Robert Crane - Family

With that, he broke free of me, and started toward the door. I kept the gun trained on his back as he retreated, and he paused at the door to turn back, his hand on the handle.

“Where will you go?” I asked, not sure why I even cared, or if I expected any kind of answer.

“Far,” he said. “As far as I can go. There is a storm coming, and the people I work for – worked for – are the heart of it. They’ll know I’ve failed, and they’ll want to kill me.” He smiled sadly. “And they probably will, eventually, but I’ll give them a merry chase before they do.” He straightened. “Take care, Sienna Nealon. You are…one of the most unique…” His voice drifted off, and he smiled. “…souls I’ve ever known.”

I watched him carefully. “Worth dying for?”

The ghost of a smile crossed his lips. “Apparently so.” He waved a hand at my head. “They’ll be along for you in a bit – long after I’m gone, I assure you. Until then,” he said, receding from my vision as things started to get blurry, “have a nice nap. It’ll make things easier on you if they don’t know you let me get away.”

“Thank you,” I murmured as I curled up on the floor, oddly comforted, as I had been so many times in this office – and now, never would be again.

“Another cryptic warning,” Ariadne said. I sat dazed, in her office, a few hours after Zollers had left. She stared across the desk at me, dour. “You should have warned us before going after him,” she said, clenching the pen in her hand. “Instead of—”

“Knocking out J.J. with my powers and rushing off to confront him myself?” I stared straight ahead at her, surprisingly free of emotion. I was weary, even after my nap. “Yeah, I should have. Sorry.” I rubbed my face, letting my glove rub against my skin, the soft leather all the comfort I could find at the moment.

“That’s going to cost us some more money with J.J.,” she said with a sigh. “And Zollers didn’t give you a name for his employer? Nothing?”

I shook my head. “Storm. Worse than Omega. Trying to kill me.” I shrugged. “Those are the highlights.” I could feel my countenance darken. “And they killed Andromeda. On purpose, by the way he told it.”

“But why?” Ariadne chewed on the cap of her pen. “Omega wanted her back alive, and this other group wanted her – and you – dead. Why?”

I sat there for a few minutes, quiet, letting it seep in between us. “That is the sixty-four thousand dollar question, isn’t it.”

She frowned. “The…what? Why sixty-four thousand?”

I felt my face slacken. “It was a show. You should know – you’re old. It’s an old show.”

Her eyebrows creased and turned downward at a forty-five degree angle as her mouth opened in outrage. “How old do you think I am?”

“Not old enough to have watched the Sixty-Four Thousand Dollar Question, apparently.”

I was out of her office a few minutes later. I knew she’d tell Old Man Winter everything, but I didn’t want to wait to hash it over again; I’d had enough. Also, I was starving, having been forced by Zollers to sleep through breakfast after not eating much of anything yesterday.

The sun was high in the sky, beating down with an intensity that reminded me of the week before, when I’d been searching the Wisconsin woods for an Omega installation. It was overpowering, and even in the short walk from headquarters to the dormitory building, my pores opened and I started to sweat. The smell of the grass was in the air, heavy in the heat. I was thankful as I passed through the doors into the building and felt the sweet relief of the air conditioner.

The smell of food caught me as I walked into the cafeteria. It was beautiful, wonderful, the heavy aroma of onions smelling like a feast. I could hear the chatter from the early lunch crowd and I could almost taste the food as I walked to get my tray. I caught the first dirty look seconds later. A lot of hard glares, I realized as I took myself through the line and got another one from the cafeteria lady who splattered gravy aggressively across my mashed potatoes and onto the tray. I took it back from her, staring at the streak that cut a path across the red tray, like brown blood.

I finished in the line, having reached a point where I was ready to slap the hell out of the next person who gave me a sour expression, and I realized that I was facing something else I didn’t want to: the cafeteria was near full, tables occupied from corner to corner.

I sighed, and looked for a friendly face, any friendly face. I was not even close to seeing any; it was as though hostility was drenched over everyone in sight, and the moment I paused to scan the cafeteria after leaving the line, a hush fell and every head turned to me. I stared at them, they stared at me, and I can’t recall a time when I wasn’t being attacked that I had ever felt so uncomfortable in my life.

“Sienna,” I heard someone say over the crowd. Reed waved at me from a table in the distance, and I breathed a sigh of relief as I headed toward him. When I got closer, I realized he wasn’t alone – Scott and Kat sat across from him, and a seat was waiting, already pushed out as though it had been readied just for me.

“Tough room,” I said as I sat. “Whose cornflakes did I unwittingly pee in?” I looked at the three of them, but with the exception of Kat, who made a face and looked down to her food, I got no reaction. “Seriously, guys, what did I do? Everyone hates me.”

“Well,” Scott began, “it’s not so much any one thing. It’s more a…combination of things.”

I waited for him to go on, and when he didn’t, I sighed and stabbed my fork into the turkey with excessive violence. “Don’t be shy,” I said, “just say it.”

“Well,” Scott went on, “you did get perp walked in front of everybody by Clary, and a rumor went around that you were involved with all the agents dying—”

“Are you freaking kidding me?” I said in disbelief. “I—”

“I’m just telling you,” Scott said. “I don’t believe it, and I’ve certainly tried to spread the truth, but…it’s bad.” He hesitated, and I could see the regret on his face. “Really bad.”

“They think I…what? Killed agents myself, with my bare hands?” I looked at the three of them, and once again, Scott was the only one to speak.

“The rumor was that you were the traitor,” Scott said. “And when Zollers killed Mormont, everyone kind of took a breath and thought for a minute maybe you weren’t. But then it turned out Zollers was a traitor too, and you let him get away…”

“Plus, you hurt J.J. and you let your mom walk, too,” Kat added. “Apparently a lot of people were pissed at her for kidnapping me, and thought she should have been punished for it.” She froze, and her face went white. “Not me, of course; I’ve been defending you to anyone who will listen, but…” She looked reluctant. “Nobody’s listening. Not to us, anyway.”

“Great.” I tossed my fork onto the plate, not hungry anymore. “Just great.”

“Also,” Reed said, and I turned toward him, “people heard about you breaking up with Zack and then—”

“Oh. My. God.” I said it while holding my hands over my face. “You’re not even from here.”

“Which probably gives you an idea of how pervasive these rumors are,” he said, hesitant. “I don’t understand it, personally, because he’s a douche, but apparently people really like this Zack guy you broke up with. And then proceeded to cheat on.”

“I didn’t cheat on him!” I bowed my head. “I didn’t actually do anything; I mean we didn’t…” I looked at Kat. “You know! You were there, you stopped me!”