Soulless The Girl in the Box - By Robert J. Crane Page 0,15

Forrest were seated in the chairs in front of Old Man Winter’s desk, Kat still looking slightly washed out, and Scott was quiet, his fingers resting on his chin, eyes forward. “Looks like the party started without me.” I clutched the strap of my purse a little tighter, wondering if I was about to get smacked down. No one said anything.

Scott stood as I approached the desk, offering me his seat. I smiled and shook my head, then turned my concentration back to Ariadne and Old Man Winter, who both stared at me, Old Man Winter with his usual stoic calm, Ariadne intense, her eyes almost on fire. Scott found his way back into the seat and the silence continued, unabated, as I shifted my weight between my feet for the next thirty seconds or so, hoping someone would say something before I had to resort to small talk.

“I suppose you’re wondering why we called you all here.” Ariadne was the one that spoke, the lines visible at the corners of her eyes.

Kat and Scott exchanged a look with each other. Kat sat up straighter in her seat, her eyes a little wide. “Um...because Sienna nearly killed Eve?”

“I didn’t...” I stopped myself just in time. I didn’t look at Old Man Winter. “It was an accident.”

“Unfortunately, we don’t have time to hash over training accidents at the moment.” Did I detect a note of regret and acrimony in Ariadne’s voice on that one? Her mouth remained a severe line. “We have other business.” She looked over Kat’s shoulder to Parks.

I turned to look at our trainer and he stepped forward, a folder in his hand. “In the last twenty-four hours there were a string of convenience store robberies from Gillette, Wyoming across the Interstate 90 corridor in South Dakota that have caught our attention.”

Scott snorted, and when we all looked at him, his face went red. “Sorry. It’s just funny to hear I-90 described as a corridor. It’s a big, long stretch of dusty plains and nothing.”

Parks stepped between us and set the folder on the desk, opening it to reveal some photos. “Corridor or not, this could be a problem. No fatalities so far, but there were assaults during each of the robberies. The one in South Dakota included an assault on a local police officer. Several concussions for the store clerks, some trouble remembering what happened, including the assailant, who,” he coughed, “appears to have overpowered all the victims without a weapon.” He pointed to one of the photos. “This clerk was lucky: his head nearly went through the counter, but he lived.”

I stared at the picture he indicated. The shelves behind the counter were trashed, the glass broken, and blood stains ran in a circular splatter down the surface. It looked like whatever had happened had been painful. “You think it’s a meta.”

Parks paused before answering. “Yeah. It’s the Sherriff’s Deputy in Draper that puts it over the top for us. He was knocked out before he could draw a weapon or react. That’s not normal. Assuming he was following procedure, he wouldn’t have let someone get so close to him.” He looked at each of us in turn. “We’ve seen this sort of pattern before. It’s probably a young meta, a junior hellion who’s getting hold of his oats, thinks he’s a badass, not quite ready to cross into the realm of killing just yet, but getting there.”

“Probably dangerous if cornered,” Ariadne said, leaning on the desk with both hands. “M-Squad is being dispatched to help some of our agents from the Texas branch deal with a severely dangerous meta that’s wreaking havoc in western Kansas, and our other agents are on assignments, which leaves us with no one to follow up on these incidents.”

I perked up and saw Scott and Kat do the same. “No one?” My question was tentative, and I was reminded of the times when I would get Mom to break her rigid and inflexible rules. I called those occasions miracles, because they didn’t happen very often.

Ariadne’s mouth became a thin line. “We’re strained. Meta activity is up – way up. We’re spending a lot of time chasing ghosts lately – things that don’t pan out.” She brought a hand up to push her hair back and I caught a glimpse of something, written hard across the faded lines of her face. Ariadne wasn’t old, more like middle age, but in that moment she sure as hell looked it. “We have no