Powerless (The Girl in the Box Book 40), page 26
“Enjoy the show.” I gave him a single-finger salute, and he turned around and stalked off.
I looked around the parking lot, trying to really get a dead reckoning on where I was. Not physically, that much was obvious. But mentally...shit had really gone off.
Olivia and Aniya were hostages of Moose, Squirrel, and Snake, the Omega lackeys. They wanted Traverton, but Traverton had (literally) flown the coop. I was going to have to deal with them, either tomorrow when they called, or sooner, if I could roust them from...wherever they were. With only myself to do the investigating, and the cops uncooperative, I doubted I was going to have much luck moving up that timetable, even if I wanted to, which I didn't, because...
I was depowered for at least the next four to five hours. In addition, the cops had searched Ariadne's house and our office, and had turned me out of the latter. Would they even let me into the house? Hell if I knew. Getting there was probably my next move, except...
I didn't have a phone. Because they'd seized it.
Also, Reed and his merry band of possible reinforcements had just been unceremoniously ejected from the state. Which...was that even legal under US law? I doubted it, and so had he before the flight attendant had forced him to shut off his phone because they were closing the boarding door. But until Miranda and the lawyers came riding in to the rescue, he was stuck unless he wanted to actually break the law. Which I'd urged him not to. Given the oppressive level of scrutiny we were already under, making things worse by giving them cause for this inquisition seemed like a bad idea.
Oh, and that other villain, Oberheuser, was still out there somewhere, probably wanting to kill me but being mercilessly unclear about it.
“Maybe this is why Harry broke up with me,” I muttered, smacking my bloody lips together. They'd started to crust up, the coppery taste of blood finally starting to leave my mouth. Also, I was hungry and had all of five bucks in my wallet. Where was the nearest fast food restaurant...?
Probably a twenty, thirty minute walk from here. Shit.
I had just about made it to the police cordon line when a car screeched up. It was a small SUV, and it rolled right up to me, the window dropping as I halted, afraid that given my luck an Uzi was going to get stuck out the window to drill me with a few dozen rounds in a perfectly timed drive-by.
But no gun emerged, and as I peered at the face within, I realized...it was so much worse than a mere gun.
“Get in,” said Dr. Isabella Perugini, her hair wet in lank ringlets, and the look in her eyes everything I'd come to expect from my angry Italian sister-in-law-to-be's acidic personality...especially when it was pointed at me.
CHAPTER SIXTY-SIX
The silence in Dr. Perugini's SUV was heavy and awkward, even for the two of us. That really took some doing, too, because our whole acquaintance had been composed of misunderstandings, bad feelings, and awkwardness. First she was just the bristly Italian doctor who saw me as a bad patient and an unpleasant person and had no problem saying so while others sugarcoated their feelings about me.
Then she'd started dating my brother, and things never really got better between us after that. No idea why. I think it was because she was kind of a bitch.
“Did Reed send you?” I asked after we'd been going for a few minutes. She hadn't said anything about where we were heading, and I hadn't asked, because I didn't feel like talking any more than she did, apparently. We were heading east, into the 494 loop, which seemed like we might be heading to Ariadne's, but if she was taking me somewhere other than home, I kinda wanted to know.
“No,” she said tautly. “He did not have time in our short phone call, because he was about to call you.”
“He called you first,” I said, nodding. “Good move on his part.” When she fired me an angry look, I felt the need to elaborate. “Some guys would have made the rookie mistake of tending to business first.”
“Reed is not a rookie,” she almost spat. “He knows which side his bread is buttered on.”
“Yes, I'm sure you're really buttering him good.”
She rolled her eyes.
“They searched the office,” I said, since she hadn't heard it from him, probably. Hell, I didn't even get a chance to tell him. “And Ariadne's house.”
