Grounded (Out of the Box Book 4) (35 page)

“I always thought that Mr. Cavanagh was a good man,” Momma said.

“Momma, he sent those metas that destroyed the neighborhood,” Augustus said.

“
Allegedly
,” she said.

“He confessed!”

“I don’t think I believe that,” she said, shaking her head. “Just like I don’t think I believe that Jamal ran off with a girl. You know, a mother would know if her boy was seeing some hussy on the side. I think he just wanted to get away from all this.”

Taneshia and Augustus exchanged a look with me. “The timing was suspicious,” Taneshia agreed. “But I can’t blame him. The neighborhood is going to take time to come back from this, even with Cavanagh’s money. And you just know when the word gets out, every scammer for twelve states is going to come running to get himself a piece of that.”

“Somebody ought to watch out for people around here,” I said.

“I believe I will,” Taneshia said. “Or at least, as much as I can while still completing my degree.” She elbowed Augustus.

“I believe I will, too,” Augustus said too, but with much less enthusiasm. “Without the degree, though.”

“I would bet that the University of Georgia would be more than happy to accept a bonafide superhero into college there,” I said.

“Oh, yeah?” Augustus said with disinterest. “You think they’d pay for it, too? Because that’s the real sticking point.”

“Mmm, maybe not,” I said.

“Just as well,” Taneshia said. “I hate the Bulldogs.”

“How about the University of Minnesota?” I asked nonchalantly.

“Nobody likes them,” Taneshia said. “Golden Gopher? What the hell is that, even?”

Augustus just rolled his eyes. “You think they’ll throw out a free scholarship? They got one for superheroes up there?”

“Yeah,” I said, “it’s a government scholarship with a work program attached.”

“Work program?” Augustus frowned. “What work program?”

“You come work for me at the agency,” I said, “and in return we’ll pay you and fund your college.”

“Whaaaaaat?” Augustus asked, looking at me like he didn’t think I was serious. “That’s not a thing!”

“It’s a thing,” I said. “A real, genuine thing that I am making up in my capacity as person in charge of hiring and budgeting for the operations department.” I smiled at him. “My team’s a little light, and I could use someone around to remind me … what a real hero is like.”

“You serious?” Augustus asked, lips open. “You’re serious?” He looked at Taneshia. “Is she serious? I can’t tell!”

“I’m serious,” I said to Taneshia, who looked—not surprisingly—torn.

“She’s serious,” Taneshia said, nodding. I thought I saw hints of tears in her eyes.

“Oh, yeah, everybody’s serious,” Momma said. “I miss my television programs. They are way less stupid than y’all.”

“Momma, I’m going to college,” Augustus said, nodding his head. “Hell yeah, I’m going to college!” I wondered if he was going to stand up on his tiptoes and bellow it out to the world. He didn’t, but I sensed it was a near thing.

“I heard about that,” Momma said. “Whole damned neighborhood just heard about that.”

“Can you just be happy for me for a minute, Momma?” Augustus asked.

She stared at him, and then rose from her chair and put a hand on each of his cheeks and drew him in. Then she looked him in the eyes. “Augustus, you put the community’s number one advocate in jail. You landed your boss in the clink and his factory is almost certain to shut down, casting a whole mess of people out of jobs. People who live all around us. In spite of all that … I still think you did the right thing, and I’m proud of you.” She kissed him on the forehead. “But I’m glad you’re going, because until things get rebuilt around here, people are going to be all manner of irate with you.” She looked at me. “When can he leave?”

Augustus looked at me, hopeful. “As soon as he wants,” I said. “I’m actually escorting Cavanagh and Laverne back to Minnesota with a few of the others so we can contain them there until trial. The flight leaves tonight at nine from the cargo section of Hartsfield-Jackson.”

“I’ll be there,” Augustus said, and I could see he was swallowing the intense emotions down. “And … thank you.”

“Damned right you say thank you,” Momma said. “I was worried for a minute you’d forgotten all those manners I taught you.”

I found myself laughing, out loud, in a way I hadn’t in a long time, as my phone started to buzz in my pocket. I’d been ignoring my boss for about two days now, and he’d stopped calling. I hadn’t heard a peep from him since the story broke about Cavanagh, and I figured this was going to bite me any moment now. Time to face the music, I figured. And the music was probably that damned “Black Horse and Cherry Tree” song.

I stared at the caller ID on my phone, blinking. It was the same simple white lettering as always, but it felt somehow … smaller.

Katrina Forrest. Los Angeles, California
, the phone told me.

“I’m going to college!” Augustus called out from behind me. “We need a party! I need a going away party, like nowwwww.”

“You do need a party,” Taneshia said. “There needs to be some celebrating. And I think the neighborhood would be very happy to say goodbye to you now that you’ve destroyed everything.” They broke into playful laughter.

I stared at the screen of my phone, just blinking at it. Should I answer? Should I let her have it? Unload all the emotional baggage that I’d been feeling for the last few months at this little war of comparison she’d kicked off?

Those questions ran through my mind in less time than it took for the phone to buzz twice more.

“Sienna, you’re coming to the party, right?” I looked up to see Augustus staring at me, Taneshia and Momma right behind him.

“What?” I asked, and then my mind processed it. “Yeah. Sure. Of course. Cavanagh and his boys are suppressed, and I can get there in seconds if I need to. Count me in.”

“Who’s on the phone?” Augustus asked.

I watched the phone buzz once more, and then it stopped, warning me of a missed call. I stared at the screen for another second and just hit the power button, letting it fade to black. “No one,” I said, and put the phone back in my pocket. And I went to go help plan the party … like a normal person.

