Stolen, page 20
“And so humble, too,” June said dryly. But then she was gone, leaving me alone with nothing but my worries and thoughts as I tried to decide how best – or if there even was a way – to proceed without those who had left.
CHAPTER FIFTY-ONE
Wade
I lay on my back in my cell, listening to Harry breathe as we both dozed in the moments before a siren blared for a ten-second interval like someone driving an icepick into my ear. As I felt my heart flutter, maybe skip a couple beats, I stared at the ceiling in the haze produced by such long sleeplessness. How long could you go without sleep before you died? I wasn't just asking for a friend, though it seemed certain that either Zollers or Cassidy would go before me. Probably Harry, too.
“I hate this place,” Harry said in a dazed voice.
“Well, then aren't you lucky?” came a rasping voice beyond the bars that made me sit up. Captain China was standing just outside, wearing a fresh red and yellow spandex Captain China uniform, except...it was really lumpy in a couple places, and part of his face looked like it had melted glass sticking out of his cheek just below his eye. “The storm is only hours away.” His eyes glittered. “Your woman is coming to save you.”
Over his shoulder I saw dozens, then hundreds, of Chinese soldiers in the courtyard. Almost none of them had guns. Which meant...
They were metas. Hundreds of Chinese metas.
“Tell me,” Captain China said with a glint of annoying superiority, “do you share her? Like, go on her at the same time, like they do in your hideous American pornographic films?”
“What's up with your glass acne?” I shot back.
His smile vanished. “These I received defending my country.”
Harry chuckled beneath me. “Sienna glassed his ass and he barely escaped.”
I chortled. “Yeah. That sounds like something she'd do.”
He just smiled. “I doubt you'll be laughing when she shows up tomorrow and walks into the largest metahuman ambush ever set. We know her forces. We know their powers. And we know what time she's coming.”
“Yeah, I'm sure you've got it all figured out,” I said, with a confidence I did not, at all, feel.
“Indeed, he's clearly a superior tactician,” Harry said, riffing with me. “Which is why he got bedazzled, because he's so good and smart. It's almost like a medal.”
“A reward for intelligent service,” I said with the straightest face. It wasn't hard to keep it; inside I was quivering with worry for Sienna. There were so many metas out there... “Smart planning. Brilliant execution. Why, every Chinese soldier just hopes he can end up with glass melted into his face like that.”
For a second, I felt sure he was going to call for the door to be opened. That he'd storm in, smash chunks off the cell wall, make us both eat them, chewing gravel and concrete as he laughed and lorded it over us with his glassy, soulless eyes and glimmering acne.
But he didn't.
“Tomorrow she dies in front of you,” he said with a stony face. “Will you be laughing then?”
On a crisp and perfect about face, he turned, leaving us both silent, without answer, as he marched back toward his immense army of metas, all waiting in ambush to kill Sienna.
CHAPTER FIFTY-TWO
Sienna
I sat in the darkness and watched the hours tick by. At some point, I closed my eyes...
...And found myself in a dreamwalk.
“Hey,” I said to the figure in the haze. “I'm surprised to find you sleeping.”
“Doubt I will be for long,” my brother said, his long hair lank and greasy, dark bags under his eyes. In a dreamwalk, you controlled how you looked to others in the dream. Given he looked like warmed-over dogshit, I had a feeling Reed must have been exhausted and beyond the capacity to care. “Lethe keeps poking me awake, like I haven't been building and maintaining the world's biggest hurricane for the last week.” He smacked his lips together; they were dry and cracked. “How's it going on your end? You ready?”
“No,” I said, because there was no point in lying. “I presented them with a choice, Reed, and–”
“They left,” he said with a sigh. “Damn. Well...it was the right thing to do, if that makes you feel any better.”
I grimaced. “Knowing I'm about to walk into the teeth of a Chinese metahuman army trap without my chosen team does not make me feel better, no.”
