Tormented (9 page)

Augustus looked out over the traffic. “I don’t know the city that well yet—”

“They call it ‘the cities,’” I corrected gently. “Plural, because the metro is Minneapolis and St. Paul—”

August just rolled his eyes and shook his head, going on like I hadn’t said anything, “—but I’m thinking that’s going to take a while.”

“Safe bet,” I said. I longed to hit the accelerator, to let Baby—my affectionate name for my car—run. “On a good day with clear roads, we’d be like forty minutes away. Tonight? Probably two hours.”

“Augh,” Augustus said, leaning his head back. I could tell he reacted a little bit to the lovely headrest because his expression softened. “What do you do in cases like this?”

“Work it until we find the guy,” I said. I could feel the tension in my shoulders. I’d probably need Isabella to work on them later. “This guy’s no genius. He’ll turn up.”

“Yeah, and maybe when he does, he kills a whole bunch more people,” Augustus said.

“He’s not a killer by nature,” I said.

“Just keep in mind you’re not only staking your life on that if you run into him,” he said, “you’re also betting other people’s.”

“I get that,” I said. “But we’re not just out here to serve and protect at all costs. This isn’t a war. If it was, we’d just use sniper rifles, drill these guys from a distance, and call it a day.”

“Might be safer if we did,” he said and went back to staring out the window. “You think anything is going to break loose on this tonight?”

“Who knows?” I asked and took the University Avenue exit ramp as soon as I could. “Might as well stop and eat, because with our luck, he’ll be sighted just after we make it to the other side of town and we’ll have to turn around and fight our way back through this mess.” I looked over at him. “You hungry?”

“I could eat,” Augustus said.

“There’s a huge Asian buffet over here,” I said. “Biggest in Minnesota. It’s pretty good.”

“Yeah, all right,” he said as I made the turn. It wasn’t a great solution, more of a holding action, a time killer. But I had to do it.

Because for some reason, I had a feeling Benjamin Cunningham wasn’t quite done yet for the day.

I found the cabin place pretty easily. I was fortunate in that however good Brent had made that particular drink, he hadn’t made it strong, because I’m not all that useful when drunk.

The place I was staying was a series of semi-private cabins that were each located on their own wooded sites. The main office was a cabin of its own, complete with log—or faux-log—sides. I looked the place over when I got out of the car, the rain tapping down as I stood there for a moment before I legged it for the front door. The air smelled even fresher than on the boat, the fall rain drenching everything and giving the world around me an earthy aroma.

I walked inside to another ringing bell alerting someone that, hey, there’s a customer here. I paused at a front desk and glanced through a door separating it from a room behind it. A television was playing inside, some game show. I looked back into the room just as a young woman came out with black, heavy-framed glasses. “Oh, hello,” she said with a tentative smile. “Are you Sienna?”

“Yeah,” I said, wondering if she knew my name because of the reservation or whether, once again, my infamy preceded me. “Checking in.”

“Wonderful,” she said and starting futzing around behind the desk. “You’re here with us for … two weeks?”

“Yep,” I said, leaning on the counter and waiting. Patience is still not my greatest strength. Strength is my greatest strength.

“My name is Apollonia, and I’m the day clerk,” she said, looking up at me through those glasses.

“Who’s the night clerk?” I asked, being a little bit smartass about it.

“Oh, I’m the night clerk as well,” she said seriously. “But we close at five, so don’t expect an answer if you call.” I tried to find a way to reply to that without being an utter ass and failed, so I just let her keep talking, because apparently she was not done. “You’re all set. You’re in cabin thirteen.” She stared at me. “Will you be … trashing the room?”

I blinked at her, unsure I’d heard her correctly. “Will I … what?”

“Are you going to trash the room?” she asked, still absolutely straight-faced. “I mean, you’re famous and whatnot, so if you trashed the room it feels like it might be good for business. We could advertise by saying that—”

“I’m not a rock star, kid,” I said, because she actually did seem a little like a kid in that moment. “Also, my ability to destroy goes way, way beyond a room—or entire cabin, as I hope the case may be—”

“Well, it’s a one-room cabin,” she said. “Two, if you count the bathroom—”

“I’m not trashing the place,” I said, frowning. “And I doubt the owner would find it much good for business or advertising or whatever.”