She nodded slowly, eyes on the road. “They kicked in our front door this morning while I was in the shower.” Her jaw tightened visibly, and suddenly I understood the damp ringlets hanging loose around her face. I'd never seen her like this, even in the middle of the night when she was treating some injury of mine like getting my hand burned off. “They held me at gunpoint. Naked.”
“Eden Prairie PD or...?”
She shook her head. “Minnesota's jackbooted thugs.” Her lips curled spitefully. “They would not even let me get a towel. And they shot me with a dart.” She rubbed her shoulder, almost self-consciously.
“Girl...same,” I said. I couldn't even pick out where they'd darted me at this point. The pinpricks were buried under a cavalcade of other aches and pains by now.
She looked sideways at me. “It looks as though they did more than that.”
“Oh, yeah, one of them really beat the hell out of me,” I said. “The prick. I don't even have a camera to take pictures of it.” I shook my head in disgust. “No point, really, anyway. Who gives a shit if the girl who gets the hell beaten out of her regularly gets a little more hell beaten out of her? I'm sure they think I've got hell to spare.”
“I care,” she said softly.
I almost did a double take. “...Really?”
She was right back to her usual sourpuss self. “Yes, really. This thing they are doing is a miscarriage of justice.” Her Italian accent was still strong, like the garlic and onions in her cooking. “When they were after you before, they at least had the benefit of suspicions. Of reason to believe law had been broken. But now?” She made a spitting noise, so very Italian of her. “They have empty hands, in which they hold their own genitalia, tiny and inadequate.” She spat again. “Pathetic.”
“Wow,” I said. “Honestly, I figured you'd blame this all on me.”
She shook her head. “I have not been shy in my criticism of you over the years. Many times, you have contributed to your own problems. But in this? You have kept your nose clean since coming back to Minnesota. This is a witch hunt. And they will not stop until they find some witches to burn, it seems.”
“By hook or by crook,” I sighed. “Sorry about your...experience.”
“They seized my laptop,” she said sourly.
I squinted at her, remembering at last what she was doing for work these days. “I thought you were doing internet-only doctoring now...?” She'd taken a job working for a startup that did videoconference doctor appointments, working out of the privacy of her home, and on her own schedule. Reed had raved about how freeing and flexible it had been during one of our conversations. How one would do that without a computer was a bit of a mystery to me.
“Exactly,” she said. “You see what they do? If they don't like you, they grab and squeeze.” She mimed grasping something at tit-level, and I flinched because...ow.
“Yeah,” I said. “They took my phone. I was expecting a...business call.” I didn't want to share everything with her, for fear the next time she talked to Reed, she'd tell him and he'd do something rash. Like fly here immediately, without a plane. My brewing troubles with the Omega junior squad were enough to worry about without my brother landing himself in real, legal jeopardy of the sort I'd experienced for two solid years. I didn't need that on my conscience, I decided.
“You should rout the office phone to your home line,” she said. “If they let you in.” Again, she turned sour. “They said they might let me back into the house...at night. So I suppose I will be driving to the office and seeing patients in person today.” She made that spitting noise again. “Do they not understand that I took this job because I do not wish to see people in person?”
“That was a good call on your part, I gotta say.”
She narrowed her eyes at me. “What do you mean by that?”
“That if I could, I would cut out my contact with people as much as possible, too,” I said. “Especially now. After this.”
She seemed suspicious for a moment more. “This is why we do not get along, you and I. Too much alike. You understand my dislike of people.”
“And you understand mine,” I sighed.
Grudgingly, she nodded. “I always did. But you cannot be this way with people, I thought. Especially not when it resulted in more work for me, people in my medical unit that I had to treat. Now...” She waved a hand. “...It is someone else's problem. Unless it affects your brother. Then it is mine.”
I chuckled. “Then it's both our problems.”
She nodded slowly. “Indeed.”
“Are you taking me back to Ariadne's?”
“Yes. Unless you want to go somewhere else?”
“No,” I said. “I should at least see what they've done to the place. Make sure it's not too trashed.” I sighed. “And probably start the cleanup. I don't even know how I'm going to tell her about this.”