He stared at me for a moment. “You could...not go.” He laughed, a short bark, before I could answer that. “I know, I know. Sienna Nealon can't leave her people behind.” Then he chuckled. “You're struggling with this soldier-general thing.”
“We don't leave people behind.”
He shook his head. “Even if you doom everyone else in your army by doing so?”
“Everyone else in my army might just be doomed anyway,” I said. “This is just a faster way to get to it.”
He couldn't really argue with that, so he didn't. The two of us settled into an uneasy silence as he closed his eyes to check on the progress of a hurricane a world away, and I waited for the sun to rise.
CHAPTER FIFTY-THREE
Then
“Sienna?”
I was drunk and dreaming. It was after Scotland, and I was in a condo in the Florida panhandle, after my friends had come for me, after I'd emptied bitch Rose's brains out over the Scottish countryside. I'd crawled in the bottle and Reed had indulged me, allowed me, to do so. He was staying with me in this little place on the beach, where I was dosing myself with medicinal amounts of whiskey to forget what had happened, and how I was a fugitive, and trying to remember everything I'd forgotten.
“Who-you?” I mumbled, slurring my words. There was a handsome enough man standing before me in the darkness of a dreamwalk, and I blinked at him in my stupor. Alcohol seeped into a dreamwalk, blurring everything, making sharp corners into soft lines, muddy textures, like there was a haze over the dream world like a thick fog.
“Sienna?” he asked again, stepping closer. “It's me. Wade.”
I waved a hand defensively at him, because I was too drunk to even realize it was a dreamwalk. “Don't know you.” I was scowling, one eye closed because I was squinting against even the low level of light.
“Wade. It's Wade,” he said again, like that was some sort of answer. “I know it's been...well, a bit, but...I'm sorry I couldn't get to you before now. I was...prideful, I guess? Wounded. I'm sorry. But–” He reached out for me again.
“I don't know who you are, man!” I said, waving a hand at him like a panicked chicken flapping a wing. “Just keep your distance, okay?”
“Okay,” Wade said, and now through the haze I could see his confusion. He had his hands up, trying to be all peaceable, eyes rimmed with worry for me. “Are you still mad?”
“Dude, I don't even know you, how can I be mad at you?” I stared at him, perplexed beyond understanding. “Unless you did something evil. I get mad about that. Or I used to. Now, I just kinda take a drink and worry less about it, cuz Reed's got it under control–”
“What happened to you, Sienna?” Wade asked. Even in a drunken stupor, I could tell the man was boggled.
“Scottish bitch,” I said simply, because that answered all.
Apparently not for him. “...Huh?”
“She was the stronger succubus,” I said, finding a couch suddenly behind me. How convenient. I plopped down on it. “You know what that makes me, handsome stranger?” I let my head sink into its pleasant softness. “Weaker.” I giggled uncontrollably. “And I am so weak now. No Wolfe, no Gav, no Bastian, no Bjorn or Harmon. Not even Eve.” I giggled again. “'Even Eve.' That almost rhymes.”
“I don't understand,” he said. “Someone took your powers? Your souls, I mean?”
“Scottish bitch.”
He was quiet for a moment, contemplating. “Do you really not remember me?”
I peered at him, trying to concentrate. “You're the guy who just showed up and started asking me questions. Other than that...no clue, man. But if you want to buy me a drink, you're welcome to.” I waved a hand at him. “I like whiskey, but I will also accept gin, vodka...”
“I don't think it would be wise for me to buy you a drink right now,” he said. “Look, I'm, uh...still overseas at the moment.”
“Then how the hell are you talking to me?” I asked, looking around. The background was the hazy black of an undefined dreamwalk, though I couldn't properly wrap my head around it, drunk as I was.
“Maybe when I get back stateside I can...look in on you,” he said.
“Don't bother unless you bring me a drink,” I said, letting my eyes close. How could I be tired in a dreamwalk? Months of torture. That's how. Also, a lot of alcohol. “Actually, don't bother at all, boring man. You bore me. That should be a capital offense in Sienna land.” I made a motion with my hand across his neck. “Off with your head. That should be the penalty.”
