Destiny: The Girl in the Box #9 (3 page)

“It’s not a punishment,” I said quietly.

“It’s fate, then,” he said. “And I am resigned to my fate.”

I gave the circle of steel boxes around me another look. “Let’s see if anyone else feels the same.” I gestured my hand in a slow circle and the locks for every one of the cages clicked open.

One of the doors opened immediately, with a thud, and I turned to see Bjorn’s muscular body sweep out of the box, shirtless, chest bulging. “Ah, the air of freedom. How can it be so stale and dank in place that does not truly exist?”

The door next to his clanked open and a lithe, nude female form stepped out. “Haven’t you realized yet? We are in hell, and the dankness is as close to brimstone as you’ll get.” Her blond hair was still pixie-short and grew in several other places I didn’t need to see, like her armpits and … further south.

“God, Eve, put some clothes on, will you?” I flung a hand at her and a moment later she was clad in a t-shirt and jeans. Better than the nothing she apparently preferred.

“You seem to have come in contact with the enemy.” Roberto Bastian’s enclosure swung open with a squeak, and he gently closed it behind him once he was out. “And your plan didn’t survive.”

“No plan does,” I said tersely as I looked at the former leader of M-Squad. “Or so I’ve heard.”

“My sister is well, it would seem.” Aleksandr Gavrikov spoke from behind me. I felt my jaw clench at the mere mention of his sister. It wasn’t that I was even annoyed by her anymore; it was that he wouldn’t EVER shut up about her.

“She’s fine,” I said, composing myself rather than just flinging him back into the box he’d stepped out of. I counted them off in my head, one by one. Five of them were out of their cages. One to go.

Of course it was
him
.

There was no light in the darkness, but I could still see each of their faces as though a lamp followed my gaze. I looked at each of them in turn then I swiveled to face the last box.

The lock was undone but the door was closed. I stared, willing it to open, and it did, noiselessly. I could see his shadow within, could almost see his eyes gleaming inside the box.

Watching me. Judging me. Sizing me up. The most heinous creature I’d ever met.

“Wolfe …” I said, “Aren’t you going to come out and play?”

“Maybe the Wolfe doesn’t want to come out and play anymore, Little Doll.” The voice was little more than a rasp, and lacked all the vigor and laughing cruelty that had always been present in his speech. The darkness enshrouded him, he was wrapped up in it, and even though I could feel him watching, I couldn’t see him.

A little chill made its way over my body. “Wolfe doesn’t want to come out and play?” I took a step closer to the box, but no more of him was revealed than had been before. “You just want to … sit in there and think about what you’ve done?” I took another step closer, heard my footstep click over the silence of the others, who were watching quietly. “Are you just going to sit in there and play with yourself?”

I heard a faint growl, but it ended within seconds. “The Wolfe grows tired of the Little Doll’s plans. The Little Doll’s prison.”

I clenched my jaw again. He revolted me. Every moment of every day for the rest of my life, I would have been content to let him sit in the box in my head, out of my sight and as near to out of my mind as I could get him.

But it wasn’t that easy.

“Sovereign,” I said, saying the name almost as much to remind myself of why I had deigned to come in here and talk to these disembodied vagrants as to focus the conversation. “You know he’s an incubus.”

Wolfe’s shadow didn’t move. “Didn’t know. Don’t care.”

The circle of the others that surrounded me was silent. “What about the rest of you?” I asked. “Do any of you care?”

“No,” Eve Kappler replied, tugging at the bottom of the grey t-shirt I’d forced on her like she was trying to test the fabric for flaws. “I don’t care if he makes you his whore for the rest of your days—”

I waved a hand and Eve was propelled backward, into the box from whence she’d come. I slammed the door on her and the lock fell back into place with only a thought from me. The sound of the metal clang echoed through the darkness. “Let me make this clear … I’m not going to be anyone’s whore.” I stared at each of them in turn with a burning glare. “Not his. And certainly not yours. I need help, but I don’t need it bad enough to take shit from any you.”

“I think you do,” Bjorn said, and I turned to look at him. He’d towered over me in life, a mountain of a man. “You need us. And I want to hear you … beg for help.” He grew a slow smile, and the air turned frosted around us as he let a long breath of white mist.

