervousness ran through the crowd. “A girl like me doesn’t wait for some boy to come save her. And for the record—I was gonna kill you even if you didn’t call Sovereign my boyfriend again. Harper?”

Claire turned slowly to me. “Who the hell is Harper?”

“The chopper has reached minimum safe distance,” Harper replied in my ear. “You are good to go.”

Claire straightened. “I heard that. Minimum safe distance applies to a bomb, sweetie. We broke your bomb.” She smiled, and I knew it was a taunt. “It got vaporized into atoms, just to be sure. Stupid move, and we saw it coming. It’s not like you could beat us in a fair fight, yourself, so—” She shrugged. “It was predictable. I can’t believe you thought we’d fall for it.”

“Oh, but you did,” I said, and I giggled. “You did fall for it, you lecturing, bloviating, fatass evil overlord wannabe. You fell for it like it was an all-you-can-eat buffet table wheeled right into the middle of your jerk-off circle.” My skin felt hot, and suddenly the chains that had bound me so tight melted away under the heat of flame. “You’re a fucking moron, Claire.” I reached out and grabbed her by the neck, ripping her off her feet and pulling her over to look me straight in the eyes. “I didn’t need to sneak a bomb into the middle of your meeting. Because,” I chortled again, looking at the sea of horror in the eyes surrounding me, and my voice dropped low as I whispered to her, looking her in the eyes—

“I
am
the bomb.”

I exploded with the force of Aleksandr Gavrikov, and I watched Claire’s horrified expression melt as a wave of flame swept off my skin and consumed the world around me.

Chapter 48

I coughed and realized I was naked, lying in a hole in the earth. I reached out and felt the ground around me, smooth as glass under my fingertips. My eyes rolled right, then left, assessing the crater I was in. It was a few feet deep, and a cloud of smoke hung over me, turning the sky a grey darker than any thunder clouds I’d ever seen.

Things had gotten hazy after the explosion, which was not exactly a surprise. “Are you there, Aleksandr?” I asked.

Still here
, he came back.
And it was a very fine display of my abilities, I must say.

“Thank you,” I said, coughing. The air hung with an acrid smell. “I think we got ’em.”

“You got ’em,” came a voice from above me. I looked up to see Sovereign part the clouds as he came through, appearing out of the fog like a ship coming into view on a dark night. He still wore chains around his hands, and his body was shrouded with a little white dust that looked like he’d probably gone through the roof of my quarters in the Agency dorm. “I did a quick sweep once the explosion died down, and it’s …” He shook his head. “You killed ’em.”

“How far out did the explosion travel?” I asked, staring at him.

He kept his eyes off mine and, indeed, off me altogether. I realized again, rather sharply, that I was naked and scrambled against the glassy ground like I could find some sand to cover up with. That didn’t work, though. “Not too far,” he said, voice higher than usual as he stared out into the cloud. “A couple miles, maybe more.”

“Good,” I said, nodding as I struggled to cover myself with just my hands. “Uhm … could you maybe make yourself useful and find me some clothes?” I hated to ask, but I hated to be naked in front of him even more.

“Right. Sure,” he said and disappeared into the smoke without another word. He did glance back, though, and I caught him doing it. He looked a little embarrassed before he vanished into the haze.

I sighed and lay back down on the glassy ground. I suspected I could stand and walk, but I’d be exposing my naked ass in order to keep everything else covered and I really didn’t feel like I had the body of a swimsuit model, able to pull off a pose like that, so I just stayed hunkered down until he came back a few minutes later.

“Here you go,” he said, and tossed a cloth bundle to me before turning away to avert his eyes. “Found it on a clothesline a few miles from here.”

“Nice,” I said, and got to a crouch. It was a dress, a long one, not low-cut, thankfully, a size or two too large and meant for a woman much taller than me. I still put it on, slipping into it as quickly as I could. I stood, felt it billow in the shoulders and adjusted it as best I could. It still dragged against the glassed crater. “Thank you,” I said, a little grudgingly as I stood.

