Grounded (Out of the Box Book 4) (34 page)

“‘Someone’s always watching’?” I asked her after they’d led him away. I stood next to Taneshia, admiring Cordell Weldon’s leather couch in the corner of his office. I was tempted to just throw myself upon it since I didn’t exactly have a home anymore, but considering how we’d just found him, I decided against it.

“What’s that old Ben Franklin quote?” she asked, thinking about it.

“‘Three men may keep a secret if two are dead,’” Taneshia said in a low voice.

“Seems like however many men were involved in this, they kept the secret pretty well for a good long time,” I said. “Years.”

“It always comes back sooner or later,” Sienna said, and the look on her face went resolute, traced with sadness. “Can’t outrun the past forever. It’s part of you.”

“That’s grim,” I said.

“It’s truth.”

“I don’t know if I agree with that,” I said. “What’s the point of life if you can’t change? Life is change. Otherwise we’d just be hitting the same notes day after day. No,” I shook my head, “I don’t believe that. I think people can change—if they want to. But,” I shrugged, “that’s coming from a guy who two days ago was just a normal dude who was going to have his college paid for by an employer that’s now probably going to … collapse under the weight of more indictments than the Capone organization.”

“I’ll believe it when I see it, kid,” Sienna said, a little too smug. She was in her patronizing mode again, and she only seemed to pull that out when she was being defensive. But I was onto that game now.

“Hey,” I said, catching her before she turned away. The cops were clearing out, heading downstairs, probably radioing for backup for their backup, ready to throw up a cordon and watch the place ’til sunrise so they could soak up some more overtime. “You may fool everyone else,” I said, so low that no one else could hear me but her and Taneshia, “but Cavanagh, when he thought he had us over a barrel—he never had
you
over a barrel. You could have dodged that fool Laverne’s bullet at any time and just let the lab blow up around you.”

Her smug smile vanished. “I—that would have—”

I stepped closer. “The press may not acknowledge it, the newspapers may not print it, hell, maybe no one will ever know but Taneshia and me, but … you saved our lives tonight. You may be too hard sometimes, but you’re still a hero.”

“I don’t …” she let her head sink, unable to meet my eyes, “I …”

“Maybe you ought to let someone save you sometime,” I said and squeezed her shoulder. She looked at my hand like I’d imagine a white blood cell looked at a virus: foreign invader! Destroy! Destroy! But she didn’t act on that, and a moment later, her expression softened.

“You can’t save me from the choices I’ve made,” she said, and there was a dark undercurrent beneath the soft voice. “They’re like a wedge that I’ve driven between me and everyone I know.”

What do you even say to something like that? I thought about trying to be serious, but she cleared her expression a moment later, went back to neutral, and I knew the discussion was over. “You know what else comes in a wedge? Pizza and pie, and I want both,” I said.

She nodded. “I could eat.” She looked at Taneshia.

Taneshia rolled her shoulder, testing out her back like it still hurt. “I’m starving. And I know this great place just down the road from Georgia Tech. They’re open all night.”

“I’m in on that,” I said, following them to the door. I felt a little tweak of regret thinking about Cavanagh Tech and my lost opportunity. That stung. Two years of work for nothing. I sighed and followed them out, though. The sun would come up tomorrow, after all, and there’d almost certainly be some other opportunity that would come along for a man in my situation. A man of my means? No, that wasn’t right. Whatever the case …

Something would come along for this
somebody
.

I found the black sedan with the North Carolina plates later, after both pizza and pie, about a mile from the precinct. I had a feeling that I was supposed to, because when I was flying over, it was right there, parked down an alley that was blind on two sides.

I descended in a flash, trying to remain unseen. It was unlikely, given the dim lighting in this area, that anyone would be seeing me, but I took precautions nonetheless. A moment after I landed, noiseless, the night air washing against my warm skin, the car door opened and Agent Faraday of the United States Secret Service stepped out.

“You armed?” he asked.

“Always,” I said. “You don’t even need to ask from now on, just assume I am.”

He gave me that wary look, then shook his head and got back in the car. The back passenger side door opened on its own and Senator Robb Foreman of Tennessee stepped out, buttoning up the bottom two buttons of his suit as he did so. Classic gentleman, that one.

