J.J. just stared at me. “All the shit we’ve been through, and you think that the crew is going to stay behind on this one?”
“This is off books, J.J.,” I said. “This is not the mission, it’s not their job. I don’t have the authority to ask this of them, even if I wanted to. They shouldn’t have me dragging them into this—”
“It’s Sienna, man,” J.J. said. “We’re all in this.”
“No, we’re not,” I said. “She’s my family. I’m in this. But the rest of you? This is your private lives, man, and what we’re talking about here is the opposite of what we do here for work. This is lawbreaking, doing wrong—this team doesn’t do that. They aren’t a group of bank robbers or mercenaries. And when it comes to this kind of illegality, these kinds of life-changing, ruinous consequences, they don’t answer to me—”
“THEY WILL ANSWER TO THE KING OF GONDOR!” J.J. shouted, almost rattling the door. His eyes were on fire, wild as I’d ever seen them. “Dude. The beacons are lit AF, okay? Sienna calls for aid—”
“You guys aren’t Rohan,” I said, trying to keep an even keel. J.J. was plainly worked up, speaking in geek metaphor that—yeah, I got it, but…I wasn’t exactly proud of the fact. “This isn’t your fight. This is the reason Sienna has kept us all at arm’s length for the last several months. Everyone who goes on this trip is asking for a prison sentence if things go wrong, if we end up getting into a fight. Let me handle this—”
“Hell no!” a voice cracked through the door.
“Nuh uh,” came another.
“What the—” I went for the handle and J.J. moved aside. I opened it to find the crew out there, not even making a pretense of working. Augustus, Scott, Kat and Jamal were standing right out there, Veronika, Colin, Abigail and Friday about a half-step behind them. Not one of them looked shame-faced, though Chase was lingering back a ways, as was Miranda.
“Man, Sienna put this team together,” Augustus said, and before I could say anything to that: “You ain’t got grounds to deny it. We all know she’s been behind the scenes on this from day one.” He looked at Miranda significantly. She didn’t admit anything, of course. She was a lawyer who’d been taking orders from a wanted fugitive; she’d be dumb to open her mouth, even here. Augustus looked back at me, all sincerity. “She’s saved my life more times than I can count. If she’s in trouble, if she’s powerless I don’t care whose damned law is standing in the way. I’m going. Because if I got my ass in it up to the neck, you know she’d be there to help, even if the law was still after her.”
“Here, here,” Jamal said, doing a little abrupt clap. When no one else joined in, he stopped.
“Guys—” I started to say, and then Abby shot me a hard look. “And gals,” I amended. “There could be serious consequences for this. Life in the cube, and for some of us…it might be a long life.”
“Puh-lease,” Veronika said, feigning a yawn. “I’m insulted you didn’t ask me to come. I mean, I do illegal things all the time.”
Augustus rolled his eyes. “Yeah, okay, we get it. You have a wild sex life.”
Veronika froze for a second, then threw her head back and let out a laugh. “Oh, I like you, pretty boy. I was talking about how I used to be an assassin, sweetie, and you go full into the gutter without even a nudge from me.” She wore a wide grin. “I’m wearing you down, baby.”
Augustus made a face. “Did you just Urkel me?”
“Sienna and I have had our differences,” Scott said, “but you know…I’m there for her, no matter what. She’s saved the world…so many times. And the world turned its back on her? Well, I won’t. I’m coming.” He clenched a fist in front of him. “If I have to ride the waves behind you all the way, I am coming.”
“Like you could leave me behind on this,” Kat said, arms folded in front of her, usual smile evaporated.
“I will hack your plane and send you into the ocean if you try and leave me behind,” Abby said, completely inscrutable. She had a good poker face. Scary good. “So unless you want to go for a nice swim in the north Atlantic…”
“You’d be okay,” Scott promised.
“And then I’d bring down a rain of satellites on you, just to liven things up,” Abby said, still inscrutable.
“Or we could just save ourselves the headache and bring the whole clown car along,” Jamal said under his breath.
“I’m fighting for Sienna,” Guy Friday said, boldly, declaratively, a little sappily, like he was crying under his mask. “For truth, and freedom, and justice and decency and stuff! Because she’s my niece! And because I kinda want to drink some Belgian beer right at the source.”
“I’m not going to Belgium,” I said crossly.
“Oh, well,” Friday said, “then for all those other reasons—I AM COMING!” And he struck a pose, massive arms strapped across his inflated chest.
I looked at Colin, then Chase, because neither of them had said anything. Colin looked around, adjusted his beanie slowly (for him) and said, “Yeah…no prison can really hold me, and the cops can’t really catch me, so…” He shrugged. “I’m in.”
Looking past him, Chase had a hard look on her face. She had her arms crossed, and there was a mountain of discomfort, her brown hair coming over one of her eyes in a pouty wave. “So…Sienna’s how I got this job, huh?” She bowed her head. “I shoulda known. Saved my life in Montana, got me the best-paying gig I’ve had in years.” She let out a long breath. “Yeah, okay. I guess I kinda owe her. Plus, uh, y’know, if she’s been saving the world…” She shrugged again. “I suppose I’ve been living on borrowed time or something, so…”
“You don’t have to do this, you know,” I said. “This is voluntary.”
“Yeah, and I’m kind of volunteering,” she said. “You guys have been really decent to me, and she’s one of your clan, so…” She nodded. “I’m in.”
I nodded, once, feeling a little…not astounded, exactly, but maybe a little amazed. “I have to admit…I’ve worked with most of you for kind of a while now, and…you did surprise me today.”
“That’s right, baby,” J.J. said. “Winger speech and bring it on home.”
I ignored him and went on. “My sister is…a complicated person. We all know that. But most us know that the hell that’s come her way lately is stuff she doesn’t deserve, that she didn’t earn. And now this Scottish succubus, whoever she is…she thinks she’s got Sienna rocked back on her heels, on the run. That she’s isolated, hunted and alone. Well…
“Sienna has saved the world, and she’s saved us all, at one time or another,” I said, feeling my chest puff a little with pride. “It’s our turn now. Let’s go save her.”
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.