Enemies: The Girl in the Box, Book Seven (3 page)

A few seconds later, lights appeared in the dark and a train of red and silver burst forth, sliding at high speed along the tracks to come to rest in front of us. I lost count of how many cars were hooked end to end on it. A few people came out when the doors opened, more entering with me as I hesitantly walked inside. I carried my small duffel bag over my shoulder, my right hand clamped tightly on the strap.

It was hard not to feel out of place as I sat down on one of the vacant, padded, dark blue cloth-covered seats. The air was a little musty, and I heard a high-pitched whine as the train began to move. I looked around the car and saw that it was mostly couples traveling together on the train with me. A few serious looking passengers in business attire were sprinkled in as well, suitcases on rollers trailing behind them. I reached into my bag and popped a piece of mint chewing gum into my mouth to counteract the taste of bad breath I’d acquired after a nine-hour flight that included two in-flight meals.

Brightly colored ads were crammed above the windows, fighting for my attention with the flickering blackness outside that was broken whenever we passed a light. Part of me wanted to count the stops; another didn’t care. I looked at the map across from me; I didn’t even know how many stops on this line there were between me and Russell Square, but I knew it was a lot.

After just one more stop, the world opened up outside the windows as we came out into the light and the train began to run along a surface track. It was a sunny day in London. I recalled reading as a child that sunshine wasn’t the most common state of weather in London, especially not in November. I knew from the weather warning upon landing that it wasn’t terribly cold, either; in fact, it was somewhat unseasonably warm. I looked out the window and saw a sky tinged with scattered clouds, but a gorgeous blue was visible beyond them with the sun shining overhead.

After another stop, I stood, leaving my comfy padded blue seat behind and taking up position next to one of the overhead hanging rails near a door. I couldn’t stand sitting anymore, not after the long flight, and based on the slow progress through the first few stations, I estimated it would take over an hour to get me to my station. When we reached the next stop, the doors opened and the stale train air was replaced with a smooth breeze from outside, with just a hint of warmth from the sun under the bite of the wind.

I looked out over the suburban cityscape. Houses with red-tiled roofs covered the land as far as I could see, broken only by the trees and occasional commercial buildings that filled these towns. I wondered how far off London itself was, how long it would be before the London Underground truly took me back under the ground, into the dark, and far away from the beauty of this moment that seemed frozen in time.

“You should have been here with me for this,” I whispered as the train doors shut with a squeak and a hiss. “It should have been on our list.”

Sorry, babe,
Zack said.
I wish I was there, too. But I’m with you in …
His voice in my head hesitated before finishing with enough amusement to cut through the graveness of the thought,
… spirit.

“Not funny,” I muttered. There was a weight on my heart as I stared out the window, the houses just past the station blurring as we began to move. Soon we were back underground again, the darkness around the train swallowing me up, the flickering of the lights overhead causing the whole compartment to go dark for a moment.

I felt a tug of something before the lights went back on, a person behind me, a hand in my bag, another in my back pocket. It was the lightest sort of touch, something expert, something I shouldn’t have felt. But I did, as if a tingling feeling was coursing over my body in the places where I felt the abnormal pull on my jeans and the tightness of the bag’s strap on my shoulder as it moved ever so slightly.

I whirled without thinking and slapped my newly regrown hand down on the one in my pocket, then put my other on the one that was in my bag. The lights came back on and I stared into wide eyes; a guy, a little older than me, a little taller, dark hair, and a mustache that was waxed at the ends. He was not terribly bad looking in a way that made me want to only drain him to within an inch of his life instead of taking it entirely. Looks used to count more for me, but my prior experience in relationships was going to cause me to cut him a lot less slack than he might have gotten a year earlier.

“Damn,” he said mildly in a deep Irish lilt, an easy grin breaking across his face, though he still looked a little flummoxed, “never had that happen before.” I maintained my firm grip on his wrists, and he didn’t struggle. He gave me a wink. “Can’t blame a lad for trying, though, can you?”

