“Sienna Nealon,” he said, in a deep, smooth, serious timbre, “my name is Special Agent Li. I’m with the Federal Bureau of Investigation. I’m going to ask you to lie flat on your stomach and place your hands behind you. If you do not comply with my command, I will order my men to open fire and put you down.” There was a subtle shift in his demeanor. “I’m telling you this because I don’t want to have to give that order. Do you understand me?”
I watched him without blinking, my head reeling as I realized he’d used my real name, not the one on my passport. “I understand.” My mind raced, and I tried to find a way out of the situation. I had taken a whole line of the old gods, beaten a man who was one of the strongest warriors on the planet only a day earlier. Now I was staring down a firing line, and I realized that something Old Man Winter had told me when I’d first entered the meta world was true—the new world had changed. One man with a well-aimed gun could end me. Eight of them was almost overkill.
Also, they were cops—really, government guys—probably honest citizens trying to do their job. Almost certainly not with Century. Even if I could cross the distance between us, I had a hard time imagining myself killing them. They were innocent, in my view.
“All right, then,” Li said, and extended an open palm, face down, and pushed it toward the floor. “Get down, and put your hands behind your back.”
I realized it might be technically possible for me to escape. I could roll forward, and if I was lucky, only one or two of the guys would have reacquired me as a target before I was in grabbing distance of Li. As long as none of their bullets hit me in the head, I could use him as a human shield to beat the holy hell out of them one by one. It was a long roll, though, and as fast as I was, I had my doubts that I could make it.
Even if I did, people would die. These agents would die. I was used to fighting metas, people who could take a fractured skull and walk away from it no worse for the wear within a day or two. These were men, and some of them would get killed in my escape attempt. I thought back to Rick’s office, of beating him down with the chair, and all the tension fled from my body. Never again. Not like that. I unclenched my fists.
The sterile air of the airport closed in on me, felt stagnant, trapped. Like me. I gave Li one last tense look and dropped my bag off to my side, then went down on my knees, then to my belly. I folded my hands behind my back and extended them, palms up.
I felt heavy cuffs click on my wrists, heavier than any standard handcuff. A moment later, Agent Li placed a leather glove on each of my hands without any resistance from me. I looked back at him with my cheek buried in the carpet, and he watched me. He was unflinching, unexpressive, totally focused on what he was doing. He slapped another pair of heavy duty cuffs around my ankles, then another. I was trussed like a hog. “All right, stand up,” he said.
I felt his hand on my shoulder as I got to my feet, a little unsteadily. I tugged at the handcuffs behind my back and then the ones on my ankles and found them strong, far stronger than standard police issue. They were some other metal and extra thick. I didn’t know if I could break them but if I could, it sure as hell wouldn’t be easy. Damn.
“Care to tell me what this is all about?” I asked. “Because I don’t remember packing any tomatoes in my carry-on. And if I did, I hope this isn’t how you’d handle it.”
“Funny,” he said, but he didn’t show even a trace of amusement.
“Seriously,” I said, tugging at the chains around my ankles. “Is this really necessary?”
He put a hand on my shoulder and aimed me toward the door that his SWAT team had entered through. “For a succubus? I think we can afford to be a little overcautious.” I felt my stomach sink when I heard him say it, heard him acknowledge who I was—what I was.
“Sienna Nealon,” he continued, “you are under arrest for the murders of Glen Parks, Clyde Clary, Eve Kappler, Roberto Bastian and Zachary Davis.”
“I …” I felt my mouth go dry, wondering what kind of trouble I was into. “I … want a lawyer.”
It seemed like the room was smaller now, like the walls had closed in, like things paused. I looked at the men surrounding me, all clad in black, their faces covered by ski masks to hide their identities. My mind rocketed at a thousand miles per second with fear, with frustration. I had a duty. I had a purpose. They bunched in tighter, ready to walk me along, but my hands and legs were bound so close that I couldn’t move them more than inches in any direction. I was at their mercy.