Ariadne hesitated. “I don’t know,” she said, and I remembered long ago when I’d had a conversation with her in a confining room when I’d first awakened at the Directorate. “The Director handed me her address and flagged her to be brought in immediately, highest priority—”
“Interesting,” I said, a little smug. “That’s not what you told me when you brought me in.”
“And if you’d asked the Director,” she said, flicking a cool look back at me that contained more than a grain of discomfort at having to admit her lie, “do you think he would have told you if he didn’t want to?”
“I guess we’ll find out,” I said solemnly. “Where is he?”
“Texas,” Ariadne said as Zack helped Reed to his feet. “He’s at our campus down there trying to help them get back on their feet.” She looked at Reed almost apologetically, and he raised an eyebrow as he leaned most of his weight on Zack. “Metaphorically speaking. You’re more than welcome to ask him when he gets back, but it could be several days, as he’s somewhat busy helping them deal with the massacre of almost ninety percent of their agents by Omega.”
“I’m sorry,” I said, turning to Reed, who was already beginning to hobble away with Zack’s help. He didn’t turn back to me, though Zack turned to look. “Are you suggesting that this whole war with Omega is because of…of…” I floundered for a moment. “Because of me?”
Zack stopped, and after a moment Reed turned with him, a slow circle Zack walked while keeping Reed in roughly the same place. “I’m sorry,” Reed said. “I didn’t mean to suggest it.” I took a breath until he spoke again and it all came out in a gasp. “I meant to say it flat out.” His eyes were laden with sympathy for me. “You are the flashpoint, the reason that Omega is at war with the Directorate. It’s because they wanted you and were thwarted twice, losing two of their most powerful operatives. That’s not the sort of threat to their influence and reputation in the meta world that they could tolerate.” He blinked. “So they came at your support mechanism, seeing weakness there.” He smiled again. “After all, with the Directorate gone, who’s going to protect you?”
Chapter 14
I let Dr. Zollers lead me off to the medical unit without protest, let him gesture me over to a bed where I sat, staring ahead, trying not to think about everything going on but failing miserably. He came back in a moment with three layers of latex gloves on, some bandages in hand, and disinfectant. “This will probably sting some,” he cautioned as he rolled a stool up to sit in front of me.
“Worse than when my arms got raked apart to begin with?” I asked with a dull smile.
“Probably not,” he conceded as he started to examine them. “I doubt this is enough of a layer of protection from your powers—” he held up a gloved hand – “so I’m going to minimize flesh contact.” He extended a swab after dabbing it in the disinfectant. “This is more of a precaution. I know you’ll heal on your own.”
“Then why are you doing this?” I held my hand out and he ran the swab down one of the gouges in my flesh. “Why bother?”
He seemed to think about it for a moment as he worked, staring intently at what he was doing. “Because it feels better than doing nothing.”
“But it’s pointless,” I said. “Won’t change a thing.”
“Wrong,” he said. “I told you, it feels better than doing nothing; ergo, it changes how I feel. That’s not nothing.”
“It’s not important how we feel,” I said. “It’s important what we do.”
He raised an eyebrow at me and stopped his work on my arm. “That is possibly the most incorrect thing I’ve ever heard, and dangerous to boot. Ever tried to ignore overwhelming feelings for too long? How do you think it turns out? Well?”
“I don’t know. Probably not.”
“Yeah,” he said, looking back down with the swab in motion, stinging me. “Probably not. Human emotions are like the most fearsome lions when aroused, and yet as easily torn through as a paper tiger at times. Ignore them at your peril.”
“My feelings lead me in stupid directions,” I said, staring at the metal wall, trying not to look at Kurt a few beds away or the body in the distance of the unnamed agent who was covered by a white sheet that had started to tint red with blood. “I don’t like going in stupid directions. The heart betrays you.”
Zollers didn’t answer for a minute and I wondered if he had heard me but decided not to argue. “Sometimes.”
I chuckled, but it wasn’t with any real feeling. “That’s what you’ve got to make me feel better? I thought you’d try and talk me out of it.”
“Try and talk you out of thinking that the human heart is capable of making some dumb decisions?” Zollers looked up at me. “Far be it from me to try and convince you of that. It absolutely is capable of making stupid decisions. But they’re not always wrong ones, even if they are inconvenient.” He took a bandage and ran medical tape along the sides before wrapping it over my arm and running a finger along the tape. “Take you, for instance – you might be a little conflicted right now—”
“I might be,” I said coolly, interrupting him.
“But I think your heart is in the right place,” he said. “For example, your mother is in direct conflict with the organization you work for. Now, your mother and you have a history, to put it in mildest terms. Still, there’s a connection, and someone who didn’t know better might think you could feel guilty for not helping her.”
“That’d be a stupid way to feel,” I said, the crimson burning my cheeks. “Especially since she hasn’t asked for my help and seems to want to be around anyone but me, if possible.”
“Oh my,” he said and stopped again, this time looking me in the eye. “You’re jealous of Kat?” He raised an eyebrow again. “What? You didn’t get enough of being locked up by her the first time around? You feeling a little homesick?”
“Oh shut up,” I said mildly, even though I was annoyed. “No, I’m not…homesick or eager to get locked away again. I just…I don’t know.”
“You wish your mother had cared enough to want to take you with her.” He said it certain, and that certainty pissed me off. “You don’t know, she might—”
“She might have a lot of things,” I snapped at him. “She might have wanted to, she might not have been able to, she might have been playing a dangerous game that she didn’t want me involved in – I’ve thought of all of them. But you know the conclusion I’ve come to after all that? She didn’t want me with her for the same reason she disappeared for months and months. She came here, to the campus, and didn’t want me to go with her when she left. She ran into me beaten, bloodied, near dead and she didn’t want me with her then, either. I think it’s time to face facts,” I said with a cold smile. “She’s finished being my mother. Nothing left to do, nothing left to be said between us.” I felt a cold satisfaction at the words. “She cast me out, said, ‘best of luck,’ and that’s it. She’s done with me.” I held my head up. “And me? I’m done with her, too.” I brought my hands down and felt a lump in my pocket – the watch, the one that came with the note that said my father had wanted me to have it. I moved my hand away.
Zollers started to say something but I caught a flinch from him as though he’d been struck, a cringe that hinted at something bad. The door to the medical unit slid open a moment later and Michael Mormont appeared, a calm smile on his face, Eve Kappler a few steps behind him. He looked around the unit, past where Dr. Perugini was working on Kurt, and over to Zollers and me. Within a second of locking eyes with me he came my way and I felt the dread in my stomach rise unexplainably. Well, I might be able to explain it.
“Well, well,” Mormont said as Zollers rose from the stool after sliding his finger along the edge of a bandage, pressing it to my flesh. “Feeling any better?”