Broken(33)

    Yes, Little Doll, Wolfe said.

    Only rumors, Bjorn added. Gavrikov remained quiet, which made me wonder about him; I supposed he was still upset with me about what I’d said about his sister. I didn’t care.

    “All right, Wolfe, spill it.” I leaned back on my bed and stared at the white ceiling.

    The Agency was destroyed by angry metas, Bjorn said. A cloister in South Dakota, furious over the Agency taking some of their own and arresting them—

    “Wait,” I said, blinking. “Where was the Agency located?”

    In Minneapolis, Wolfe answered helpfully.

    “Wouldn’t their destruction have made some sort of news? I mean, if there was a battle or riot or whatever?” I asked.

    Very artful cover-up, Bjorn went on. The U.S. Government wanted no record of their failure of the policing structure they had set up for metas, and so they buried it, pretended the whole thing never happened, and turned the entire location into tract housing.

    “I don’t buy how it happened,” I said. “Did either of you see the dream I just had?” There was a strange feeling of them shaking their heads in my mind. “Old Man Winter told Ariadne that it was one meta who did it.” There was a stark silence in my mind. “And I got the feeling—nothing definite—that the guy who destroyed the Agency was the same one who crippled Winter.”

    There was a slow quiet inside me that I might have found excellent at any other time. “Uh … guys?”

    No, Little Doll, Wolfe said. No meta is powerful enough to—

    No, Bjorn said, and Wolfe stopped speaking. There is one. The leader of Century.

    Not important, Wolfe said, and I got the feeling he was trying to distract me. I tried to decide whether I should let him or not. Only one thing matters right now and that’s the Little Doll’s revenge. I felt a flare of anger, and I hated to disagree with him … really hated it. I felt a visceral reaction, a tightening of the muscles in my abdomen, a taste of bitter on my tongue, and I wondered if he’d been manipulating me all this time, pushing me in the direction he’d wanted me to go. I knew in a flash that he had, because he felt my thought and tried to backpedal, receding into the recesses of my mind.

    “You’ve been playing games with me, Wolfe,” I said in slight shock. “I knew you … I knew you could take over my body when I slept before, but … you’ve been doing things to me while I’m awake …

    Nothing, Little Doll, nothing the Wolfe expected you to notice. Subtle things, almost not there.

    “You’re touching my emotions,” I said with disgust, “you’re playing with them, flaring my anger when you want me mad—”

    And flooding you with adrenaline when need be, don’t forget that, and burning off your fear when you feel it at the wrong time. The rasp was there, in his voice, in my head. The Wolfe is good to the Little Doll. Takes care of her. Looks out for her and keeps her out of trouble.

    I felt my head loosely fall into my hands. “Oh, God, what have I been doing?” I let myself peek between my fingers and look at the blank wall on the opposite side of the bedroom. “Have you been running me this whole time?” There was a quiet in which I felt panic that was not my own. “This whole thing … all this revenge, these killings … this was all your idea.”

    No, no, Wolfe said and Bjorn joined in the chorus. Wolfe was only showing the doll the way, never had to do any of it for her, hardly at all. Only showed her, helped her, guided her. Got her out of a few jams.

    “You pushed me into it,” I said numbly. “You knew how I was feeling and—”

    Despair is a very useless emotion, Little Doll. Makes you feel powerless, keeps you in chains—in a box, in your case. Anger could break the doll out of it, if she used it. Wolfe waited, tried to see if the Little Doll would find it on her own, but she didn’t. So Wolfe only … gave her a little push. Just a little shove in the right direction. Wanted to make her powerful again, not weak and mewling. I caught a hint of disgust, but whether it was from him or me I didn’t honestly know.

    I buried my face in my hands. “I’m not some broken girl that needs to be saved by the crazies in my head.” There was no answer to this, as if they were fearful of my response, but the undercurrent was there, just the same; strong disagreement, like the rolling of the eyes. “I’m not some … some shattered mess that can’t … “ I felt my eyes tear up and I clenched a fist, sending a hard breath out through my teeth as though I could push the unwanted emotion out that way. “I … I won’t fall apart. Not now. Not ever.”