“I suppose you would know,” she said with a shrug of near indifference, which … actually, she’d been pretty indifferent the whole time, so it wasn’t a marked change for her. “Anyhow, the town is back that way,” she pointed back the way I came, “along with every restaurant, bar and business on the island.”

I stood there and digested that little tidbit, reaching right past the fact that I knew the town was back the way I came because
I’d just freaking been there
. “It’s almost like you’re telling me not to go the other way or something.”

“You can go anywhere you want,” she said, “but it’s all private residences in the other direction. No businesses or anything. Not really even any decent views unless you want to go trespassing.”

I considered making a smartass remark about how I might consider conducting a flyover of the island in the morning for the hell of it, but passed. What was the point? This girl was just doing her job, though kind of poorly. “Okay,” I said, just letting it go.

“Here’s your key,” she said brightly and handed me a key on the end of a comically large key chain with an enamel tchotchke at the end of it shaped like a pine tree. The whole thing looked like an oversized air freshener you might pick up at a car wash for the sake of novelty, or to cover the smell of blood you’ve accidentally tracked in. (Don’t judge me. It's a perfectly normal thing that happens.) She must have caught me staring at it because then she said, “It’s so you don’t lose the key.”

I looked down at my pocket, which was mightily insufficient for fitting this particularly oversized nightmare, then looked back up at Apollonia. “Clearly.” I shook my head and walked out, into the rain. “Lose a lot of keys around here?”

“Not yet,” she said, “probably because of this.” She gestured at the garish decoration.

I didn’t even know how to reply to that, so I just nodded then backed away slowly. Once outside, I drove to my cabin. The tchotchke had the number 13 painted on it, so I drove down a dirt path until I saw a cabin with a 13 helpfully displayed in brass numbers on the side of the trim. I parked in the space available and hoisted my suitcase out of the back seat, prepared to run for the door.

I got soaked again anyway because I had to pause to unlock the front door, and the eaves of the cabin sluiced the water helpfully right onto the front step where I was standing. The rain was really coming down now, and I’d just reconciled myself to the fact that the weather was going to be shitty today because—well, because it could be, I supposed. It was a cold autumn rain, too, with that bitter chill that made me want to jump out of my skin, the kind that made my teeth start chattering instantly. I half wished I hadn’t imprisoned my souls in a chloridamide prison out of petty spite and a desire for quiet, because right now going Gavrikov and bursting into flame, while hazardous to my clothing, would have at least cut the chill right down.

Once the door was unlocked I stepped inside, dripping on the linoleum entry, a three-foot by two-foot space directly in front of the door. Thin carpeting covered the rest of the living area, which I could see from where I stood. To my right was a queen-sized bed, and to my immediate left was a small kitchenette. The bathroom was tucked into the corner past the bed with a wooden door for privacy, and to the left of that space, which was cut off from the rest of the cabin’s primary room with a wall, was a Jacuzzi tub. Just out there in the middle of the room. While it would have made bathing while sharing a room with a stranger kind of awkward, I didn’t really care; I wasn’t staying with a stranger.

This place was all mine, and I’d damned well use the Jacuzzi in my living room without a care in the world.

I stood there dripping on my little entry for a few seconds, listening to the howling of the wind and hammering of the rain against the windows, and pondering how quickly I could cross over to the bathroom. I could make it pretty fast, and the carpet would dry. I was drenched, but I wasn’t leaking water like a bucket or anything. I put my suitcase down at my side, listening to my soles squeak against the linoleum, and then another noise caught my attention.

It was a low sound, almost a background screech that was gaining intensity, something under the weather’s effects on the cabin’s exterior. I listened, using my meta senses to reach out, trying to catch what it was. It sounded … unnatural, like a scratching of a record, faint but growing in volume.

Suddenly it hit me like a bellow directly in my eardrum, like a punch right to the nose, and I fell to my knees from the power, like a message screamed right into my face. When I regained control of myself, my legs stung from the impact on the floor, and one of my hands ached from where I’d caught my weight as I fell. And in my head, that same voice kept ringing, an aftereffect of someone’s attempt to get my damned attention.