I saw him almost flinch, but didn't realize what it meant at the time. “If that's what you want,” he said, sounding stricken.
“I could do without the head-chopping,” I said, motioning away with my hand as if to flick him out of my august presence, “but I would also like to do without you. So...go away.” I motioned with my lip hand again. “Shoo. Begone.”
“If you say so,” he said, in a whisper. And he started to fade.
“I say so.” I closed my bleary eyes in the darkness. “If only everything worked the way I said...so.” And I giggled.
In the morning, I didn't even really remember him other than as a dream in my drunken stupor.
But he didn't forget our exchange in the dreamwalk. Not ever, and it would guide his conduct over the next few years.
CHAPTER FIFTY-FOUR
Kristina Bonner
NYC
The stupid portal had dropped her at Midtown. Midtown! What was the Park Avenue baby supposed to do with Midtown? She had no car, no rideshare – because Sienna hadn't let her bring her phone – which meant she was going to have to walk – walk! It was midday, which meant she couldn't even slip into the shadows and coast her way up to Park Avenue. The other alternative was the subway, and for Kristina Bonner, that wasn't even a consideration. The people, the unwashed masses – ugh, no chance.
So she'd walked it, doing a little window shopping at a few places along the way in the diamond district. She had some ideas for her next purchases, but unfortunately, given the way things had turned out with Nealon, she had no immediate funds with which to make those purchases.
Well, something would come along soon. It always did.
“Hey, baby,” Junior hailed her as she came up on the corner just down her block. She didn't normally truck with the unwashed, but Junior was funny – and he played good jazz with his saxophone as he sat in his wheelchair just down the block from her door. Which was odd; he usually sat right outside...
“Whatcha doing down here?” she asked, slowing her pace to talk to him. He smelled like street people tended to, that scent of musk and sweat baked on for days, but he had charm, and she liked him. “Why ain't you playing by the door? I thought they left you alone about that these days.”
“Yes ma'am, the police are way too busy to trouble me,” he said. “No, I decided to set myself up down here.” He looked down toward the entry of her building with great significance. “I saw something down there a little while ago, and figured I ought to move away.” He beckoned a hand toward her, and she leaned in. “The man's looking for you.”
“The man?” she asked. She could hear him just fine, even with the traffic and street noise.
“Policeman. Well, men,” Junior said. “Couple of 'em, both of the Asian persuasion.” He arched his eyebrows, like that meant something. “They didn't smell like your usual NYPD, but they were cops. Reeked of it.” He made a face. “And cigarettes, now that I think of it. But really stinky ones.”
Kristina felt her mouth go dry. Stinky cigarettes? Probably the Chinese variety, then. “Where'd they go?”
“Disappeared upstairs to your place. Haven't been down since. Reckon they want to talk to you. Thought you'd want to know.”
“You thought right,” she said, and slipped him two hundred dollars. Not nearly enough to put a dent in her shopping plans, but clearly enough to make his day, because he broke into a wide grin.
“Damn, girl,” he said, letting the saxophone rest in his lap. “I'm going to go get right with this.”
He left her be, and she scanned the street. Down the way, just in front of the building, was a panel van waiting, no windows. Probably chock full of Chinese SWAT.
Kristina cursed softly under her breath, then turned and went the other direction.
Chinese agents were looking for her.
Now what?
CHAPTER FIFTY-FIVE
Madison Gustafson
Omaha, Nebraska
They took the pocket money they'd gotten from Sienna with the card and first got a hotel, then went to Golden Corral. It was in among the creamed corn, creamed spinach, substandard prime rib, and chocolate fountain that Madison found she just couldn't take it anymore, and she said so, rather loudly, with Amanda beside her and brothers across the table, all immersed in their own plates.