I clenched my fist and felt myself swell. Bjorn was an animal, a beast so low as to be worthy only of eating off the ground and rooting through his own feces for nourishment. I knew what he’d done in life, and in my view he was as pathetic as Wolfe.

“Let me tell you something about begging,” I said as he began to shrink before me. It wasn’t something he did voluntarily; but this was my mind, and I controlled it. I grew to twice his size and stared down at him. He was barely up to my waist at this point. I reached out and grabbed him around the neck with one hand, hauling him off his feet and into the air. I stared into his wide eyes. “If anyone’s going to beg in here, it will be you—and it will be for mercy.”

I squeezed him and his eyes bulged. I could feel his pain but I blanketed him with quiet. His soul screamed with agony, but no one could hear him save for me. I kept a lid on it. It swelled, like a pressure cooker reaching its limits, a faint shrieking, barely audible. Finally, I let it loose and the air was rent with a horrific cry, an anguished squeal that was worse than anything I could ever recall hearing.

I flung him back into his cell and the door slammed behind him as I returned to my normal size. I looked to Gavrikov, who stood watching me, impassive. “And you?”

Aleksandr Gavrikov was a difficult man to read at any time. He took a step back, his face falling into shadow that pooled around his mouth and eye sockets, making his expression impossible to gauge. “You are foolish to challenge Sovereign. I will not help you. Not today. Not ever. You are a far cry from the matryoshka I knew so long ago—”

My head whipped around as I flung Gavrikov back into his cell and slammed the door behind him. “And you, Bastian? Are you going to ignore the threat to our kind?”

Bastian stared at me with hard eyes. Duty was everything to him. I knew that. “I don’t think I can help you,” he said after a long pause.

I felt a swelling of anger like I was going to explode, and just as I started to reach out a hand for him he shook his head. “Let me save you the trouble.” He walked back to his box and stepped inside, shutting the door behind him. I raised a hand and locked it with a slashing gesture, purely out of spite.

I turned back to Wolfe, the last of the metas, uncaged. But he was caged, still standing in his box, his shadow staring back at me through the pooling darkness. “What are you going to do, Wolfe? Just sit in the cage until I die, staring at the walls and reliving all your happy memories?” I stepped toward him and still could not see him in the dark.

“Yes,” Wolfe said.

“You’re just going to sit there?” I asked, incredulous. “Going to sit back and let the guy who pounded the shit out of you in the Forest of Dean—just let him walk away. Just let him kill … every … meta … on the planet? That’s what you’re gonna do?”

Wolfe’s voice was quiet, and all the usual malicious joy was gone from it. “That is all the Wolfe will do … until the end comes. Until the Little Doll gets broken or killed by Sovereign. Then it will all be over.”

“You’re a coward,” I said with quiet fury.

I could feel him blink, could feel the hostility radiate off of him. His shadow only stirred, but I knew he was tense, ready to spring at me. It was futile, of course. I could hurt him here; he couldn’t hurt me. I was in control now.

And he knew it.

His shadow relaxed. “Sovereign will come for the Little Doll eventually, and she is too foolish to heed the Wolfe’s advice and run. So if she doesn’t play nice with Sovereign, she’ll get locked away or he’ll wait for another Little Doll to show up. One that
will
play with him. Maybe even your own Little Doll.” A chill ran through me. “If the Little Doll ever has one of her own.”

“I will … kill him,” I said, staring into the abyss of Wolfe’s cage. “I will.”

A paw extended out far enough to take hold of the door to Wolfe’s prison, and it began to shut. “If the Little Doll really believes that … then why is she here?”

He shut the door and I locked it out of habit. The sound echoed, even as I turned back to Zack, who waited behind me.

His face was pale, downcast—and said everything I already knew about my chances of success without the help of my prisoners.

It was a slow, miserable walk back to the Headquarters building. The sun was rising at my back and I knew it was sure to be another warm late summer’s day. I let my hand run over my face, rubbing my brow. There was dirt on my fingers and I could feel it smudge on my forehead as I walked. I didn’t care.

