Soulless The Girl in the Box - By Robert J. Crane Page 0,6

with his hand up to his ear.

“How did this happen?” Ariadne’s voice was quiet, but it crackled with accusation and left a silence no one seemed eager to fill, least of all me. I started to speak, but was interrupted by Clary.

“Sienna hit her with rock while she was flying and she came crashing down into the creek.” Clary’s tone was purest joy, as though he were a kid tattling on his wicked sister. “She put some heat on it, too, took Eve right outta the sky like a friggin’ plane comin’ down—”

“Thank you, Clary.” I don’t want to say I was frightened of the icy edge in Ariadne’s voice, but it was probably the harshest I had ever heard her sound. I didn’t back away, but my eyes locked onto hers and I caught an undefinable hint of something that made my heart beat a little faster. Ariadne let go of Kappler’s hand and stood. “You’re all dismissed.” She locked eyes with me. “You too. We’ll discuss this tomorrow.”

“I’m sorry,” I said. “It was an accident—”

“Did you intentionally knock her out of the air with a boulder?” Ariadne’s voice came out low, almost whispered. When I nodded, she followed with, “Then that tends to rule out the possibility of it being an accident.” Her eyes were dark and they watched me. “We’ll discuss it tomorrow. Just go.”

I paused and started to reply – something about them pitting me against unfair odds, since Eve could fly and had been a member of M-Squad dealing with dangerous metas long before I even showed up, about how maybe I was doing her a favor by pointing out a pretty big vulnerability in the way she did battle – but every one of those arguments died on my tongue. I nodded and turned away, forcing one foot in front of the other as I walked out of the clearing and into the trees.

Chapter 3

I heard the sounds of conversation die down behind me as I grew further and further from them. The heat in the woods was oppressive, even under the shade of the trees. The air didn’t feel like it was moving, even when a brief gust of wind shifted more hot air in my direction, turning the sweat that was already trickling down my back into a tepid river that slid down the crease of my spine. I took a deep breath, sucking in the warm air, feeling it seem to stick in my nose and mouth, felt the perspiration drip from my forehead into my eyes, mixing with a little of the moisture already there.

Dammit. I got so caught up in the training exercise, in winning, in beating the others, that I let myself get carried away. For years I’d had no one but Mom to spar against, and now, only a few months out in the world, was testing myself against people that tracked and caught metas for a living. I felt a twinge of relief at the knowledge that Eve Kappler was going to be all right, and a little bit of pride knowing that I’d knocked her out of the sky.

Kappler was a severe woman by nature: she was thin, austere, too dry in personality and reserved in her manner to draw much attention. She had never really been nice to me (not that I’d smite her for that; there were a lot of people in the Directorate that had never shown me kindness; I’d be smiting for a long time to get to them all) but that didn’t mean I wanted to hurt her. It was practice. Mom had never intentionally hurt me during practice. Well, most of the time, anyway.

I ran my sleeve along my cheek, slopping off the salty mix of sweat and the first annoying hint of tears. I wanted to believe they were from all the perspiration that was in my eyes, but I suspected they might also have been from the pride stuck in my throat, that burning feeling that I couldn’t swallow away even though I wanted to. I had just gotten called out on my performance in the midst of my peers and fellow trainees. I hated that.

I took another breath, in and out, then another. I had stopped walking and was just standing, feeling the hot air gathered around me in a wall, like some sort of fortress of heat that had enshrouded my body. My long sleeves, gloves and pants didn’t help, and even though I wore