GET OUT!

As I rubbed my sore spots, I felt my eyes narrow. “I’ll get out when I’m good and damned ready,” I said and went to get a towel. If I didn’t take any crap from my boss, who signed my paychecks, it was for damned sure that no disembodied voice was going to tell me what to do.

In retrospect, though, maybe I should have listened.

I stared at Augustus across the table as he picked at his plate. He’d picked up some crawfish, some sort of cheesy crab dish, and a whole pile of sautéed mushrooms, and he was tackling them a little at a time. In contrast, I’d avoided most of the fried stuff. I had a plate of sushi coupled with a fair helping of ginger, wasabi and soy sauce in a dipping dish to the side. The wasabi was scorching my nasal passages with each bite, and I loved it.

“You’re a good guy, Augustus,” I said, breaking the silence we’d shared since we’d both gotten back to the table after hitting the buffet. The restaurant was crowded, filled to the brimming with a highly diverse crowd. I saw blacks, Asians, Hispanics and white folks, and all in huge numbers. The buffet was clearly a popular destination for everyone here in mostly white-bread Minnesota.

“Uh, thanks,” he said, scowling a little.

I couldn’t quite tell how I’d trod on him there, but clearly he’d not taken that quite the way I intended. “What?” I asked.

“Doesn’t matter.” He picked up one of those fried donuts that was coated in sugar grains and took a bite. I tried not to flinch thinking of all the calories it must have had. Time was, I would have taken one of those down, too. Since getting together with Isabella, I was on a much healthier eating path.

“Clearly my intended compliment bothered you,” I said. “Spill it. How did I offend you by calling you a good guy?”

I watched him watch me as the gears turned in his head while he debated answering the question. After a moment, he put down the doughnut and leaned in to share a piece of his mind with me. “All right, I’ll lay it out: you and your sister got problems, but really, you’re both alike in a lot of ways. One of them is that you both have this whole … veterancy thing going on.”

I blinked. “Is that a word?”

“It should be,” Augustus said. “You’ve been doing this for years. Been here, done this, been there, done that. Seen everything. Or at least way more than me. Which, fair enough. I’m the new guy. I get that. I’m the rook. But you both still treat me like I’m the kid, and I don’t know, maybe it’s been long enough you don’t remember what it’s like being treated as the kid—it sucks. I don’t want to go clean my room and put away my toys, get hit with smug as hell shit like ‘Oh, Augustus, you’re a good boy—’”

“I said ‘guy—’”

“You meant ‘kid,’” he said dourly. “You can’t even argue with that.”

I looked back at him, and most of the anger had fled his dark eyes. “Okay, I meant ‘kid.’ That’s true. But—you are new—”

“I know that,” he said, “but you don’t have to be a smugly superior dick about it. I mean you can either be an empowering mentor or be a very experienced and patronizing jackhole, but you can’t do both at the same time.”

“How am I being a … patronizing jackhole?”

“This is how it goes when your sister and I go on a mission,” he said, talking with his hands. “She teaches the whole time. Not great, but she tells me what’s going on, how she’s run across this type of experience before, whatever. I mean, I have to pry it out of her, but she’ll talk for a while until she gets her point across at least, and she’s not so busy trying to convince me she’s right that she’s overcompensating for—”

“I’m not—” I sputtered, not really sure how to respond to that. “Overcompensating? I’m—uh—I mean—”

“Come on,” Augustus said, “you haven’t been in charge. You haven’t been running the show. You’ve been second fiddle for years, and you’re sick of sitting back and thinking about how this thing would run if you were in charge. Well, guess what? You’re in charge. Stop talking about how it’s going to be and just do your thing. If your way is better than hers, you get to show it. Just
stop
beating me over the head with how much different you are than her. Because I like your sister. She’s not stupid, and she’s not pointlessly cruel, which you seem to think she is. She doesn’t love hurting people, she just doesn’t shy away from it.” He shrugged. “Do your thing and stop making grand pronouncements. It reeks of a lack of confidence.”

I sat there, trying to use my mouth to form words. “I … am confident,” I said after a moment, unintentionally confirming the opposite.