Untouched The Girl in the Box - By Robert J. Crane Page 0,84

bone before my eyes.

“Wolfe,” I said, whispering, “enough.” But he was in control and I had none. My hands grasped Henderschott by the remains of his head and dragged him across the roof to the edge. I lifted him up in one hand, his eyes dead and rolling, but they found mine for a second and the awful, hissing voice of Wolfe came back. “Wolfe should have done this a long time ago, but Wolfe showed you mercy. Now there is only the mercy of gravity.”

Henderschott spoke, but it was hard to hear. “They’ll keep coming for you.” His eyes were locked on mine, even as his head lolled back at a sick angle.

I wanted to ask who, and I fought, fought for control of my voice. “Who...?” I said it, and it came out as a whisper.

He blinked his eyes, the blood trickling down from the top of his head falling into the lids, turning them red, as though he were crying tears of blood. “Omega.”

Before I could ask him anything else, my hands drew him back and heaved Henderschott off the side of the tower. I saw his eyes look at me as he passed, and they were haunted, horrible. He flew out in a lazy arc and started to fall. I watched him sail downward, but it took an impossibly long time for him to finally land on the street below.

When he did, a scream tore through my head and I realized it was my own. I dropped to my knees at the edge of the tower, Wolfe receding to the back of my consciousness. I cried out, again, tears freezing on my cheeks as I stared down, far below to where Henderschott had landed; the second person I had killed with my own hands.

I wanted to cry, wanted to scream, but I heard both from behind me before I could let out my own. I lurched to my feet and started back toward the far side of the roof. Gavrikov hovered, bursts of flame flying through the air, balls of fire aimed at the helicopter above, forcing it into motion.

Kat was kneeling next to Scott, whose body was burned horribly. Her hands were already on him and his skin was returning as I stepped onto the long, empty section of roof where they were. Gavrikov turned to them from where he hurled another bolt of fire at the helicopter and his face changed, even beneath the flames. “What are you doing?” He threw a small fireball at Kat, forcing her away from Byerly. “I save you from them and this is the thanks I get?” The Black Hawk shifted and flew off, coming around in the distance angling to approach the tower.

“I don’t need saving!” Her words came out as a cry. I was still a good many paces away from them, but I could see Aleksandr’s skin begin to glow brighter. “I don’t even know who you are! I don’t want to go anywhere with you, I want to go back to the Directorate—it’s my home!”

Gavrikov was quiet for a moment, but he hovered only a foot or so off the ground. “I tried to save Klementina. My penance for failures, for crimes—for murder. For the murder I did when I was too young to know how to control myself.” He edged closer to her.

She skidded away from him, sliding across the roof, almost on her back. “I didn’t ask for this—not for you to help me, not for any of this!”

Gavrikov drifted closer to the ground. “I see how it has become. Things are not so different from the world we grew up in. Family betrays you at every turn, it is cold and dark and miserable and bereft of light. Everything Father did to us was nothing compared to what the world will do, with its cheap brutality and meanness.” He let out a tortured howl that shook me inside. His skin glowed all the brighter, but he had stopped advancing on Kat. “You’ll see soon enough.”

There was a crack of gunfire and a bullet whistling through the air. I saw it hit Gavrikov and he dropped to a knee, the flames around his shoulder dissipating to show puckered flesh, blood squirting out in short intervals. He seemed like he was going to fall over but steadied himself. “Thank you,” he said, “for proving my point.” He heaved the largest fireball yet at the Black Hawk and I watched it sway as Bastian