Untouched The Girl in the Box - By Robert J. Crane Page 0,65

other side. Yeah, it’s not all spun out yet, and there’s the little complication of him mind-jacking you, but past examples say that that can be settled. So my question is—are you gonna blame yourself forever for stuff you didn’t even do?”

“I...” My voice was ash. “I don’t know. They’re all dead, and I’m alive.”

“Mm-hm. Got a way to fix that?” I shook my head. “Did you do it? Really do it? Go out there and kill a swath of people?” I shook my head again, this time tears welling up. “Forgive yourself. Explain it however will get you through the day—that you couldn’t have stopped Wolfe then anyway, that it wouldn’t have made a difference, he would have killed just as many people over the next hundred and thousand years he lived—whatever it takes to reconcile in your head that it was not your fault. Anyone who calls you weak for not wanting to die is an idiot. If that includes you, then stop being an idiot.”

“I could have gone sooner.” My voice was even hollower now. “I don’t have a future.” I looked up at him and the lump in my throat was big, enough that it was choking me, enough that a little sob escaped and I wanted to hit myself in the chest for letting it out. “I lost my future in the moment I killed Wolfe—when I found out what I was. Even if I got past all the rest, I still have no future, not a normal one anyway. I can’t touch anyone. Ever.”

“Can’t touch anyone? Your mother was a succubus, yes?” He waited for me to nod. “You’re familiar with human biology, how we breed? Explain your existence, please.”

“I don’t know. She could have,” I faltered, “artificially, you know. I never asked her the finer details because I didn’t know what she was at the time. There are ways it could have happened without touch, real touch—but none of that changes anything. I can’t lead a normal life. I can’t have a normal relationship. I’m a smoking crater with nothing around for miles.” I bowed my head. “I am death.”

“Wolfe was death,” Zollers said, stern, “and you’re nothing like him. You’re like...like a fragile package. ‘Handle with care’.” He stood up and grabbed a blanket from the back of his couch. He threw it around me and hauled me up, wrapping his arms around me in a hug. I started to struggle but something stopped me.

“I just...” I choked out, “I just...want to be normal.”

I could hear the Cheshire Cat-like smile in his voice. “You’re seventeen years old and you feel like the world is ending around you.” He pulled me tighter, and the gentle pressure was reassuring in a way that I had never known. “Sienna...this is normal.”

Chapter 21

“Gavrikov wants Kat Forrest.” I stared across the desk at Old Man Winter, a few hours later. I felt better after talking to Zollers, more determined. I had some clarity. Old Man Winter watched me the same as always, but next to him, Ariadne seemed to study me with more suspicion, more wariness. “But you probably knew that, because you know her name’s not Kat, not originally.”

Ariadne’s facade of wariness broke and she looked at Old Man Winter, then back to me. “What do you mean? What’s her name?”

“Klementina Gavrikov,” I said, forcing myself not to smile. It wasn’t funny that Old Man Winter hadn’t told his top lieutenant, who I liked to snark at, something of vital importance. Or at least that’s what I told myself as I mashed my toe into my shoe and against the floor. Nope, didn’t smile.

“She’s his...” Ariadne blinked three times, then looked to Old Man Winter for confirmation.

“Clone,” I said, “or at least that’s what he thinks.”

“He is incorrect,” Old Man Winter said, his hands steepled in front of his face.

“Don’t tell him that,” I said. “I don’t want to see what happens when a human bomb gets told he’s wrong.”

“She is his sister,” Old Man Winter said, as though I had not interrupted. “Not a clone.”

“Oh?” I cocked an eyebrow at him. “Gavrikov...Aleksandr,” I said, softening my tone, “seemed to think she had died in 1908.”

“She did not.” He stared back coolly. He did everything coolly, dammit...I wished I had his glacial reserve. Half the time I was trembling beneath my badass exterior, just a scared kid. “She is as long-lived as any other powerful meta and as adaptable at healing. Whatever happened to her, she