“These are not good times,” she said. “I sometimes feel I want to leave these last weeks. To get out of this town. It is cold, anyway.”
“It's summer now,” I said softly.
“I am not talking about the weather.”
“Oh.” Couldn't argue with that. “If they don't let me in, you want to go get something to eat...?”
“I do not think so,” she said. “We understand each other now, you and I. And perhaps, in time, we will have...what is the French word? Rapprochement?” She shook her head. “But slowly. And to be honest...I am tired of people for today.” She added, “Sorry.”
“I understand completely,” I said, turning my eyes back to the road. It lay, black and slithering, in the heat of the sun, leading me onward to...what? I didn't even know what I'd find when I got to Ariadne's. I only hoped it wouldn't be too bad.
CHAPTER SIXTY-SEVEN
Well, it wasn't good.
That was my first thought when I got to Ariadne's. The cops had departed, save for a local PD car sitting out front. I talked to the cops without getting darted, to my surprise, and they told me I could enter. They were only keeping an eye on the place until I showed up, in fact, because in the process of entering they'd...
...Smashed Ariadne's grand, glass double front doors. I cringed as I looked at it, hallway beyond filled with shattered, glittering shards. The Eden Prairie PD car was already rolling away, leaving me to deal with the wreckage.
It didn't get any better when I mustered the courage to go inside. Ariadne's office, just inside the front doors, had been thoroughly tossed, and no effort at cleanup had been made. A receipt sat on the desk with a full listing of everything they'd taken, signed by some officer of MN BCA. So very helpful.
I made my way through the house, looking at all the turned-out cabinets. I did my best to put things right where they were easy to do so. Some drawers had been positively filled with stuff, organized in a way that was beyond my ken. In those cases, I left the mess alone, figuring I'd do more harm than good if I tried to repair the damage.
Scouring the upstairs came next. I didn't want to pry in Ariadne's things, but I also wanted to assess the mess. I checked the upstairs bedrooms, her makeshift workout room, and her craft room quickly in turn. There wasn't a lot I could do there, and in the master I saw no signs of a place where there might have been any weed hidden, but for all I knew she'd had it tucked away in her sock drawer.
Embarrassed because of all this, because I'd brought it on her, I finally retreated to the basement and checked my own room.
They'd taken nothing of mine, near as I could tell, not so much as a stitch of clothing nor a single toiletry. I didn't own much beyond that, after all, not at this point. They hadn't even messed with the whiskey bottle I'd left sitting out on the basement bar, other than (presumably) to pop it open and confirm it was mere alcohol instead of corrosive acid or some form of poison. The only thing I noted they'd taken was the butcher knife I'd left by the bed for my protection. Of course.
The cabinets beneath the television and throughout the basement kitchen had all been emptied onto the floor. These I put back as much as possible, because they'd been mostly empty other than food Harry and I had purchased. I guess Minnesota BCA hadn't found anything worth seizing in my snack stash. Lucky me, I still had a few Oreos left.
It might have been the silence that worked my nerves the worst. The lack of sound coming from anywhere in the house as I poked through the ruin left behind by the police. It was amazing how much destructive power a bunch of dudes with a piece of paper could unleash on you, I reflected, not for the first time in my life. Still, when I caught a look at my bloody face, swollen cheek and split lips in the mirror, I remembered that this was probably the least abusive thing that had happened to me today.
Stuff could be replaced. My face and fingers would heal.
My belief that I could live peacefully in this place I'd called home? This state I'd thought was my home?
That had taken a beating I wasn't sure could ever heal.
When I'd finally had enough for a while, I threw myself onto the couch – after I'd picked it up, because the cops had left it turned over for some damned reason. Luckily it was a wire framed recliner, and the interior was all exposed, otherwise they might have cut into it or something looking for...
...Well, I don't know. Drugs? Body parts from my victims?
