Omega The Girl in the Box - By Robert J. Crane Page 0,48
leaving?” I asked, not sure how to respond, and not even sure why I was cutting him off. He stared coolly back at me. “Checking out? Bailing in the middle of the fight?”
“I am one of the oldest metahumans on the planet,” Old Man Winter said, and the tiredness in his voice made it fact more than any of the words did. “I have seen much, done much, endured much. My power fades, even now, from a battle I fought over a hundred years ago that scarred me and left me weaker than anyone knows.” The glisten in the blue of his irises was unmistakable. “Even still, Omega fears me.” The frosty sensation grew in the room, as though his skin were growing cold and infecting the air around him. “When the day comes that they find me—and find me they shall, sooner or later—I will be the first to fall.” His eyes glistened ever brighter. “But not the last, unless you are prepared to do whatever is necessary to fight the battle that they will not expect you to fight. Unless you are ready to do whatever it takes to win, to protect the metas and humans of the Directorate.”
He moved his hand to my shoulder, a heavy, leaden weight, but the way he did it was unlike how he had touched Bjorn. “It is much responsibility I place on your shoulders, I know. The weight of the world, perhaps, it feels to you. But I do this because you...are the only one who can bear it. There is no other.” His shoulders were slumped now, his black coat billowing around them as though there were extra space, and the shadows from the fluorescent lights on his face made it seem like he was gaunter, bonier, more shadowed and skeletal than he had ever looked before. Like death, frozen and forbidding, as though he were already dead, as though it had settled on him down to the bones, and he simply had yet to stop moving.
“Do you think they’ll be coming soon? For you, I mean?” When I asked, I sounded like a scared little girl.
“I have no idea.” I heard him breathe again, back to life. “This Operation Stanchion is concerning...to see them moving resources toward us and not know their specific aim.” He grew quiet for a moment. “You must prepare. You must ready yourself for what is to come. To turn blindly away from this or to trust fate to be kind is a fool’s lot, and yields a fool’s results.” His voice grew hard like iron as he stood again. “And you are no fool.” He turned and walked toward the end of the hall, leaving me behind.
I felt pitiful, scared, feeling the true dread of Omega, of what was coming, in a way that I hadn’t since the arrival of Wolfe had forced me to hide in a cell here in the basement, hoping he would eventually leave town, leave me alone. Henderschott hadn’t scared me, not really. He had hurt me once or twice, but not enough to drive the fear into me the way Wolfe had. Same with the vampires they sent, and Mormont, whom they turned from the Directorate’s service. None of them scared me like Wolfe did, none of them hurt me like Wolfe did.
Except Fries. That little rodent. Exempting Wolfe, they couldn’t beat me in a fight, not even with Bjorn, who was a bruiser. But Fries came at me sideways, touching on all my insecurities at a time when I was vulnerable. Then he betrayed me and twisted the knife, the snake. The hallway seemed narrower now, the air thicker, and the chill had left with Old Man Winter. I started toward the stairs, the beige walls blurring together. Now they were after me again, maybe after Old Man Winter, too. If they wanted to topple the Directorate, knocking over Old Man Winter seemed like it would be the way to go about it. Who’d step up after him? I liked Ariadne, but I got the sense that she relied on him to do more than was obvious on the surface.
My legs carried me up the stairs, through the lobby and out the door. I hit the crisp air and took a breath. All the feelings of confinement began to fade, that tightness in my chest as if I couldn’t breathe for what I had to contemplate. Breaking a man’s arm off out of fear for what was