He shrugged. “I said Persephone-type, not Persephone herself. It’s based on myth and legend, after all.” He stared me down, and I saw a hint of a smile poke at the corners of his lips. “What are you?”
I looked away, back to Kat, who was sitting on the ground, resting, her eyes closed, gold hair flowing around her face, which was red from exertion. She looked at peace, and she sank back, laying flat on the ground, embraced by the patch of green in the midst of all the snow. Her breath was still coming in and out with regular certainty, the steaming heat of it boldly visible against the bright lights surrounding us. I saw the calm around her, watched the grass play at her fingers, touching it, tickling it, and I felt a surge of envy.
They were carrying Dr. Sessions away now, away from her, the girl who had given him life, returned it to him with her very hands. I looked back at Scott Byerly, and his eyebrow was raised in expectation. “Me?” I asked, and I felt hollow inside, empty of everything, even Wolfe. “I’m her opposite—everything that she isn’t.” My jaw hardened. “I’m death.”
Chapter 12
I didn’t sleep for the rest of the night. I’d left Scott Byerly and his stupid question behind with my cryptic answer, not even bothering to gauge his reaction. Well, maybe just a little. His face scrunched up as I was turning from him. I can’t say that was satisfying, but it was better than stopping to explain the literal truth I had told him.
I am death. My touch brings it. Where Kat Forrest was a tanned, lovely, blond-haired princess of life, I was a dark-haired, pale-skinned angel of death. Her green eyes represented life; my bluer ones represented winter and the end of that life.
Worse than the nasty comparisons that witnessing Kat’s power had spawned in me were the questions. What was I doing outside when the building had exploded? Why couldn’t I remember it? Why was the flaming lunatic so thankful to me?
When I returned to my dorm room, I had to take another shower. The fall and the fire had done a number on me. No one had asked, probably because they hadn’t seen, but my leather gloves had burned to my skin on the back of my hands. I ripped them off, the leather shredding and pulling the flesh in patches. I let them bleed out in the shower, the diluted red standing out against the cream-colored tiles that surrounded the drain. I watched the little stream of maroon as it came in streaks, circling the inevitable.
My hands still itched by the time I was done, along with a few places on my chest and legs where the same thing had happened. Good thing the Directorate seemed to have their finances in order, I reflected as I tossed my previously new outfit in the garbage. I was going to cost them a lot of money if I kept ruining clothes at the pace I was going.
The bruise on my cheek from earlier was gone, I saw as I looked in the mirror. One plus was that since I had awoken in the field, Wolfe hadn’t made a peep. I wondered if he was sleeping. Or maybe the explosion scared him into a kennel in my mind.
I returned to my room and stared out the window for the rest of the night. I had a very, very nasty suspicion about how things had unfolded the night before, based partially on my dreams and partially on the fact that Wolfe had very much wanted to get Gavrikov out of his cage. He should have been overjoyed, swinging from the metaphorical rafters in my head at the fact that it happened, but he was dead quiet instead.
Not good.
The sun rose without me seeing it, once more hidden behind the clouds. I was disgusted enough that if I could have somehow wished myself to Tahiti and left this awful city behind, I would have. Actually, that might not have entirely been because of the sun.
A note was slid under my door shortly after sunrise, suggesting I attend a meeting with Ariadne and Old Man Winter in his office at 9 A.M. I shrugged when I saw it, trying to play cool in case there were cameras watching, but inwardly I trembled. Did he know? Could he know? What had I done?
I skipped breakfast. My stomach was tied in knots anyway; why bother to give it something else to bitch about? I walked to the HQ building when it got close to time. The air was crisp—actually, I’m romanticizing, it was still brutally cold, just like every day since I left my house. Tahiti was sounding better and better. There was still a smell of burning in the air and when I passed in sight of the science building, my suspicions were confirmed—it was still smoking. The smell it gave off was acrid and awful and stuck in my nose, tormenting me even once I was inside Headquarters.
I knocked somewhat tepidly on Old Man Winter’s door. I was early, and a sizable part of me (all of me, if we’re being honest) hoped he wasn’t around. It opened to reveal Ariadne, her usual smile forced across her face. “You’ll have to forgive us,” she said as she ushered me to a seat, “It’s been a busy night and we haven’t had much time to prepare for this meeting.”
“‘Busy’?” I looked out the window behind Old Man Winter, who was sitting placidly behind his desk as always. His eyes had yet to remove themselves from me since I walked in, but I was used to it. It wasn’t like he was undressing me mentally—at least I didn’t think he was—it was more like he was always assessing, testing me, my willpower. I could swear he read the lies in how I moved, my reluctance to even be here. I worried that if he stared long enough, he’d be able to root out that I was carrying my own worst enemy inside my head, and that wasn’t figurative speaking. “I’d hate to see what you’d be talking about if you started pulling out the really descriptive adjectives—you know, like calamitous, explosive, apocalyptic—”
“Yes, well.” She cut me off, her politeness for once infused with iron. “It’s not as though this is the usual for us.”
“Sure, sure,” I said in what sounded to me a very Midwestern way. “Last week, near-invincible psychos, this week, men who explode into flames and girls who touch the dead and bring them back to life.”
“Even for us,” she said, “that’s not normal.”
“When you’re dealing with people who have powers like ours, what is?” I said it airily, but the word stuck in my head. Normal. What was normal? Everything I wasn’t, at this point. “Is this about the history lesson I asked for?”
“Yes.” Ariadne seated herself next to me. “It’s also a briefing on the state of meta affairs in the modern age.”
“Ooh, a briefing,” I said. “I feel like I should be wearing a colorless pantsuit.” I blinked at Ariadne, dressed once more in monochromatic businesswear. “Like that.” I blanched inside and Wolfe howled with laughter, the first sound he’d made since last night. The sad part was I couldn’t blame that one on him; there was something built into my relationship with Ariadne that made me want to insult her more than anything.
Her face was drawn, her eyes lowered. I wondered, far in the back of my mind where I hoped Wolfe couldn’t see it, if my constant slings and arrows at her were actually hurting her feelings. If so, she should get thicker skin , Wolfe said, shattering my illusory idea of having private thoughts. I rolled my eyes, possibly insulting Ariadne further. Unfortunately, I couldn’t tell her that I wasn’t rolling them at her, but at the asshole brainclinger.
Old Man Winter stood, drawing my attention from Ariadne. He pulled himself up to his full height, towering over the two of us, and walked to the window, looking out on the campus. He seemed to focus on the remains of the science building in the distance. I waited for him to say something, and after a minute of silence I spoke. “How can you manage to keep this place secret after an explosion like that?” I looked from him to Ariadne. “It’s not like that was quiet; it had to be audible for miles around.”