“So you’re gonna pass on that whole deity-worshipper relationship? Because I feel like that would encompass it all.” The grin, again. Toothy, amused, and kinda boyishly adorable.
I stared at him and part of me wanted to kill him.
The other part, though …
What the hell else could I do, though? Tell the man who could see into the future to take a flying effing leap, that I’d muddle through this on my own? I could do that, of course, and maybe I’d be none the worse off for it.
On the other hand, now I had Terminator after me, and this other guy—Fire Guy—after my friends and family. Unless I could prove to myself Harry was actively working against me, his particular power set would come in awfully handy were I to keep going down this crazy road.
And me? I just kept going down the crazy roads.
“It’s okay,” he said, amusement bleeding out, “you don’t have to convert today. The Church of Harry will be around and taking donations for—”
“Oh, shut up before I make a martyr of you.” I folded my arms in front of me as he chuckled under his breath.
“You can kill me—actually, you can’t, probably—but my legend will only grow stronger.”
“Argh.” I put my face in my right palm. “I swear to—”
“Me?”
I gave him the dagger look. “I swear to you, Harry, I just want an easy break. For the shit to stop hitting the fan. For things to stop exploding around me, for trouble to stop rolling my way—”
“You were seeking trouble for years, Sienna,” he said. “It was your addiction, and … maybe just like other addictions, it’s the sort of thing that doesn’t just fold up the tent and leave when you think you’re done with it. Consequences follow behavior, they don’t come first.” Now he sounded all serious. “You made a name for yourself as a hero and a villain, whether you meant to or not. Much as you might wish you could say ‘Uncle—’”
“I’m not calling Friday.”
“—it’s not just a matter of waving the white flag and calling it quits, unless you want to give up and go to jail.” He gave a light shrug.
I sighed. “Tell me this, then, because … back when I was working a case, I knew I’d reach a conclusion of some sort, and then I’d be done, at least with that one. This running thing.” I looked the wide world around me, or at least the borders I could see within the leafless trees that girded that Kentucky rest stop. “Do I ever get out of this again, Harry? Am I ever gonna …” I let my voice trail off. My eyes went unfocused in the distance.
Even after months on the beach in Florida I was just so …
Tired.
“I’m just so ground down, you know?” My voice was raspy again. I was feeling … everything. The weariness. The lack of drink. Like I’d been emptied out and nothing replaced it. “Running for a year, then this. I mean …” I tried to find a way to ask the question that was weighing on me like …
Like the weight of the world.
“You’ll find your way out again, Sienna,” Harry said softly. “I can promise you that. You will find your way out of this, and you will be happy. And sad. Normal again, I guess you could say.” He smiled. “You’ll find a new normal, but, yes … this, too, shall pass away. And someday … I can’t say when … you will be happy again.” He smiled, and this time, I could feel a thrill of hope at his words. “I promise.”
24.
Reed
I stepped off the plane in Minneapolis to find Governor Bridget Shipley waiting for me, clutching her hands, blond hair cut in an overgrown bob that reached the top of her shoulders. Governor Shipley was a pretty stately lady, and I’d met her enough times in the past to recognize the nervous tension in her as I descended the steps from the Gulfstream, my team following behind me.
“Mr. Treston,” she said, taking a few strides to greet me as I came lightly off the last step. We were standing on the tarmac at the private terminal at Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport. A 737 roared in the distance as it came in for a landing, passing over the Mall of America toward the north-south runway. The governor extended her hand, and I shook it, carefully, trying to not break it with my still-newfound strength.
I’d lived as a meta my entire adult life, and I’d always been strong. But what President Harmon had done, giving me a power boost? It had boosted everything. Strength, speed, dexterity. I wasn’t exactly exploding Coke bottles with my grip by accident, but I didn’t want to lose control on the Governor of Minnesota’s hand, either. The consequences would be a lot more dire than a little Cherry Coke on my new suit.
“Rolling out the red carpet for us, Governor?” I asked, pausing to look her in the eye. I wasn’t her biggest fan; when Sienna had run into trouble, Shipley had been one of the first to pull out the long knives for her, making her life harder at a time when she didn’t need it.
In previous meetings with the governor, I had been in Sienna’s company. They’d been congenial, filled with praise and mutual admiration.
That had evaporated as soon as my sister hit hard times. I wasn’t keeping a shit list or anything, but if I had been, Governor Bridget Shipley would have been right at the top. I suspected Sienna wasn’t likely to forgive her, either, if she were to ever find her way out from under the mountain of trouble she was presently buried in.
“I’m just glad you saw fit to come back to us now, when we need you most,” Shipley said, smiling thinly. Sanctimonious, of course. A true politician, this one.
“Well, I might have been around more if I felt like I was welcome here.” I said that with the dryness of a good sherry.
“You are more than welcome here, of course.” She didn’t bat an eye. Provided this incident resolved well, and with a decent helping of assistance from her party, she’d probably be a contender to Gondry in the next primaries—assuming Gondry continued to fumble around in the dark like a monkey seeking a football to hump (and I figured that was a fair assumption).
“Well, I don’t like to travel anywhere alone,” I said, turning to watch Augustus and Jamal coming down the stairs, Taneshia behind them. Friday had the luggage, and he was just behind them. Olivia Bracket followed a step behind, with Tracy bringing up the rear.
I frowned. Where was Scott? And Greg Vansen?
“And family is important to me,” I said, offhand, trying to complete my snide insult of the governor. I wasn’t sure it hit home, because she had a wicked good poker face. Or maybe just passed on the opportunity to insult me since I was here to help her.
“You’ve built quite the team,” she said. “I remember when it was … almost just you.”
I shot her a sideways look and decided to avoid the topic of Sienna, because … well, two could play at this politeness game. “I still have elements of a second team in position on the West Coast. Protecting one of our people who’s injured.”