“Leave them right where they are, Kat,” I said, pulling tighter on the trigger, “or I will spread your treacherous, forgetting brain all over the wall behind you.”
“Mmm,” Janus said, pondering me. “I think not. You have a gentle heart, and are as yet unsullied by the cruelties of the world. I don’t think you’ll be killing anyone. We haven’t threatened you, we mean you no harm, nor any of your fellows.”
“You’re destroying the Directorate,” I said, “and you’ve been planning to kill Old Man Winter.”
“I could not care less about Erich,” Janus said with a wave. “I’m sure he’ll continue to live a long and bitter life even after you’ve joined us.”
“I’m not going anywhere with you,” I said, as Kat started to move. “Don’t push me, Klementina. It’s been kind of a rough day.”
“It’s been a succession of rough days,” Janus said, gesturing for her to move on, “but let us not cloud the issue. You are not going to kill anyone.”
“I killed Wolfe,” I said, almost snarling, trying to reassure myself. “I killed her brother. And your pet vampires.”
“Yes, but you didn’t know what you were doing when you killed Wolfe,” Janus said, “and you killed Aleksandr to save a city. Laudable, I would say. Noble, even. And let us not fool ourselves…those vampires were nothing approaching human, not really, and had not been human for a thousand years or more. You are not a murderer, Sienna.” I saw the tilt of his eyes to something approaching sadness. “When it comes down to it…we are not threatening you. We mean you no harm. And you are not willing to do what would be necessary to keep us all here.”
“And that is?” I said, my voice cracking as Kat emerged from the cell behind Janus, Fries in tow, his hands freed.
“Kill us all,” Janus said as Bjorn emerged from the cell to his left and Kat unlocked the handcuffs that bound his wrists. Then she disappeared into Madigan’s cell.
“Nice to see you again, Sienna,” Fries said, still a little bruised from his encounter with Eve. “I’m sure we’ll meet again.”
I felt a cold anger cut through me as Madigan emerged from the cell, freed, leaving wet footprints on the tile with every step she took. I waved the gun at them impotently as Janus took the first steps toward me. “Excuse us,” he said gently brushing past me. Bjorn went by next, a glare from on high, his flat face contorted with anger. His arm had returned, though it looked a little smaller than the other. Madigan came next, then Kat, giving me a cool look as she passed, and I knew by looking in her eyes that Kat was gone, that Klementina was all that was left. No , a voice whispered deep inside me, that is not Klementina, either .
“You know,” Fries said, passing by me last, “I always knew you didn’t have it in you to hurt me.” My gun rested at my side, but I felt it twitch in my hand. “It’s the chemistry, you know, between us, the magnetism. You can feel it, can’t you? The irresistible pull—”
I raised the gun and fired, the flash lighting the entire hallway, blinding me for a beat as Fries screamed and fell to the ground. “Sorry, gun just went off. Must have been your magnetism that drew the bullet irresistibly to you.”
His face was contorted with pain. “You shot me…in the ass!”
“It was tough not to. You’re all ass.”
He made another little screech and grunt of pain as Janus and the others peered at me from down the hall. “Sienna,” Janus said, “that was unnecessary.”
“Yeah, well,” I said, and stepped back from Fries as Bjorn took a few steps toward the incubus, “it was fun.”
Janus gave a half-hearted shake of the head, then motioned for Bjorn to pick up Fries, which he did. “This isn’t the end, Sienna,” Fries said.
“Well, it was your end,” I said. “Next time I see you, though, I think I’ll aim for the crotch.”
“You bitch,” he breathed as Bjorn carried him into the stairwell, “I won’t forget this!”
“Neither will I,” I promised, “because seeing you writhe in pain has been just about the highlight of my week.”
Janus remained as the last of them disappeared up the staircase. “Do not forget—we will be destroying your dormitory in only a few minutes. Do get all your people out in time, all right?” He took a few steps closer to me, but paused, just out of arm’s reach. “I know you don’t care for what I’m telling you, for what I’ve done to you, but you’ll see in time that you and I have the same goals. I want to protect and save the metas of this world from what comes for them. The only difference between Omega and you is that we are willing to do whatever it takes to achieve our aims.” He smiled simply. “And you are not—yet.”
“I will never be like you,” I said, feeling it all come out at once. “Great intentions, huh? Yeah, I’ve heard that before. Doing it all for a greater good, for your own good? Heard that before, too. Sounds a lot like my mother…just before she’d slam the door and lock me in a metal sarcophagus.”
Janus gave a slight shrug of the shoulders. “Perhaps she did. Perhaps she was protecting you all along from the things that would hunt you, the things that would hurt you, the things that would use you.”
“I think she was protecting me from you,” I said coldly.
He gave a nod of acknowledgment. “There are worse things than us, though I’m sure you don’t see it that way. Again, yet. I wish you well, Sienna Nealon. When next we meet is entirely in your hands.”
“How about never?” I asked as he turned to walk away. “Never works well for me.”
“Never say never,” Janus said, taking hold of the railing of the staircase as he took his first step. He walked up them one by one, taking his time, not looking back. “Never is a very, very long time, and frankly…you don’t know what will happen tomorrow that might change your mind.”
25.
I ran down the hall, to the other staircase on the opposite side of the building, the darkness at the end of the hallway enveloping me. The thought that Omega wasn’t here to kill anyone overwhelmed me, and I shuddered to think under what circumstances he might have convinced me to join him, now or in the future. He seemed so sure, and with every word he had said, my certainty grew less and less, until I was left to defend by anger that which I wasn’t sure I even had a defensible position for. I could feel the fury burning inside me, an almost physical reaction, as though I were having heartburn. The still air in the headquarters drove me mad as I dashed up the lighted staircase.
An emergency exit waited on the landing and I pushed through it, felt the resistance against my arms as I opened it and stepped out into the cold. At least five buildings were burning in my field of vision as my feet stepped off the concrete path. The night air was frigid, and I felt it seep through the cracks of my clothing, through the bottom of my jacket to where my shirt had come untucked in all the running, biting at the skin around my belly as I ran off toward the darkened dormitory, the glass and concrete reflecting the fires of the buildings burning all around like some sort of window into hell.
I didn’t see Janus or his party, even though they had (I assumed) exited out the front of the building. Perhaps they were lingering in the lobby, perhaps they had other plans. Either way, I ran for the dormitory. I threw open the glass door when I got there, and saw shadowed faces huddled in the entry; Kurt was up front, his electric-shock cannon in his hands. “Time to leave,” I said, winded from my run.
“What the hell is happening here?” he asked.
“Omega is destroying the campus,” I said, hands on my knees. “You need to get the students out of here. Head for the woods, and don’t get near any of the buildings that are still standing.” I felt a certain grimness as I said it. “They won’t be for long.”
Kurt looked around, his fat face turning on his wad of a bullfrog-like chin. He just looked stunned, unbelieving. “Where am I supposed to go after that?”