Robert Crane: Untouched

“I heard you broke into the cafeteria after it closed and took some food.” She watched for my reaction.

I froze, trying to keep my eyes from widening. Had I done that? I managed to speak after a short pause that I hoped she attributed to my guilt at being found out. “It’s better for all involved if I don’t have to go to the cafeteria when I don’t want to. Safer, really. It’s like a public service.” With the flight of the Black Hawk, things had gotten quieter on the helipad. “I’m surprised you don’t have a helipad on the roof of Headquarters.” I was desperate to change the subject by that point.

“We do.” Ariadne crossed her arms and looked back at M-Squad. “But it’ll be easier for Clary to carry his…cargo…” She nodded to the burden that the fat guy was carrying over his shoulder, “…to the science labs without having to navigate an elevator or stairwell.”

“Big guy like that?” I inclined my head toward the coffin. “He looks like he can carry a lead casket for a ways.” I stared at the object, but he had it inclined so that I couldn’t see anything but the bottom and sides. I was beyond curious about what it contained; I wondered if it was the mysterious reason why M-Squad had been in South America for so long.

“I’m sure he can. But it’s delicate, and it would be best if it were undamaged.” She smiled, a tight, insincere one that told me worlds about how much of my question she was avoiding answering.

“Hey.” Zack appeared in front of me, Kurt a few steps behind him.

“Hey,” I said, feeling like the single greatest idiot in the world for repeating his greeting back to him. Genius level IQ, and I was still reduced to this by a boy. FML. (Yes, I know what it means.)

“I heard you broke your promise.” He didn’t come off as accusatory, which surprised me, and yet, didn’t. If he was spying on me, getting into an argument seemed counterproductive. “But I also heard you killed Wolfe, so…good job.” On the other hand, maybe he was just happy that Wolfe was dead. I knew I was.

If I was dead, I wouldn’t be talking to you.

Shut up , I thought with all my might. I must have grimaced while thinking it, because Zack raised an eyebrow. “Yeah…I’m sorry. I just couldn’t wait for you guys to get back.” I looked away from him.

“Damn shame you killed Wolfe,” the fat guy from M-Squad said, loud enough that it told me he’d been eavesdropping. I turned to find him leering at me; well, not so much me as my body; his eyes were looking below the equator and moving up slowly. “I was looking forward to tangling with him. But if he can get himself killed by a little girl, “ he said with a laugh that sounded like a bark, “ I guess he wasn’t so tough, was he?”

“You’re a moron, Clary,” said the leader, the first guy off the helicopter from M-Squad. “You’re just lucky most people judge by appearances, like you do, and write your fat ass off or you’d be dead ten times over.”

“You think I’m fat?” One of Clary’s eyes had squinted, drawing his puffy cheek up his face and causing it to wrinkle. “This is three hundred and twenty pounds of ripped steel.” He waved a hand over his body. “And the ladies love it.”

“The next lady to love your body will be the first, I’d wager.” I said it before I knew I had, and heard the snickers from M-Squad, Dr. Perugini and Zack. Even Kurt seemed amused by my barb. The old guy in M-Squad let a low, rolling guffaw of purest amusement. “Unless you’re resorting to picking up lovers from the graveyard,” I said, pointing at the object on his shoulder, “in which case they’re not loving you so much as—”

Clary turned a bright red and I watched him clutch the coffin a little tighter, and he let out a loud grunt. “I’m not gonna sit here and be insulted by some tweener punkass bitch.”

“Yeah, you’ve got important things to do,” the older guy spoke up. “You were talking about your damned motorcycle the whole time we were gone. You gonna go ride your ‘phat hog’?”

Clary’s embarrassment turned to glee. “Naw, your mom said she’s busy tonight.” He let out a high, long burst of laughter, one that was obviously fake, and turned to Dr. Sessions, slapping him on his skinny back and nearly waylaying the good doctor. “Come on, Doc, this son of a bitch is getting heavy.”

I watched Doc Sessions nod and turn, leading the way toward the science building, Clary in tow and Perugini following behind them. When he turned to follow Sessions, the coffin dipped and I saw the top of it for the first time as he repositioned it to carry it like a backpack. It was flat, with a small window, just enough to show something glowing within, like fire in a bottle. He dipped it lower, and I saw something else—

Eyes. There were eyes staring at me from within. Plaintive, begging, filled with a fear that I knew all too well; the fear of a captive confined, one who might never take another free breath again.

“Who is that?” I asked Ariadne. I turned and caught a flash of her face pinched as though she had just pulled a splinter from her finger. I turned to Zack, and he looked away.

“Aleksandr Timofeyevich Gavrikov,” the leader of M-Squad said to me. “One of the most dangerous metas you’ll ever meet.” He nodded at the capsule on Clary’s back. “That’s a containment cell Dr. Sessions designed to keep metas that have high energy projection abilities under control—without it Gavrikov could fry everyone.”

“How’d you catch him, then?” I didn’t throw any undue sarcasm into the words; I was curious.

“By not getting anywhere near him,” the Nordic woman said, a slight smirk curling her flat lips.

“I think introductions are in order,” Ariadne said. “Sienna Nealon, this is Roberto Bastian,” she nodded to the leader, then to the woman, “Eve Kappler and Glen Parks,” she indicated the older guy, who gave me a genuine smile, one that (surprisingly) didn’t creep me out. “And of course the other gentleman,” she strained at the word, “was Clyde Clary.”

“Don’t call him Clyde,” Parks said, his gray beard reminding me of a thousand grandfathers I’d seen on TV. “It doesn’t bring out the sparkling side of his personality.”

“Sure it does,” Eve said. “He sparkles like broken glass—then cuts you.” Her smile became a smirk, a self-satisfied look that either Wolfe or I found insufferable and wanted to destroy along with the rest of her sculpted face. I think that was Wolfe. Mostly.

“Sir.” Roberto turned to Old Man Winter. “Would you like us to make our report now or in the morning?”

Old Man Winter kept his silence. Everyone waited for his pronouncement, which came with all the gravity his position and deep voice afforded. “Come to my office at noon. We have other matters to discuss.”

“Yes, sir.” Roberto saluted, then nodded to Glen and Eve, and the three of them headed toward the dormitory building, Kurt in tow.

I looked back to Clary and Sessions, almost to the science building now. The capsule carrying Aleksandr Gavrikov looked heavy, and Clary was struggling to readjust it again. Let him loose , Wolfe said from somewhere in the depths of my brain.

Shut up , I told him, as if that would work.

If you let him loose, Wolfe will tell you what he knows about your mommy.

Son of a bitch. That immediately put me on guard; if Wolfe wanted someone out of confinement, there was no stronger indication that said person should remain under lock and key, preferably buried under several tons of soil, indefinitely.

You don’t know anything , I thought back to him. You’re just lying to get your way.