Robert Crane - Alone

“Far be it from me to suggest otherwise. But they also died doing the jobs that they took on, that Old Man Winter sent them to do. They knew there was a risk Wolfe could be there.” I had stopped my forward motion and waited for Mr. Angry to reply. Might as well get this out of the way, and if I was lucky I could get the entire cafeteria off my back in one move.

“So you’re one of the self-superior metas that gives the rest of us a bad name.” His arms were folded across his body. “Don’t really care if a bunch of humans die, so long as you get what you want.”

I had a feeling that one was going to sting later but for now I pushed it aside and focused on my reply. “That’s not what I said.”

His chin jutted out. “But it’s what you meant.”

“Oh, is your power to read minds? No? Then don’t tell me what I meant.” I looked back at him with a gut full of defiance. I’d likely be blaming myself again later for the deaths, but I wasn’t going to let him burn me with it; not now. “If I could do it all over again, I wouldn’t have gone back. But I can’t and I have to live with what happened. And you can take your rage and fire it up your ass.”

He didn’t say anything, but his jaw hardened and his nostrils flared. I realized that the pretense of standing there if I wasn’t looking for a fight was pretty flimsy, so I made my way to the table. I sat down and looked out the window, trying to ignore all the stares from behind me.

A figure came up from behind a few minutes later and slid the chair out without asking. I was ready to gripe when I looked up. “Oh, it’s you.”

Zack sat down. “What are you doing here?” He cast an almost furtive look around. People were still staring. “It’s not the most comfortable environment to be eating your lunch in, is it?”

I took another forkful of beef and chewed it while I pondered my response. “You mean because everyone in the room hates me?”

“That’s not true,” he said. “I don’t hate you.”

“Kudos to you for being the only one.” I feigned applause for a couple beats before reaching down with my fork and spearing a bite of stray roast with unnecessary force. “So this is what being the school outcast would have felt like. I didn’t really miss much being locked away all these years.” My voice quavered and came out much lower. “Not that it matters.”

“It doesn’t matter if anybody likes you?” His voice carried a hint of skepticism.

“Nope. I’ve lived my entire life without the approval of any of these people. I suspect I can live the rest of it the same.” I stabbed another piece of beef. “Especially considering how short it’s likely to be.”

“We can protect you from Wolfe if you stay,” he said, his tone soothing.

“Oh boy,” I said with mock enthusiasm. “I can spend the rest of my life wandering the halls of this place, feeling useless and listless and trapped, just like when I was at home – except here I’m surrounded by people who hate me.” As if to punctuate my statement, I pushed my tray away. I was done.

“At least nobody here will lock you in a metal box for days at a time,” he replied, a touch defensive.

“My entire life is boxes.” I twirled the fork before setting it down on my discarded plate. “First I was trapped in my house or in the box; now I’m trapped on your campus. Most people are trapped in their towns, or their jobs, or their way of life. We go through life in our little boxes until we find ourselves in the last one, buried in the ground.”

My tone was rueful, and I didn’t care how general I was being. I was in a foul, depressive mood. I suspected that this guy, the only one in my life to ever show an interest in me (other than Reed, I guess), was doing it to spy on me for his boss, and I found myself longing for the simplicity of my house, where at least I knew where I stood. Act out, Mom gets pissed and I get stuck in the box. Simple.

He pushed back from the table. “That’s a bit—”

“‘A bit’ what? Accurate? Morbid?” I laughed. “It’s a bit irrelevant. I’ll stay here, milking the security of your Directorate for all it’s worth, because I’ve got nowhere else to go and there’s no way I can beat Wolfe. So I’ll wait, and bide my time, and hope that when your much vaunted M-Squad comes back they can find a way to kill him so I can at least have the luxury of deciding where I want to go and what I want to do with the rest of my life.”

“It doesn’t have to be this way.” His voice was soft, almost lost in the din of the cafeteria conversations. “You could work with us here, build a life at the Directorate.”

“And what? Join M-Squad? Be a test subject? Hang out like all these other metas, waiting for – what? I don’t even know what they do here!” My hand gesticulated toward the table of metas that had accosted me earlier. “Part of me just wants to go home. And the rest of me…” My voice cracked.

“What?” He leaned forward but kept his hands far from mine. I could see the intensity in his eyes, the concern, and it just pissed me off all the more because I was so sure it was fake and I wanted it to be real, more than anything. “What do you want?”

I froze, and I knew in that moment I was on the brink of tears. Suck it up , I told myself. I took a moment to compose my emotions, shoving them into the back of my mind. I’m tough. I made the decision not to let even an ounce of feeling into my voice. “I don’t know.” It came out more brittle than I would have hoped, but it still sounded strong. “And it doesn’t matter right now, because my only priority is survival.” He nodded almost sadly as I stood up. “Everything else comes later.”

I left the cafeteria, head in a spin. I waited around my room for a while, not really sure what to do. There was a flatscreen TV hanging from the wall, but I didn’t see a point in watching anything. I didn’t really miss it that much after not watching for a few days.

I settled on going to the gym, which I did in spite of the fact that Dr. Sessions had paired me with the treadmill from hell earlier. I stuck with a recumbent bike for my self-directed cardio, and whaled on a heavybag that a trainer assured me was made especially for metas (she told me this with a very friendly attitude until someone came up and whispered to her, at which point her disposition matched the weather outside). So I hit the heavybag even harder, punishing it for every bad decision I’d made lately, imagining the face of that guy in the cafeteria as I belted it another one, then wished I could pound Wolfe like I was pounding it. Unfortunately, Wolfe hit back.

After I finished I went back to my room and showered. I checked the time and found that it was mid-afternoon. I hung around a little longer. Someone had left me an e-reader. After reading for an hour or so I realized it was basically the same as a book but more convenient, and the novelty wore off. I’ve read lots of books.

At four thirty I decided I could get dinner and that it’d be early enough to dodge most of the crowd at the cafeteria. Besides, the sun would be down by 5:30, so I might as well be ready to sleep when it got dark. I decided I’d try and dream of Mom or Reed again. Probably Mom, since I wanted to prove I could contact others in their dreams and I’d talked to Reed twice already.

The cafeteria was near empty, and I snaked as much food as I could, keeping a careful watch on what went on my plate. It’s not that I thought the workers would do something evil; it’s just I’ve seen enough on TV detailing what wait staff do to the food of people they don’t like to make me paranoid. It adds another dimension to being hated.

The dinner was chicken, and it was good. I managed to creep out of the dining hall just as it started to get busy. A few poisonous looks and some stage-whispered comments that lacked originality were my reward for lingering too long. A hall clock told me it was 5:45. The sun, which I still hadn’t seen, was either down or the cloud cover it was hiding behind was thick, because it was dark outside.