muddied slush on me as he sped away.
I sat there, freezing, in disbelief for a moment, sopping wet. “Screw it,” I said and pulled my gloves off, throwing them into the gutter. I pulled my jacket off, also soaked, and tossed it on the ground. I took a couple steps toward my front door and faltered.
He probably wasn’t in there yet. Probably. I found myself in no great hurry to find out. He was either here or on his way.
The chill wind combined with the lingering wetness of Kurt’s spinout caused a frigid feeling that was eating into my bones. Still, I stopped at the edge of the driveway and scooped up a handful of snow. I felt the cold of it, the dull feeling of numbness that started radiating through my palm after I held it against my bare skin for a few moments. I couldn’t have imagined two weeks ago that everything would end up like this.
I thought again about Zack and I wondered where he was, if he was still in South America. It didn’t matter; I had no faith that M-Squad could take on Wolfe and win. I thought about his list of things, the things that I never got to do. That I would never get to do. Then I thought about the other list, the one I made after he left that night. Things he didn’t mention, like having a first date…getting my first kiss…
I felt tears stinging at the corners of my eyes and I looked back to the house where I’d spent every hour and every day of my remembered life up until a week ago. Those four walls enclosed my life like a grave, and they would likely end up being my tomb, the place where my body would lie, maybe forever.
The hell of it was, with Mom missing, there really wasn’t anybody else who’d care I was gone – care about me, the real me, not the supposedly super-powerful meta that everyone was chasing. Who’s so powerful she can’t even save herself.
I looked up past the trees that stretched into the sky. They’d been there for decades, growing in the ground here on this street. Clouds covered the sun, just as they had every day since I ran out the front door. I walked, slow, shuffling steps, each one an act of pure will, as I made my way to the door. I was going to die without ever even seeing the sun.
I remembered a few days before, when Wolfe first threatened to do what he’d done to this city. I recalled being so sure that there was not a soul that could stop him, but truthfully there was all along. The problem with being self-centered, as we humans are, is that sometimes we miss the obvious solutions when the effect on us is less than desirable. There was a person who could stop Wolfe. And it was me. I could stop him. And all I had to do was give him what he wanted most. And what I wanted least.
My hand felt the cold metal of the doorknob as I turned it, opening the porch door. I stepped inside and felt it slam shut behind me. I sat there in the semi-darkness, just breathing for a moment before I took my next step forward and entered the front door. I looked down, expecting to see the dead agent’s body that had been left here last time, but it was gone. There wasn’t a sound in the house, but outside I could hear a far-off police siren, probably answering the call of another person worried about Wolfe slaughtering them.
I looked around the living room as I shut the door behind me. It was still in scattered disarray from the battles it had seen in recent days. Wasn’t your life supposed to flash before your eyes before you die? Not that I had a life; just a thin, cardboard cutout version of reality that involved me waking up every day, eating breakfast, reading books, working out and, if I was good, sitting on the couch that was upturned in front of me and watching an hour of TV before I went to bed at night.
It wasn’t a life. My entire existence was circumscribed by the same walls I was looking at now, the walls of this house, and when I was bad, the walls of the box.
The box. That damned box.
I slipped down the stairs to the basement, leaving the wreckage