“I can not only blame you for trying,” I said, clutching onto him, “I can make you suffer for it.”

He cringed. “Ah, lass, not the forgiving type, are you?” The last word came out sounding like “ye” when he said it. “That’s all right.” His eyes flicked to his right. “This is my stop anyway.”

The train began to slow and he snapped my grip around his wrists, much faster than a human could have done it. He reeled his arms back toward him and backed to the door a step. He looked at me a little warily and I saw him blink away a little lightheadedness as he looked at me, perplexed. His little move would have sent a human flying across the compartment. I didn’t break eye contact with him, didn’t take a step back; my balance and strength kept me in place, feet spread in a ready stance.

Adrenaline coursed through my veins and there was a little thrill of excitement within—whether from one of my ghostly accomplices or myself, I couldn’t say—at the prospect of a fight. I tightened my hands into fists and watched the Irishman catch his balance, his pale skin, mustache, and two days of beard growth giving him a shadowed look as he snapped into a fighting stance of his own. It was looser, less martial arts, more boxing, and he gave me a little juke as though the mere threat of it could get me to back away. I caught a hint of sadness in his eyes and a dullness that told me he was still feeling the effects of my prolonged touch from holding his wrists only a moment earlier. I knew that he was a meta; I wondered if he had figured the same out about me.

“I don’t think you know what you’re getting into, little lady.” He raised his hands in front of his face like a boxer, as though he were going to throw a jab. His eyes flicked right again. The train was slowing; the station wasn’t far off.

“Right back at you, Irish,” I said and threw a jab that breezed past his defense, popping him in the nose. I heard the crack of the cartilage; I don’t throw weak punches. His eyes crossed as he looked back at me and adjusted his defenses as he staggered from the force of my hit. For my part, I grinned and hit him again, this time in the cheek. His head crashed into the steel frame of the carriage door.

He tilted his head as he regarded me carefully, watching for my next move even as he tried to clear his head. “Canadian?”

“American.”

“Shoulda known. So violent!” He bounced off the doors and took a swipe at me that I dodged. “Gah,” his words slurred, “of all the times for luck to fail me.”

I punched him in the jaw, holding back just a little. “It does not appear that fortune is with you today.”

With that he sagged against the door, mouth open and dripping blood. “You noticed that too, eh? I’d always heard she was a finicky bitch, but I never had cause to believe it ’til now.” He held up his hands in surrender. I hit him again, in the nose then the gut and let him drop to the ground. “I effing surrender, all right!” he said from the floor, slapping the ground as though he were tapping out of a wrestling match. “In case you didn’t notice, I didn’t actually get my hands on your wallet or any of your personal belongings—”

“You had your hand in my back pocket,” I said. If he moved in any way I deemed dangerous, he’d be the recipient of one my kicks to the side of his head. It
might
not kill him, but luck would have to be on his side or I’d have to be feeling incredibly charitable. The jury was out on whether either of those would come to his aid. “That’s a highly inappropriate way to touch a stranger.”

“I assure you,” he said, adjusting his nose back into place with a crack, “I did not actually touch you at all; not your posterior, not anything else. I was reaching for your wallet, but apparently you felt the little bit of pull on the outside of your pocket because most of the time I can keep from touching the person at all as I’m nicking their stuff.” He adjusted himself on the floor of the car and leaned back against the doors as we surged to a stop in the station.

“You’re not exactly selling me on why I shouldn’t beat the ever loving crap outta you,” I said.

“Miss,” came a voice of a man from behind me, “could you please kick that thieving git in the head for all of us?” A man behind me said it, but a few others began to clap. “Can’t even use the underground anymore without worrying some pickpocket’s going to nick all our valuables.”

I looked back at the fallen Irishman. “The people have spoken,” I said to him with a shrug, as though I weren’t in total control of the situation.