I frowned. “What the hell were they searching for...?”
There was really no good answer for that, or at least not one I came up with before I heard the creak of a floorboard above me and froze, going instantly into panic mode.
I was powerless at the moment, after all. Even a garden-variety burglar might have given me some real trouble with nothing but my fists and my attitude to keep me safe. Years of martial arts training had taught me that size and weight were significant advantages, and that without my superpowers, I didn't punch nearly as hard.
The creak of floorboards jolted my entire system. It was a terrifying sound to a soul without a weapon or a power at her fingertips. True, I could slip out the back door and run, but what then? I had nowhere to go, no one to call – I owed more people for help already given than I could safely count – and besides, maybe it was someone here to help me.
Gathering my courage – and the bottle of whiskey, which I capped and flipped upside down, grabbing by the neck to use as a club, I crept up the carpeted stairs, emerging in the upstairs hallway.
Someone was standing there, waiting for me, a smile on his face as he waited to greet me, and the look on his small face sent immediate chills through me.
Oberheuser.
CHAPTER SIXTY-EIGHT
“I love what you've done with the place.” Oberheuser's eyes danced as he looked around Ariadne's wrecked home. His intended humor was evident even on his usually joyless features, as he made a show of examining every ruined corner.
“Well, it's a work in progress,” I said, keeping the whiskey bottle firmly in hand in case he charged at me. He showed no sign of it, but that meant absolute zilch. “You know you're trespassing, right?”
“The door was open,” he said simply, and continued his stroll, wandering into the dining room and examining the chandelier hanging over the table. The buffet's drawers had been pulled out, fine silverware strewn everywhere, but the table and chairs were one of the only things in the house that still seemed to be in order. “You are, of course, welcome to ask me to leave, and I will happily comply.” He glanced back at me. “Like you in these times, I am bound by the laws of the land.”
I stifled my instinct to tell him to GTFO. He was polite, I'd give him that. He hadn't even made the first move at the hotel when we'd got into it, and he hadn't really pursued. Sure, I was suspicious he was going to try and kill me, but the fact that he'd just offered to leave if I asked him to?
“Why do you follow the law?” I asked, putting the dining room table between us.
His clear blue eyes found mine over the interval of space between us, and he rested both hands on the back of one of Ariadne's well-crafted dining room chairs. “I am well aware of my limits.”
“And challenging an entire nation's police force is beyond them?”
He nodded slowly. “Far beyond them.”
“But if you were with Sovereign in his grand crusade,” I said, not daring to rest enough to lean on a chair in case he leapt across the table at me, “surely laws meant nothing to you. I mean...he literally murdered thousands.”
Oberheuser smiled slightly, almost regretfully. “Sovereign...was a man of courage. A man of vision. He had lived long and seen much, including right to the rotten, festering heart of humanity.”
“Did he have X-ray vision?”
Oberheuser's smile evaporated like a thin puddle on a hot day. “When I was under his aegis, everything seemed possible. We were going to change the world, you see. Fix the problems strewn about this planet like a child's toys on the floor of a playroom–”
“I hear those Legos are the worst to step on with bare feet.”
He cocked his oblong head at me, a brief flash of annoyance creasing the folds of his forehead. “I must ask...do you not see the problems of the world? Or are you just too cowardly to act to fix them?”
“Whole lot of problems in the world, bub,” I said. “I'd be pretty arrogant if I thought at twenty-seven I had all the answers to them, don't you think?”
Now his smile returned. “False humility.”
“Nothing false about it,” I said, gripping the whiskey bottle tighter. “Look at my life.” I gestured around with the hand that wasn't clamped onto my only weapon. “You think I'm in a good position to reorganize the entire world? I can't even keep the local cops from thinking I'm running a brothel in the basement or something – honestly, I don't even know what they were looking for. A stack of corpses, maybe. Point is...what makes you think I could tackle any of these problems and make them better?”
