Omega The Girl in the Box

28.



Sienna



I stole a car out of the Directorate employees’ lot. It was Zack’s car. I doubted he’d miss it. It rattled a little—the transmission, a small voice told me, one that I didn’t want to think about yet. It carried me down the road though, the old windshield wipers shrugging off the slowly accumulating snow as I drove down U.S. Highway 212 in the middle of the night, the headlights illuminating the snow that was falling ever faster now, little dots of white that flurried past the beams.

It was well after midnight by the time I had managed to peel myself off the snowy ground and get going. Not a single police siren was to be heard, nothing, nada, and no one was around when I came to. No one but him, his body. I didn’t know whether I had fallen asleep or passed out, and I didn’t much care, either. The car smelled like him, and I wanted to burn it, burn me, make one giant funeral pyre and be done with it. But I couldn’t. Not now.

Not yet.

The freeways were starting to get slushy when I hit Eden Prairie and Interstate 494. I followed the road I’d driven a million times in the last year, took Minnesota Highway 62 toward the south side of Minneapolis, then headed up Interstate 35W. I could see the skyline in the distance as I drove, getting closer and closer. The houses grew older as I went, and when I exited in my old neighborhood, I rolled down the window, felt the flash of cold rush into the car, and realized that the cold was like home to me. The snow was insignificant. It covered the ground the first day I left my house, and for the longest time it was my whole world, a snow-covered, frozen-over hell. Let it snow, I thought, let it come down in volume enough to bury me.

I pulled onto my old street, the trees catching the headlights and casting twisted shadows on the walls of the houses as I drove past. Like the shadows from the flames of the campus, they seemed to take on a life of their own, as though they would reach out for me, take hold of me, shake every bit of decency and life out of me until there was nothing left...

Well, they were welcome to try. I suspected there wasn’t much of either remaining, anyway.

I pulled into my driveway and killed the engine, leaving the keys where they were. I didn’t care if someone stole the car. I almost hoped they did, because it smelled like him, and I could hear the engine the way he heard it, could almost taste his kiss again, as I sat in it.

My feet crunched in the first accumulation of snow, one step at a time as I made my way up the walk. I opened the door to the porch and it swung wide, closing behind me. I felt the handle of the door to the interior of the house, remembered my keys had burned in my dorm room, and twisted the lock until I heard it break. I pulled out the guts and used my finger to twist it. It broke the skin, but I didn’t care. A bleeding finger was insignificant compared to the other things that were on my mind.

I opened the door and stood silhouetted in the darkness of the living room. I felt a flash of memory, a thought of his, not mine—of him and Kurt, making their way across this room. Kurt hit the coffee table with his leg, making a noise. I could hear their breathing, steady, the motion, the smell of the outside—my memory now, intersecting with the other. I shook my head, tried to forget it, to put it out of my mind. I closed the door behind me, shrouding the room in darkness.

Darkness. Peace. Quiet. Nothing moved, there was no sound. Bliss.

I looked to the hallway, and I could see my old bedroom from here, remembered I had been lying there when—

I put it out of my mind again, tried to quiet it, to shut it up. “I don’t want to think about that now,” I said to the empty room. “I don’t want to think about it.” My eyes went back to my bedroom door, and in the midst of the familiar sights and smells of my childhood, I smelled another.

Zack’s cologne.

I walked to the bedroom door and looked at the bed where I had lain when he woke me up the first time. My prince. Not with a kiss, but his very presence, jarring me awake. And I’d hit him for it. In the groin. I pulled the door closed, put my back against it. “No,” I whispered. “No— no— no...”