“Oh, for crying out loud …” he said, staring up at me from where he rested against the doors, head back. They opened, and he tumbled out and past the crowd that had gathered at the door to get on at this stop. I watched him roll to his feet, but something held me back from following him onto the platform. “Welcome to London,” he said with a kind of weary air, and he tipped an invisible hat to me as he gave me a slight smile, one that was shot through with sadness and relief in equal measure. I waited, and the doors slid shut. I saw him dust himself off, blood running down his face. I gave him a hard look as the train started to move. I saw fear and something else in his eyes as he stared back before breaking eye contact and shuffling off toward the staircases that led off the platform.

I retrieved my bag from where it had fallen, even as the whispers swirled both inside my head and out of it, the car alive with chatter that hadn’t been present a few minutes ago. Surprise, amazement, condemnation, and much worse.

And inside my head … the chorus and cry was loud. I shut my eyes and leaned my head back as it unfolded into a full-on conflagration, the argument blowing up as forcefully as if someone had pulled a grenade pin between my ears and let it drop where it may.

You let him walk away,
Bjorn said, his thick accent bleeding through over the train noise, making it recede in the background. I could almost see his face hovering in front of me, the flat monstrosity that he had been before I had drained the life out of him.

“I didn’t let him walk away,” I said, massaging the skin around my eyes and speaking low in the back of my throat, without moving my lips, “I made a decision not to kill him for picking my pocket while I’m in a new country for less than an hour.”

Seems strategically sound to me,
Bastian piped in, his tone clipped.
It’s new territory, unfamiliar ground, and making a big splash out of the gate is a bad idea.

As though she weren’t just covering for her weakness,
Eve Kappler chimed in, and I could almost see the snide, snarky look she would have been wearing.

“I killed you, didn’t I?”

But didn’t have the guts to finish the job on yourself,
Eve taunted.

There was a triumphant silence for a moment before Wolfe spoke.
The Little Doll was just being cautious, careful not to stir the pot. She’ll find him later, this little creature, track him, and then—

“Do you even know me?” I asked, fingers digging into the sensitive flesh at my temples as though I could break my skull open and let the voices escape.

“Next stop, Russell Square.” The voice spilled in through the fog that seeped in around my senses, dampening them and forcing me into a sort of cloud that covered me. My feelings of taste, of touch, of smell were all muted, and it was almost as if I could see the six people in my head hovering in the air around me, ghostly, like a wave of fog around me. I could still see the train car, but everything was darker, less clear, and the rattle and shake of the train was much less noticeable now.

She did what she had to do
, Zack said, becoming clearer in my mind. His arms were folded; he was stern, my bulwark against all the other voices in my head.
Getting into legal trouble in England would be stupid, especially over such a trivial thing.

If someone crosses you,
Bjorn said, fury oozing out of his essence,
you must break them.
Like she did with Winter’s lap dogs.
I could sense Eve and Bastian bristle.
You crush your enemies, drive them before you—

Enough, Conan,
Zack said.
That’s not how Sienna does things.

Maybe she should,
Bjorn said, and I caught the seeping sense of smug satisfaction.
If she did, you might not be dead—

Because Old Man Winter would fear her enough to not try what he did?
Zack seethed in my head, and even in his ghostly form, the tension wracking the body he no longer had was almost palpable.

There was a ripple of amusement from Bjorn.
If she had been strong enough to begin with, willing to do what was necessary, Winter would never have thought she needed the lesson he gave her.

“And I’d be fortunate enough to not have you in my head,” I said pointedly to Bjorn, stealing some of his joy, “because I’d have killed you deader than meatloaf in our last battle—which would mean you wouldn’t be here now.”

“Now arriving, Russell Square.” The voice cut through the fog again, and I staggered out of my seat. I looked around through the dim and saw people watching me, wondering if I’d been talking out loud. I walked unsteadily to the doors as they slid open, and wondered how long I’d been on the train. I couldn’t even remember the last stop or the one before it.

Losing your mind?
Gavrikov whispered underneath everything.