Robert Crane - Family

“She ain’t going anywhere,” Bastian said, and turned to look back at Headquarters, “so loosen up your grip. It ain’t like you can’t run her down and catch her if she tries to rabbit.” He turned to face me. “And it’s not a crime to talk to your mother, though obviously it doesn’t look good. We’re gonna have to take you to Ariadne,” he said, speaking to me at last. “If you try to run…” He shook his head, almost sadly. “Just don’t. Let’s get this over with.”

“What about Eve and Parks?” Clary said with a nod in the direction my mother had run.

A noise in the underbrush got us all looking, and a wolf slinked out, then stood up on its hind legs as it became a man. Its fur became clothing, the hair atop its head and face becoming a gray beard and a long, bushy mane. “Eve’s aloft,” Parks said, “but it’s pretty clear Sierra got away. Managed to leap the fence and make it to a car. I called Ariadne and the helo’s warming up, but it won’t be up in time to catch her.” He turned to look at me. “What’s your story?”

I swallowed hard. “You wouldn’t believe me if I told you.”

“Try me,” he said and gestured with a nod of his head to start walking toward the headquarters building.

“I just got done with the interrogator,” I said as Clary put pressure on my arms and started me moving forward, “and I came out here by myself. My mom was apparently on campus to do something and said she saw me and followed me out here.”

“Simple,” Parks said. “Undetailed. She was definitely here. Why would I doubt it?”

“Because the coincidences are piling up,” I said as Clary tugged on my arm, causing me a surge of pain. I looked at him and he grinned. “And the circumstantial evidence of my guilt is gaining more and more circumstances with every passing day.”

Parks chortled, and I heard Bastian clear his throat. “True enough,” Parks said, and lapsed into silence.

I considered the only fortunate part of this being that headquarters would be close to abandoned when I arrived, just as it had been when I left a few minutes earlier, the people who worked there already gone for the evening. I especially didn’t want to face the thought of the people around the campus seeing me in such a state, looking like hell, my face and clothes dirty and even ripped in a couple places from my rough landing after being taken down by Eve’s net. I looked down and saw smudges of brown dotting my grey t-shirt. I couldn’t imagine what my face must look like, but I could feel some of the dusty grit on my forehead and cheek.

The route back to the headquarters building carried us past the dorms, and as Clary led the procession off the path and across the grass, I realized too late what he was doing. Bastian and Parks said nothing until we rounded one of the glassy corners of the building and I saw the boxy outline of the cafeteria and the shapes within. By then it was too late, and as I started to resist, Clary twisted my arm, urging me to go on.

“You are such an ass, Clary,” Bastian said under his breath. Parks let out a hiss of breath to agree.

We walked past the cafeteria’s massive, open glass walls, already committed to our path. Clary marched me on, my arms snugged behind my back in a prisoner-like state, my shoulders hunched and my frame bent so he could control my movement easier. I didn’t look to my right as we passed the cafeteria. I didn’t need to. It was dinnertime, and I had seen silhouettes behind the glass; people rising from their seats and coming to the window to look at me being led along by three members of M-Squad, like a felon, in front of pretty much everyone I knew.

The heat burned in my cheeks and I pushed down the tears again, this time of humiliation and rage, and I tried to quicken my pace, but Clary held me back now, and I heard a little guffaw from him as he slackened his tread to draw out my perp walk. “You having fun with this?” I asked him under my breath.

“Sienna girl, I am having as much fun as I could possibly be having. What’s the matter?” he asked with a laugh. “You not enjoying your fifteen minutes of shame?”

“No,” I said hoarsely. “No, I’m not.”

He chuckled, a sound like a wheezing heifer. “Don’t do the crime if you don’t wanna do the time.”

“Stifle it, Clary,” Parks said.

“What are you getting all up in my grill for, Parks?” Clary said with disdain. “We caught her with a woman who broke into our facility.”

“Talking, Clary,” Parks said. “And nothing else that we could prove.”

“Prove, schmove,” he said. “She’s guilty as hell.”

They marched me through the heavy glass doors of the headquarters building, into the elevator, and we rode up, Clary still affecting his rubber form, keeping my arms locked in place. I felt it every few minutes as he would subtly increase the pressure on my arms. Not so much Parks or Bastian would notice, or enough to make me cry out, but enough to cause me pain. I wanted to hurt him, but even stomping as hard as I could on the instep of his foot (the preferred remedy for dealing with someone restraining you in such a way) would produce only more pain for me.

When the elevator doors opened, I stepped out and started toward Ariadne’s office, flanked by the three of them. Her office was against outside windows. The windows that looked from the cubicle farm into her office had the blinds closed and when we reached the heavy wood door, Bastian stepped in front of me and knocked. He looked down at me from his six foot-plus height, and I caught a hesitancy that verged on remorse. He didn’t say anything, though, and after a moment a voice called from inside for us to enter, and he opened the door.

Ariadne was standing behind her desk, her dull gray suit marked contrast to the orange cast of the world outside the window behind her. It was early evening now; the sun was sinking lower in the sky and on the other side of the building to boot, so most of the grounds were shadowed, the lawn dark in the shade of headquarters. Ariadne looked at me in surprise, blinked a few times, her gaze swinging from me to Clary, who was still clutching my wrists, and thunderclouds moved in over her brows. “Clary…what the hell are you doing?”

“Ma’am,” Bastian said. “We caught up with her talking with her mother in the woods.”

“Her mother?” Ariadne asked. “Her mother was the intruder?” She looked at me in sharp disbelief.

“Yes, ma’am,” Bastian said. “Eve and Parks went after her, but she managed to get to a car and escape.”

Ariadne stood in the middle of the office, her red hair a perfect match for the light on the trees in the background. “Clary, Bastian, Parks…out.”

Clary tensed and I felt his grip tighten on my wrists. “But—”

“Out, Clary. Wait in the hall.” She said it quietly but firmly. I heard Parks and Bastian move to comply. Clary was rooted in place, though, as if his brain couldn’t quite process what he was been asked to do. “I’m not going to ask you again.”

“She could be dangerous, you know,” Clary said behind me, and I could hear the defensive heat in his voice. “What if she kills you and makes her escape out the window?”

“Then you’ll have a really fun time smearing her all over the campus,” Ariadne said, as though indifferent to the prospect.

Clary seemed to ponder this for a minute before I felt his hands release my wrists. “Oh. Huh. Yeah, that’d be fun.” His heavy footfalls cut a path out the door behind me.

“You want me to leave, too?” I heard a voice behind me and turned my head to see Reed in the corner, leaning against the wall, looking pretty dapper for a guy who’d been out of it when last I’d seen him. He was wearing a black suit and his dark hair was up in a ponytail, a splash of color from his collared dress shirt, which was pink. It actually looked good on him.