I drew a deep breath, the ghosts of memory plaguing me. I tried to separate myself from it, from the smells, from the sounds, the phantom thoughts and memories that wouldn’t stop. “Fine,” I said, “just fine, be that way.” I walked ahead, to the old, wooden door, and turned the handle. The steps led down, turning on a wooden landing below, though I couldn’t see it. I knew every step by memory, having walked it a thousand times, and I closed my eyes and felt for the handrail. I heard the creak of the floorboards and the rattle of the water heater over in the far corner of the basement, but I didn’t care. All these sounds were familiar, but they weren’t intimidating. I didn’t fear them.

I didn’t have much left to fear.

When I reached the bottom step, I took a few more forward. The neighbor’s porch light shone in through the window I’d had replaced almost a year ago after Reed broke through it while making an escape. I could see the light through the snow, the definition gone but the light remained, just a little bit, almost like moonlight shining through the glass. It caught my face, and I turned, looking toward the corner for it, for the shadow.

It was there, pushed against the wall, not in the same place it had stood for all my life, but near enough. The box stretched to a foot over my head, forbidding, dark, the door hanging slightly ajar and open, still bent from the last time I had been in it, when I had broken my way out. It was only a few hours before the memory, the one I wanted to forget, desperately, to believe had never happened—because if it hadn’t, if he hadn’t come, then I wouldn’t have met him and we wouldn’t have—and he would still be alive, and not dead and—

I ran my hand across the pitted metal surface. I tugged on the door and it opened with a squeal, still hanging off its hinges at a broken angle, twisted. “I never should have left you,” I whispered to the darkness within, and it felt like the darkness answered me, like it moved inside, welcoming me back. I took a step in, and turned, facing my back to the open door, then grasped hold of it and pulled, dragging the door shut behind me. It fought me only a little, then I heard it creak into place, and the darkness surrounded me once more, only the faintest lines showing around the door where the lamplight came in from outside the window.

I stood there, alone again, in the dark, the quiet, the peace, the solitude. Just stood. Breathe in, breathe out. I liked the dark. The quiet. The solitude. I didn’t mind alone at all. Breathe in, breathe out. It smelled like home. My legs gave out a moment later, and I slumped, my back sliding down the back wall of the box. I folded in on myself, pulling my knees close as I dissolved, finally, the emotion coming now, here, in the darkness. This was where I belonged, where I deserved to be. Where I never should have left. Back in the box.

And I resolved I would never leave again.





An Apology For The Agony I Just Caused You, The Reader


Yeah, I know that hurt. A lot. It hurt me too, honestly. I finished writing that scene - yeah, that one scene, you know which one if you finished reading it, and yes, it broke me. Killing characters like that is painful for the author, too, I promise, and I didn’t just do it to be cruel. This is book 5 of a 10-book series. We’re now at the midway point, and things had to take a turn to get us where we’re going. I promise it’s all for good reasons, that it’s all part of the story. There’s always been a bigger plan, a thread that stretches through the entire series, and I hope it’s all going to be worth it for you, the reader, in the end. I even thought about ways I might be able to soften what just happened here in this book, but there really isn’t, not without fundamentally changing the story. I hope I’ve built enough trust with you by this point that you know I didn’t do what I did capriciously and for no purpose. Things were always going to get worse for Sienna before they got better.

I hope we see you for the next book (full preview of Book Six on the next page!) and if you want to know as soon as it comes out, CLICK HERE to sign up for my mailing list. I promise I won’t spam you (I only send an email when I have a new book released) and I’ll never sell your info. You can also unsubscribe at any time - like maybe now, in some of your cases, after I just killed one of your favorite characters in a horrible way. I hope you don’t feel that way, but I understand if you do. If you want to talk about it, feel free to send me an email (please don’t yell at me) at [email protected], stop by my Facebook page (Robert J. Crane (Author)), send me a tweet (@robertJcrane) or stop by my blog, which will have a dedicated discussion post where you can talk with other fans about this book (compain about how insensitive the author is - ZOMG what a jerk!!1!1!). If you don’t want to talk to me, you could always send Sienna a tweet of support - @SiennaNealon.

I hope to see you again next time.



Robert J. Crane