“No problem,” he said, and I heard the rattle of his chains as he turned back around. “I, uh … guess you didn’t need my help after all.”

I kept my eyes off of him as I started to climb my way out of the crater. I didn’t want to fly because—well, I was standing on a glassy, reflective surface and I had no underwear on beneath my dress. I’d heard of upskirt videos, and so I kept my legs very, very close together as I took small steps up to the lip of the crater.

The ground was blackened all the way to the tree line. Only hints of the Terramara resort remained, a few walls here and there, the tallest of which reached to five feet, maybe. The forest’s edge sported trees that were still burning, any hint of leaves or greenery gone. “Damn,” I whispered.

“Really something, isn’t it?” Sovereign said, shaking his head. He was hanging in the air just a little above me. “Having the power of flame like that at your fingertips? I’ve never used mine quite that way, but …” He let out a sharp exhalation. “It’s like hell on earth.”

Remember
.

I stared out on the burnt ground in front of me and remembered I was in a different place, a different time. I stood at the edge of the crater and stared out at the wasteland I’d created beyond.

Sovereign whistled. “Man. As I was flying up here I was thinking how nice it was to be back in the land of ten thousand lakes.”

I glanced back at the crater. “Ten thousand and one, next time it rains.”

“Hm?” He looked down at me. “Oh, yeah.” He shook his head, and something flitted over his expression. “I guess … it’s good I didn’t have to face them again.”

“Because you didn’t want to kill them?” I asked, still staring out at the devastation.

“I don’t want to kill anyone,” he said, and delivered it with enough conviction I almost believed he meant it.

“I know how that feels,” I said under my breath.

There was a faint sound of helicopter blades and I looked up. I could see a Black Hawk circling in the distance, coming closer to the scorched field in which I stood. The acrid smell of smoke remained strong even though most of the dark clouds had cleared by now. The trees in the distance burned quietly, and I knew that they’d need a lot of fire departments working in concert to put out the blaze I’d started there.

“You want me to ride with you or just meet you back at the Agency?” he asked me, drifting down to stand next to me on the ground. The chains rattled as he did so, and I noticed that they were broken neatly in the middle.

“Just meet us there,” I said.

“Sorry about your roof,” he said, and he floated skyward again.

“I don’t suppose you have powers to spackle it shut again?” I asked, not even looking at him.

“Sorry,” he said with genuine contrition, and then he shot skyward in an arc that carried him back into the sky, over the smoking trees and south. I heard him break the sound barrier as the sonic boom cracked through the air.

The Black Hawk settled onto the flat, empty ground before me and I ran up to the side, sliding in where Reed held the door open for me. His leather jacket whipped under the rotors, and he didn’t even bother to hide his concern. “Was that Sovereign?” he shouted over the wash of the blades.

“Yeah,” I said as I jumped in, sliding into the seat between him and Scott. Foreman, Janus and Zollers sat across from me, and Kat was on the bench behind me with the two agents. “Harper said all the civilians got out okay?”

“Yeah,” Scott said into the headset as I put it on. The roar of the helicopter became duller when I did, and Scott’s voice had that electronic radio sound to it. “We dropped our load off in the middle of Gables; the FBI guys did the same and are headed back to Minneapolis.” He frowned at me. “What happened to the earpiece?”

“Same thing that happened to my clothes,” I said, looking away from him. “It burned in the explosion.”

“Nice dress,” Scott commented. “I don’t think I’ve seen you in one before. Where’d you get it?”

“Sovereign stole it for me,” I said.

“Did you let him go?” Reed asked.

“Told him to meet us back at the Agency,” I said, settling into my seat and fumbling to fasten the belts as we lifted into the air.

There was a pause, and Foreman spoke. “And you think he’ll just do that?”

“Yes,” I said. “Did you call in fire and rescue down there yet?”

Foreman dropped his head and looked at me with a pretty incredulous look. “Yes. Did you not think about discussing it before letting him go?”

“I didn’t let him go,” I said. “He broke out of the room we were holding him in in order to come rescue me. He said he’d go back, and he will.”