“I think I’ll be fine, once I get a day to heal,” I said. “Did you drive here from Detroit?”
“All the way through the Upper Peninsula at about a hundred miles an hour.” He gave me a tight smile. “Ariadne said you were headed into trouble.”
“I was.” I tried to smile at him. “I found my way out again, with a little help. What about you?”
His smile disappeared. “We’ll talk about it later.”
“No, wait,” I said. “They sent you after a meta, didn’t they?”
“They did.”
“So what happened?” I asked.
“Omega jumped ahead of us, bagged ‘em.” Kurt was the one who answered, and I got a glimpse of him behind me. He had a bandage across the back of his head, and it was bloody. “Happened all across the country last night. The Directorate got a big fat sucker punch to the side of the head.”
“Sucker punch?” I shook my head, trying to clear it. “I mean, we heard about Kansas, but you’re saying they tried to what? Catch your target before you could?”
“They tried to kill us, Sienna.” Zack’s eyes were serious. “They damned near did. They’ve killed a lot of our agents in the last twenty-four hours. Kansas was a war zone; the west half of the state is on fire from the battle.”
We made our way down a hallway and through a set of doors to find ourselves in a loading dock. “Your vehicle is just outside,” Andromeda said. “It may be a tight fit to get all of us in it.”
Kurt looked at her in suspicion. “How did she know that?”
Andromeda’s voice dropped to a hushed whisper, and her eyes seemed to focus on something in the distance. “Because I see.” They dropped back to looking at Kurt. “It is one of my talents.”
Scott rushed forward and hit the loading door, causing it to slowly clank open. Sure enough, when it was up a small SUV was sitting in front of us, the road to the gate visible behind it, complete with the wreckage of the car we drove, gate still mounted on top of it. A few black-clad figures were visible around the yard and I watched Zack and Kurt unload on them at distance, dropping a couple while Reed stirred the winds and sent another tornado toward the largest concentration of Omega agents.
“I think we’ve worn out our welcome,” I said as Andromeda guided me to the car and pushed me into the back seat, squeezing in next to me. Zack and Kurt got in next, firing rounds all the way up until they shut the door. Kurt rolled down his window and pulled a pistol, discharging a half-dozen shots.
Reed slipped in next to Andromeda and Scott piled in after him, slamming the door as Kurt hit the gas. “Might want to call Kat and the others,” Zack said as we sped toward the gatehouse. “Warn them off. We can meet them in town and convoy back to the Directorate together.”
“Okay,” Scott said, already dialing his phone.
“I hope nobody minds if I sit in the hatchback,” Reed said. “It’s nothing personal; I just feel weird squeezing in this close to a naked girl I don’t know.” He blushed as he looked at Andromeda, and I realized that I hadn’t even noticed that she was still wearing nothing. Of course I also felt very close to passing out now that she had taken her hands off me.
Reed went over the seat into the hatchback, giving Scott and Andromeda a little more room. Scott pulled his phone away from his ear and looked down, messing with the touchscreen. “I can’t seem to reach her.”
“Think she’s out of cell phone service?” Zack said, looking back at him.
“It is a little spotty through here.” Scott stared down at his phone. “I’ll try again, but take the quickest route back to town. They should be nearly here by now.”
Zack turned to talk to me. “What happened in that room?”
I searched my memory and tried to come up with a coherent explanation. “Um, well…one of Omega’s lackeys got the better of me after I got blasted through a wall by an RPG. Then I got saved by my aunt—”
“Your aunt?” Zack squinted at me in the backseat.
“Yeah.” I nodded. “Then she turned on me when I figured out that she had been killing people just for the rush of absorbing them.” I took a breath. “Then my mom saved me from her and unleashed Andromeda.”
Zack’s jaw dropped. “Your mom?” He looked at me with great uncertainty. “Are you sure you’re all right? I mean, no offense, but it kinda sounds like you’re hallucinating. Maybe we should call Perugini or Zollers.”
I shook my head. “She was real, and she was there.”
He got that look on his face that he puts up when he doesn’t want to argue. “If you say so.”
“What the…?” Kurt slowed the car as we approached the end of the dirt road, ready to turn onto the highway. Off to the side, a car was wrecked against a tree, the hood crumpled, smoke pouring from underneath. “Hope they’ve got AAA.”
“Look further,” Andromeda said, “and you will see.”
“What’s she talking about?” Kurt asked.
“Over there.” Zack nodded his head in the opposite direction, where there were two bodies laying on the ground, wearing black suits. “Are those ours?”
He was out of the car, Kurt and Scott a few steps behind him. Scott ran the fastest, pounding across the pavement and off the road. I followed, aided by Andromeda and Reed. When I came up over the edge of the road, I could tell it was definitely Directorate agents, prostrate in the grass, tire marks in the dirt around them. One of them was stirring as Zack slapped him gently across the face.
“Jackson!” Zack shook him, and the agent blinked his eyes a few times. I recognized his face, but didn’t know his name. “What happened?”
The agent named Jackson blinked again, staring up at him. “Zack? Where am I? What are you doing here?”
“You were supposed to be backing us up at the Omega site,” Scott said. “What happened?”
The agent looked surprised, then pondered that. “I…don’t know. I don’t remember.” He looked around, startled. “I have no idea how I got here.”
“Where’s Kat?” Scott was looking around, frantic. “Where is she?” He went back to Agent Jackson. “Where’d Kat go?”
Jackson stared at Scott blankly. “I don’t know. Was she with me?”
“Wake the other one,” Kurt said.
“It won’t do any good,” Reed said. “He’ll have had his memory drained too.”
Something vague and totally improbable caused the wires in my brain to cross. “Just like those convenience store clerks.”
Reed raised an eyebrow at me. “Finally getting it now?”
Scott stared back and forth between the two of us, impatience on his face. “So who did it? What kind of meta can steal memories out of someone’s head?”
“A succubus or incubus.” Reed stared back at me, not breaking eye contact. “But only one that’s disciplined enough that they don’t want to kill.”
I thought about it again, about the whole trail. A willingness not to kill innocent people even when it was inconvenient. Discipline. That ruled out Charlie, and James as well, actually. Only one left. The rest of them were staring at me, but Reed was the only one who did it knowingly.
“Mom.”
Chapter 23
I kept calm all the way out of the room, able to keep myself from looking back at Sienna only through years of ridiculous, rigorous discipline. After I was through the doors, I started to run, making my way through Omega’s labyrinthine base. I burst through the exit and smashed the window out of a car that was parked outside. This one looked like something one of the Omega guards might drive, a sedan that didn’t look too old. I hotwired it, and it started without a bit of fuss. The engine roared to life, and I paused, taking a breath after what I’d just accomplished.