27.
Sienna
I was spotlit.
Caught.
Frozen like a deer in the headlights, blinded by the bright.
Given everything that had happened, all the hits I’d taken these last few months, it was very tempting to just…give it up right here. Toss in the towel. Say, “So long, and thanks for all the fish!” Whatever that meant. (Reed said it a lot)
I was hemmed in by a cop car on one side and a fence on the other. If I ran for it, they’d call it in, and I’d be hounded once more, a whole country of cops—and probably Rose—descending upon me.
I’d lost my souls, lost my powers, and now…I was trapped in an alley in some coastal town in Scotland I didn’t even know the name of, and the police were staring me down.
Really…there wasn’t much farther a girl could fall. If this wasn’t rock bottom, I could only hope it was awfully close.
Faced with a choice of standing there, submitting, surrendering…I like to think that most people who’d been through the hell I’d been through would have just given up at that point. We like to think the worst of others, like to believe we’re special. And we are all special, in some ways. Some people are especially stupid, for instance. I might be one of them.
Because whenever the pressure really tended to get on…in clinch time…that was when I bucked up and went bold, in spite of all the clawing, nagging, nasty doubts that had just threatened to drag me down.
I shielded my eyes against the spotlight, cringing away. I couldn’t see much of anything, except some police lights flashing somewhere behind the blinding white in my face. “Ow,” I said, not bothering to hide my American accent. “Man, that’s bright. I’m glad you guys came along though, because—I gotta tell ya—” and I threw in a chuckle here “—I have never been so lost in my entire life. Silly American, I know, making all us tourists look stupid.” I started toward them, taking an easy pace, keeping my hands where they—if there were more than one of them—could see them.
“Just stop right there,” a male voice with a Scottish accent commanded.
“What?” I asked, still flinching away from the spotlight and hiding my face. “I’m lost, man. I need some help.”
“I’m asking you to stop,” he said, and his voice was rising. Probably some worry.
“I don’t understand,” I said, taking it nice and easy. “No comprendo, you know what I mean? You Scots, I don’t understand what you’re saying most of the time—”
I heard the motion rather than saw it, the sound of the guy drawing something from a holster.
Damn.
I sprang into action, committing both of us to our paths, because I needed to reach him before he drew, and he needed to shoot me before I could beat his skull in (which I totally would not do). He’d erred in letting me get relatively close to him without drawing his weapon—whatever it was. I had a suspicion.
There’s a concept in law enforcement that’s popularly referred to as the “twenty-one-foot rule.” It’s not actually called that, really, it’s called the Tueller Drill, but if you say that to most people, they’ll go, “Huh?” Hell, if you ask most people about the twenty-one-foot rule, their reaction would probably be just about the same. But it’s a simple idea, that a human being can cover the distance of twenty-one feet or less in about one and a half seconds—faster than a law enforcement agent can draw their gun, get a bead, and fire a shot.
I was well inside twenty-one feet of this guy, and I could move faster than a human being. I did so, catching him before he could bring up the stun gun he was lifting to bring to bear on target—
On me.
I swatted it out of his hand and made a split-second decision.
I was so tired of hiding, of being pushed back, chased, beaten.
Thrusting my hand against the officer’s cheek, I brushed right past his defenses—
And slapped my palm against his face, anchoring it there.
“Shhh,” I said, and my will bowled his over, even though I didn’t fully have my soul power to bear. He did indeed hush, and it came as a slight surprise.
The burning came a moment later.
It ran through my palm like someone had brushed it with a tickle, then it became a fuller feeling, a sensation of fire running across my skin. I got hot and flushed, and in five seconds I was in, rushing like I’d dove into the officer’s mind.
I took great care, not going anywhere that affected his core memories—who he was, his family, his loves and disappointments. It was a boon of my power that I could be a little picky and choosy about the memories I stole, if I didn’t take the whole entirety of a person.
Here, I was after a very specific thing, a little thread that was perhaps entwined with the rest of his life but didn’t define it. An easy string to pluck, to remove, a tangential detail to his life that he wouldn’t miss unless a certain subject came up—
That Sienna Nealon was a wanted criminal instead of a vaunted hero. Heroine. Whatever.
I took from him the memory of where he’d been when he heard I’d gone rogue, and a few discussions he’d had with the people in his life about me being dangerous. He was of the opinion that, of course, I was, but fortunately the news I was in Scotland and causing havoc was still so new that he wasn’t going to lose much in the way of memories. A briefing from his commander, a few chats with his wife, comments made idly about “that damned Sienna Nealon” being at it again.
Oh…and the moment when he’d first heard, just as the late news was coming on right before he and his wife were about to turn off the TV and get to their marital business for the evening, taking a brief respite from the sleeping kids. Of course, he ended up sitting back down and watching, a kid woke up, and the moment passed because his wife went to go deal with the crying tot and fell back asleep, leaving the poor guy to—
Well, he wouldn’t miss that memory. Next time, I whispered in his mind as I took the memory, when she’s ready, to hell with the news. It’s all bad anyway.
I pulled out of the officer’s mind and then yanked my hand away from his face. My total time in his head? Probably less than a third of a second. It felt longer, of course, as it always tended to, that dilation effect of reading through synapse and memory like I was living it in the moment. It’d been a near thing, too, getting distracted in this cop’s head, especially given how close I’d come to some pretty salacious material. I didn’t want to violate his privacy, and besides, thanks to that time I removed Scott’s memories, that age-old question of what men thought, of what it felt like for dudes during—y’know—had already long ago been answered for me. My skill game took a major level up after that, if you know what I mean.
Oh, God.
Anyyyyyway. I took a step back from the officer in question and he blinked a couple times, now shadowed by the headlights once again. “Constable,” I said, and he focused on me. “Can you help me?”