“Then stop eating,” Amanda said, without missing a bite of salad. At Golden Corral. What a waste. “Geez. Dramatic.”
“You know that's not what I meant,” Madison said, all thought of peach cobbler – it was weak anyway – forgotten.
“What do you mean?” Nick asked, mouth full of mashed potatoes. He was getting their money's worth, his waistline sure to balloon again now that he was out of prison – and off starvation rations. Poor Nick.
“She means–” Amanda started.
“Madison didn't want to leave before the big fight,” David said, his eyes down, on his plate.
That brought about a pall of silence that was only broken when Amanda slid back a bit from the table. “You know the only reason she let us out was to get our help.”
“If that's true, why aren't we helping her right now?” Madison asked. “Why aren't we dead? Huh? She could have killed us when she realized we weren't going to help.”
“She killed our parents, Madison,” Amanda said.
“Our parents were assassins, Mandy,” Madison said. “They tried to kill her, and got wrecked. Penalties offset, first down. I don't even remember Mom and Dad, but come on – let's not pretend they were some noble people. Omega hired them to kill Sienna Nealon, and the same thing happened to them that happens to anyone who crosses her. They just had the misfortune of trying it before anyone knew any better.”
“I still don't understand how she killed them in 1999,” Nick said, keeping his voice hushed.
“Time travel,” David said. When no one else said anything for a long moment, he added, “Just like Minneapolis.”
“I watched them die, Madison,” Amanda said. “It doesn't matter if they 'deserved' it, they were our parents. Our flesh from their flesh, our blood from their blood. She's the reason we got dumped into the foster system. She's the reason Nick is–”
Nick made an outraged noise, looking up from his overstuffed fork.
“–Why he has problems,” Amanda finished lamely.
“I lived in that foster system, I know what happened,” Madison said. “And I also know this – when someone comes to kill you, me, any of us? Or wrongs us? We don't just lay down and take it. In fact, sometimes we scheme for years to avenge that wrong.”
Amanda stared at her flatly. “And?”
“So when someone comes along and does us right – lets us out of prison, spares us from what that warden had in mind for us, lets us just walk away...we don't do anything to repay that?” She looked at each of them in turn. “When someone's clearly struggling to get back what's theirs – like you would have fought to bring back Mom and Dad, if you could – we just...what? Let that pass?”
“Our family is what's most important to me,” Amanda said stiffly. “The people sitting at this table. We're all we've got left, you get that, right?”
“We're all we've got left because Mom and Dad decided to get on the side of a metahuman criminal syndicate that only ever wanted to control, influence, and bilk the world we live in,” Madison said. Years she'd thought this as they'd wasted away behind bars. “They worked for the worst people, did the worst things, and for all the wrong reasons – money and power. That's all Omega ever cared about.”
Her lip quivered slightly. “I know you didn't see it because I'm the one who got stuck going undercover as the secretary for Nealon's agency, but they did good work. They helped people. And even when she was at her worst, I watched Sienna try and do right by the people she was helping. I watched her spare a host of people who appeared to have killed all her friends, which is something I don't think our parents would have done if the tables were turned. Just a guess, based on their chosen professions. You wouldn't have been sitting here today if you'd been in Sienna's place and run across our parents in 1999. She spared you then, she spared us all two years ago, she saved us in Minneapolis, and she spared us again just this week.” Madison sat back in her chair. “You talk about family, about doing anything for family – she has spared the rest of this family death on multiple occasions and all we've done in return is offer a little assist this last couple of days. I guess if 'family' means so much to us, I figured we maybe ought to repay that debt.”
No one said anything for a moment, then Nick shifted uncomfortably in his chair. “If we go do this thing, Madison,” he said, “one of us could die.”
“We threw ourselves into possible death when we attacked Sienna at that cabin the way we did,” Madison said. “And we didn't for noble reasons – we did it to get our revenge. No one's life was on the line, waiting for us to save them. The world wasn't in peril like it is now, with China having taken over everything–”