“Good evening, sir,” I said, carefully walking the line between respect and contempt. Foreman should have been honored; I usually didn’t come anywhere close to that line. I was firmly on one side for 95% of my life, so this was a concession.

“Hello, Sienna,” he said, not making much in the way of concessions himself. But that was a politician for you; they never wanted to make a concession, especially in speech form. “I know it’s summer out, but it sure does feel a lot like Christmas.”

“I didn’t know you were planning to use your powers to pound on them while they were down,” I said, crossing my arms. “I just figured you’d use your influence.”

He looked amused. “I don’t know how much influence you think I have as a junior senator, but it’s less than you think.”

“What about as a presidential candidate who just watched the other party take a direct hit to the nuts?” I asked.

“Small-time scandal,” Foreman said. “The press won’t make too much hay out of this one. Blogs and news media will have a field day, and it’ll make enough of an impact to cause a stir around here, but don’t anticipate Cavanagh or Weldon’s departures to be nationally significant except for the sudden lack of PAC donations Cavanagh will be making. Still and all, I have no complaints.”

“Did you …” I wanted to be careful here in what I suggested.

“You know I can’t force a thought into someone’s mind, Sienna,” Foreman said, and I felt heat in my cheeks from the chastening. “I can, however, pull on a very narrow emotional thread—say, someone like Edward Cavanagh’s deep-seated feelings of guilt, inadequacy and mommy issues—and make them want to do the right thing by confessing all their sins in the heat of the moment.”

“That would explain a few of the curiouser things he confessed,” I said.

“That man was a little damaged,” Foreman said. “Or so I assume from the state of his emotions.”

“Did you know what he created in that lab?” I asked. Foreman shook his head. “Metahuman abilities in a bottle. A serum that unlocks the powers hidden in our genetic code.”

Foreman had a slightly stricken look on his face at that, and he looked aside while mopping his brow where sweat was starting to pop up. “Well, that’s a genie that’s going to be hella-hard to squeeze back into a bottle.”

“Ya think?” I squeezed my arms tight around myself. “He was dead set on releasing it worldwide somehow. Fortunately, he confessed that he didn’t have the delivery apparatus in place for it yet.”

Foreman shook his head. “I don’t think I got him to confess everything. There was something else in there, something guarded under a layer I couldn’t get through—fear deeper than any ocean. There’s more than he was telling you.”

“Gah,” I said, throwing my head back. It strained my neck, squeezing my spine together. “What could be worse than what he already threw out there?”

“I don’t know,” Foreman said, shaking his head, “but I suppose you have enough problems to be getting along with as it is.”

“Tell me about it,” I said. “I haven’t even figured out how I’m going to contain Cavanagh. Dude shifts gravity with a thought. I expect he can crunch his way out of any cell we can put him in, so I’m guessing we’re going to be feeding him a steady diet of his own suppressant for as long as he lives.”

Foreman hesitated there, and he’d been looking like he was ready to head back to the car only a second earlier. “About that …” he started.

“Yeah, I know,” I said, feeling a world-weariness settle on me. “It wasn’t very … pragmatic of me, was it?”

“Seems like this cat would fall into the same category as the Cassandra in England,” Foreman said, “too dangerous to live, at least in Sienna’s world.”

“Maybe I had a sentimental moment,” I said, covering my face out of, I don’t know—shame?

“I don’t think that’s it at all,” Foreman said. “That young man you’ve been hanging around with—I get the feeling he’s been … an influence on you.”

I cocked an eyebrow at him. “You make him sound like booze or a teenager’s badass friend.”

Foreman chuckled, and I’d forgotten what a pleasant sound it was. “Didn’t mean it like that. Your emotional state now versus earlier today—it’s like night and day. I’m no psychiatrist, but I might suggest that you do something to keep that darkness at bay.”

“Oh, yeah?” I asked. “What would you suggest to do that?”

“Hire that fellow for your team,” Foreman said, and now he did start walking away.