“Holy hell,” he said in a thick Scottish accent (really, was there any other kind? There were Edinburgh accents, which were no accent at all, and Scottish accents, which were close to incomprehensible. That seemed to be it). “Sienna Nealon?”
This was the moment of truth, and I’d soon discover whether I’d effectively removed the problem areas of his memory. I couldn’t really see his face since he was outlined by the blinding light, but I had high hopes that I was as good at playing around with memories as I thought I was. I’d certainly had a decent amount of practice.
“That’s me,” I said, waiting for the results of my memory-stealing exam. I was just standing in front of him, and stooped down to pick up his taser, handing it to him butt-first. “So…I’m in a little bit of a bind here, Constable. Trouble around every corner. Think you can give me a hand?”
He just stared, the dark shadow, and then turned, giving me a look at his profile. It was a little doughy, but he had the kind of face you wanted to trust—and not punch. Which made it so much easier on me a moment later when he said, “Absolutely, anything you need.”
“I’ve got to get the hell out of Dodge here,” I said. “Kinda ran into some trouble and I can’t fly out.”
“Ouch,” he said, nodding along. “Where are you headed?”
I held my index finger over my lips and smiled. “Can’t tell you. Classified, you know.”
“Oh, sure,” he said, nodding along furiously. “If you need a police escort—”
“No, no,” I said, “I wouldn’t dream of pulling you off duty. But I was wondering…do you have a train station in town?” I shivered a little.
“Absolutely. You need a ride?” He gestured back to the shoe car that he had been driving, the damned spotlight still on us. “Trains aren’t running this time of night, but—”
“That’d be great, thanks,” I said, and started toward the car even before he did. I took care to make sure I got in what was, to me, the driver door, but to the UK was the passenger door, for reasons probably only known to Wikipedia. He got in after me, and now that the spotlight was no longer blinding me, I could see he was smiling. Almost drooling in excitement, actually.
“To the train station, then?” he asked, and I wondered if I should be worried about him peeing on me in his excitement.
“Well, that depends,” I said. “You said there are no trains running at this time of night. Did you mean passenger trains?” He nodded. “So…do cargo trains move through in the middle of the night?” He nodded again. “And do you know where I could catch one?”
He didn’t even answer, just shifted the car into gear. “You must be in a hell of a hurry, not wanting to wait for a passenger car. I mean, that’s dedication, riding the rails on a cargo train. Dangerous too—”
“I scoff at danger,” I said, looking out the window as he steered us out onto the street carefully. It was still looking dingy, but he dodged us down a side street and off the main drag I’d been heading down when I’d ducked down the alleyway at his approach.
“You surely do,” he said, guffawing lightly, giving it way more humor than the remark deserved. “Can I just say? I’ve been a huge admirer of yours for a long time now.”
“It’s nice to be admired,” I said, a little forlornly, without looking over at him. It had been nice. Of course, not that he remembered it, but those days were well over now.
“Ye’ve just done so many amazing things,” he gushed. “That meteor over Chicago?” I turned to look at him, and he was staring at me with a glowing face. “I mean, I guess that was never technically confirmed by anyone, but—I mean, everyone knows it was you under that big bloody rock. They don’t just hover in the air in the air by themselves and gently come to rest in a lake, you know.”
I could remember the weight of it on my shoulders. “Yeah. I know.” I kept looking out the window.
“And that first battle in Minneapolis!” He was on a roll now. “I mean, watching the cell phone footage of that…it was just incredible. You go turning into a dragon and chomping on that Sovereign bastard! I mean, it’s like the stuff of legends. I love it.” I looked over at him and he blushed. “You know. I admire it.”
It had been a long time since anyone had said anything this nice to me, and it stung considering I’d ripped some memories out of this man’s mind to make it happen. “Yeah, well…you and nobody else these days.”
“Och, you’ve got just tons of admirers,” he said. “I’m sure a lovely lass such as yourself probably has a never-ending line of male admirers seeking your hand.”
“Nope,” I said quietly. “Not my hand. Nor anything else, lately.” If I had any energy, that might have been a lot more self-pitying, but as it was, I didn’t have much thought to spare for the deficiencies of my love life.
The ride was a steady stream of gushing, and the officer’s excitement at meeting a “real-life celebrity superhero!” only made my guilt at messing with his mind more present in my own. Here I had someone who had been a genuine fan of mine, and yet the knowledge that I had done terrible things had turned him against me. Somehow that made me feel even guiltier for depriving him of his memories, even though they were all misapprehensions about what I’d done.
The police car slid up to the side of the road and stopped, and the officer nodded his head. I avoided looking at his nameplate; I didn’t want to feel any more responsible for him than I already was. “Train tracks are right over there.”
“Any idea when the next train will come through?” I asked.
“Usually every few hours, I think?” He didn’t sound too sure.
“Thanks,” I said, and popped the door open. Standing there, I leaned back in. “Hey…you mind keeping the fact I was here between the two of us for a while? It’s supposed to be a secret.”
He tapped the bridge of his nose. “Just between you and me. I’ll keep it under my hat for a few days, then?”
“If you could,” I said, smiling faintly. “Good luck to you—”
“Officer—” he started, extending his hand toward me.
I recoiled from him, and watched the pleasant expression melt off his face. If I touched him again right now, it’d vault him into immediate pain as my powers started to rip his soul out of his body whole. “I, uh—sorry,” I said.
“Oh, not a problem,” he said, apparently just as embarrassed as I was horrified. “Just wanted to…shake yer hand.”
“Maybe next time,” I said, and shut the door, walking away before he could come up with another thing to say that would make things more awkward for us both. I could hear a train whistle in the distance, and it sounded like sweet freedom, with maybe just a little tingle-twist of guilt.