I ran my tongue over the roof of my mouth, still tasting the remnants of the coffee I’d had earlier. I’d need more unless I wanted to fall asleep before the day had even begun. Breakfast, too. I felt a little weak, probably from a failure to eat, and my stomach rumbled its assent to my assessment.

There were still figures milling around the construction site where I’d encountered Sovereign. I saw security uniforms, and even a white lab coat that told me Dr. Perugini was there. I took the long way around, dog-legging toward the cafeteria on the back side of the dormitory in order to avoid her. She and I weren’t on the best of terms; when I’d talked to her earlier in the night, she was most upset with me for leaving Old Man Winter’s burnt corpse to stink up her medical unit.

Winter.

I cursed aloud as I walked, hearing my boots swish through the dewy grass. I’d just had a showdown with the voices in my head, and every last one of them with power had refused to help me. My instincts told me to pound the stuffing out of them, Jack Bauer style, until they gave me what I wanted, but I didn’t think I had it in me. Pushing them around and bullying them some was one thing; actively torturing them was another.

I was surprised I drew that line for dead people. They were living rent-free in my head, after all.

I came around the far wing of the dormitory at a fast walk. The enormous glass cube that was the cafeteria sat between the right-angled wings of the building. It was enormous, extending four stories into the air. Even from here, I could smell fresh eggs cooking. My stomach rumbled again. Breakfast would be served soon.

I glanced through the glass windows into the cafeteria and saw figures huddled inside. I recognized a great many of them instantly. They were metas we’d saved from England, mostly. The remnants of Omega. I could smell the pall of fear from outside, too. It wasn’t a literal smell, but it was heavier than even the eggs.

I trudged past the cafeteria, keeping my distance. Karthik was inside with them, I knew, along with a few other defenders. Probably Reed by this point. I walked faster, hoping to get around the wing on the other side of the building before I was seen. I wasn’t in the mood for conversation.

I sent air rushing through my gritted teeth and thought about Winter again. He’d offered his soul to me, freely, and I’d turned him down. He was a wretched bastard, had killed the only man I’d ever loved by forcing me to touch him. Trying to get me to absorb him for eternity while promising some secret knowledge had seemed like the ultimate revenge, like the last laugh and nastiest dirty trick ever.

If I’d known then what I knew now, I might have taken him up on it.

He had been willing to give me his soul. That meant he might have been willing to show me how to use his power. Not that his power alone would have done me much good, since supposedly Sovereign had righteously beaten and scarred his ass once upon a time, but at least it would have been something.

And I needed something at this point. Actually, to fight Sovereign, I needed a whole lot of something—and that something was power, with a capital P.

I made it around the far wing of the dormitory and saw the main entrance to headquarters. It looked deceptively quiet even though I knew that there were a ton of security personnel standing just inside the lobby with enough firepower to win a small war.

Unfortunately, I was in a bigger war than they were equipped to handle, and I needed all the help I could get.

I made my way across the lawn and stepped onto the sidewalk, following it back to the entry. Every click of my boots against the sidewalk was like a beat of the drum, a cadence as I marched back to my doom.

I had no idea what to do next. I had people to protect that I couldn’t really protect. Sovereign had proven that. As if he wasn’t bad enough, his second in command, Weissman, could play with time like he carried God’s own remote. Pause, fast forward, slow motion, even rewind might have been in his power for all I knew. I’d gotten lucky the last time we fought and caused him a load of pain.

Then I’d gotten all stupid and merciful, letting him get away. I was pretty sure that trying to be the good guy in that situation had caused me to hesitate. I was even more sure it would cost me in the end. Another regret on the pile of them. Another questionable choice in a host of them. They were adding up quicker than I could take inventory.

I breezed through the security checkpoint toward the elevator and hit the button. I was still lost in thought when the doors opened, and I stepped inside without conscious effort.

I was at a dead end. I supposedly had powers, but I didn’t know how to use them. I had souls that were supposed to be mine, but were stubbornly refusing to cooperate with me. I had seemingly invincible, unbeatable foes looking down at me like giants staring down at a mouse. Like I’d just looked down on Bjorn.