“I figured you’d come down harder on me for not making the pragmatic decision to kill Cavanagh,” I said. “I … didn’t expect you to go in this direction. Are you sure you’re still the same guy who wanted to blackmail me into taking the government job?”

“No,” Foreman said as he opened the door and leaned against it. “I saw things working with you that … changed my view of the world in a lot of ways. Hard-nosed pragmatism can’t always win, Sienna.” He stared me down. “Killing every single threat to humanity in the most brutal, expedient method possible is the work of an executioner, not a human being. For all your mantra of ‘I do what I have to do,’ I wonder how many times you’ve considered that these people you’ve killed are the lowest sort of scum in most cases. They aren’t ambiguous characters. They made choices that made them into the villains, choices that put them in place to kill a lot of innocent people.” He shook his head. “No, I don’t mourn them for their loss, and I never questioned your decisions to kill when you thought it was necessary.” His expression softened just a hair. “I did, however, occasionally worry about what those decisions were doing to you.” His lips twisted, and I could almost feel him wanting to say something more. But all he managed to get out was, “Good night, Sienna. And good luck,” before he climbed into the car and it drove off.

“Good luck to you as well,” I said to the car as it went past. I knew he’d hear it.

I said a curiously neutral goodbye to Calderon at the station. He was swamped with paperwork and I understood that. He looked up for a few minutes as I said my piece, something about, “Nice working with you, I’m sorry things sucked for so long, but thanks for believing in me.” I left out any references to our evening together because, well, I doubted he’d forgotten, and it seemed like it would be pointless to mention it now, other than to serve as an unpleasant reminder that things had gotten a bit messed up somewhere along the line. I hadn’t gone home with him expecting anything serious, and I doubted he had, either. One-night stands didn’t translate into romance in my world. I didn’t live in a sunny romcom where the leads circled each other making acerbic comments until they reached that moment when they realized they were desperately in love with the other person. I wasn’t even sure I believed in my capacity to love anymore.

“I’m sorry things got screwed up, too,” Calderon said, nodding along. “You could have gone about it a little better, though, you know?”

I didn’t quite glare at him, but it was close. “Look … I’ll get better at being a delicate detective who knows just where to step if you want to give me lessons.”

“Hell, I don’t think I have enough time left on my clock to pull that one off before I die,” Calderon said, nearly laughing. “Just keep going at it full speed ahead, you’ll get to the truth eventually. Might end up in a few more YouTube videos, though.”

“That seems inevitable,” I said and gave him a wave.

“Look me up if you’re ever in Atlanta again,” Calderon said. He didn’t wink, but I think it might have been implied. For my part, I held in the smile until I made it outside and airborne.

I arced east, heading over the English Avenue neighborhood until I found Augustus’s house. The neighborhood was a mess, that much was obvious when I came down in the middle of the street. At least the burned-up cars and fire engines had been hauled away. I felt a deep, serious sense of guilt, looking around at houses without roofs, front lawns that were cratered, houses with holes in the brick like a bomb had gone through the window. It was appalling, the level of damage that Cavanagh’s meta army had unleashed here, and it left me shaking my head.

“You look like you’re a presidential candidate,” Augustus’s voice reached me from the shade under the tree on his lawn. He was just sitting there under the somewhat scorched—maple? Oak? What the hell am I, a botanist? He was sitting under it with Taneshia, and his mother was in a folding lawn chair next to them. “Circling the FEMA disaster area, nodding your head with a serious look.”

“I’m sorry I’m brought this down on you all,” I said, walking tentatively into the shade.

“Oh, you didn’t hear?” Augustus asked.

“Hear what?” I asked, looking around at each of them. Momma had a very serene expression on her face.

“It seems Mr. Cavanagh has found himself a heart,” Augustus said with more than a little gusto, “and has signed over a large portion of his fortune to assuage his guilt over the destruction here.”

“That’s … surprisingly generous,” I said cautiously. I wondered for about a second how much Foreman had had to do with this, and then I realized—he was probably entirely responsible. Then again, Cavanagh was the sort of narcissistic dipshit who might try and do something like this just to make himself look better in a press that was currently in the process of ripping him up like buzzards working over a carcass.