One last thing:

HELL YES! I am going to college!

I am SOMEBODY!

Damned right. Always knew I would be.

Edward Cavanagh leaned his head back against the hard concrete block and stared at the bars in front of him. The smell of the crappy food was still lingering in the air from dinner. He’d tried a few bites and nearly threw up. It wasn’t just unpalatable; it was gross. He’d been prepared for hardship, but he wasn’t prepared for that.

Everything seemed a little hazy for him, a little … like the world was in a fog. That was a shame, but not unexpected given he had a full dose of the suppressant in his veins. That little chemical had been an interesting discovery. Of course, coming up with it had been a very natural byproduct of reverse engineering the serum that unlocked powers, but no one had needed to know that the chicken had come before the egg.

Cavanagh wasn’t exactly sure what had possessed him to make his confession, but he had his suspicions. An empath, probably. When they’d come to him, when this whole thing had started, they’d warned him about what types of metas there were in basic terms, and in fairly explicit ones when it came to certain, more problematic types.

He’d been warned, and he’d ignored it. But then, playing with the serum hadn’t been something he was supposed to do, not yet. The word hadn’t come down, after all. That had been his own initiative. His idea. His vision.

And up until the moment when Laverne had sunk him by striking at bait he shouldn’t have gone after, his vision was looking better than 20/20.

Cavanagh felt the pressure of the brick against the back of his head as his thoughts swirled half-formed in his mind, coalescing so much more slowly than they would if he hadn’t been on the suppressant. He knew it didn’t have an actual effect on his cognition—maybe it was just the disturbing change of environment and circumstances coupled with that sick feeling in his stomach—but his mind didn’t feel like it was moving very fast. He could hear the heartbeat in his ears, though, the blood rushing through his brain.

The first spike of pain behind his eye was the clue that gave it away. It sent him back to thinking about the list, the list of metas they’d told him about. What did they call the one that could affect your—

Oh—

Oh no—

Cavanagh could feel the pressure build in the front of his skull, and it forced his eyes to roll back in his head involuntarily. It was like someone had a fist in the front of his brain and was squeezing, squeezing until the blood pooled, each beat of his heart building the pressure like an overburdened dam, all the way until it came to a frenzied peak—

Splat
.

Cavanagh saw the wash of red hit the wall of his cell out of the corner of his eye as he pitched over. He left a trail of it, but by the time he was on the ground he was only dimly aware of it—or anything else. His consciousness faded to the point where he couldn’t hold even a simple thought.

But the last one that crossed his mind was a doozy, though just a little incomplete.

Shouldn’t have crossed A—

“It is done,” the voice on the other end of the phone said.

The watcher did not acknowledge the message, merely hung up the phone. It was not his way to acknowledge, merely to receive the report, to operate within the guidelines. Edward Cavanagh had had his guidelines and had chosen to exceed them. That was his foolish mistake, and now he had paid for it with his death. His silence was assured.

The news flickered on the screen, and once more the watcher was treated to an image of the girl, Sienna Nealon. He had been watching her for as long as he had been in this place. Of course she had been involved. She was always involved. Pesky. That was how he would describe her.

But her day would come. And it would be according to the guideline, the day when he would leave the darkness again.

And his first day back in the light would be her last day alive.

Hopefully this isn't a surprise for you, but that one was another blast for me to write. I can honestly say I'm having so much fun with these Sienna books, and keep coming up with so many ideas. That's a good sign, right? Anyway, this book hinted at some larger things going on in the series, and also at some things going on in the story arc that will cap off in book #6 (Vengeful) as well as some ones that will maybe come to a head in book #7 as well. (That could change.)

I've once again set a release date for book five. I make no promises about doing this for future installments. If you want to know when future books become available, take sixty seconds and sign up for my NEW RELEASE EMAIL ALERTS by
CLICKING HERE
. Don't let the caps lock scare you; it's FREE, I don't sell your information and I only send out emails when I have a new book out. The reason you should sign up for this is because I don't like to set release dates (it's this whole thing, you can find an answer on my website in the FAQ section), and even if you're following me on Facebook (
robertJcrane (Author)
) or Twitter (
@robertJcrane
), it's easy to miss my book announcements because…well, because social media is an imprecise thing.

Come join the Girl in the Box discussion on my website:
http://www.robertjcrane.com
!

Cheers,

Robert J. Crane

Okay, I'll admit it. I've run out of new ways to thank people and make it interesting. I might try again next book.

My thanks to these fine folks, without whom this book would not be possible:

Sarah Barbour, Jeff Bryan and Jo Evans – Editorial clean-up crew.

Adrienne Prevo and Taneshia Pearl for their read-throughs.

Karri Klawiter – Cover by.

Polgarus Studio – Formatting.

My parents, my kids, my wife – For all their help.

Robert J. Crane is kind of an a-hole. Still, if you want to contact him:

Defender: The Sanctuary Series, Volume One

Avenger: The Sanctuary Series, Volume Two

Champion: The Sanctuary Series, Volume Three

Crusader: The Sanctuary Series, Volume Four

Sanctuary Tales, Volume One - A Short Story Collection

Thy Father's Shadow: The Sanctuary Series, Volume 4.5

Master: The Sanctuary Series, Volume Five

Fated in Darkness: The Sanctuary Series, Volume 5.5* (Coming in 2015!)

Warlord: The Sanctuary Series, Volume Six* (Coming in late 2015!)