“You won’t forget this, I trust?” The man knelt down, and the sound of fracturing bones got louder for a moment as Wolfe felt his elbow break as well. “I’m going to give you enough pain so you remember it. I don’t know that I’ll ever cross your path again, but I want you to recall, to tell others, in case they do. Tell them I beat you. Tell them I broke you. Let them know that I was the one who did this to you.” The man smiled, and Wolfe felt a sick feeling in his stomach as the man’s hand retracted. He felt the pain—the weakness—shoot through him, forcing him to stay down like one of his own prey. “Time to start building my own legend, I suppose.”
“Who ... ?” Wolfe croaked. “Who are you?” His voice came even raspier than was usual for him, struggling as he was for breath. A searing pain in his ribs flared as the man kicked him, causing him to float through the air again and regain consciousness, this time in a bed of thistles.
“I suppose I should tell you, since I am building a reputation,” the man said when he realized Wolfe was awake again. Is that the look I have when they wake up? It is such a sweet moment ... how ... how am I ... ? This is all wrong, not supposed to be the one being watched, looked at, stood over while in agony ... “You wouldn’t know my old name, so I suppose I’ll need a new one.” The man stood up straight, put his hand over his mouth, tapping his index finger idly upon his upper lip as he thought. “Something ... distinctive. Something that gives me my due, that lets you know who I am.” He leaned over again. “See, I stand apart from all of you. I’m different. I don’t want what you want, or what the others want. I don’t need anything. If you’d left me alone, we never would have met because I wouldn’t have bothered to seek you out.”
“Who ... ?” Wolfe heard himself rasp again, “... are you?”
“Good question,” the man said, and looked around. “Wait. I think I have it. I’m apart from you, from the others, from these countries and monarchs. I’m my own man—a man apart, really.” He smiled. “A man unto himself, independent of all others.” He nodded. “Yes, I think that will do nicely.”
Wolfe blinked at him, and blood slid into his eye, causing him to close it. “What ...?”
The man looked down at him, as though he’d forgotten Wolfe was even there. “Oh, yes. If they ask ...” He peered down, then smiled. “As badly as I’ve hurt you, I suppose it’s more of a ‘when’ than ‘if’ ... When they ask, tell them ...” He slammed a fist down into Wolfe’s ribs, causing him to sit up violently, a noise of shattering bones breaking filling his ears over the sounds of his own screaming. How? How? Wolfe is ... unbreakable ... The smell of his own blood, for once, was thick in his nostrils, mixed with the greenery of the forest. His vision was clouded, and the screams of pain in his own head were so loud he almost missed what the man said next. Almost, but not quite. And it stayed with him for all the rest of his days.
“Tell them it was Sovereign who did this to you.”
Chapter 2
Sienna Nealon
Now
The handcuffs were heavy on my wrists: heavier and stronger than ones I had encountered before. I stirred, moving my hands, and heard the clink of the metal rattling as I shifted position. My chair was made of the same metal, and I was staring at four blank walls of old concrete. Even if I could get loose of the handcuffs, those walls would hold me in for a time.
I stirred again, rattling the cuffs. There were two pairs on my wrists and two rounds of ankle cuffs keeping my legs from doing much moving. The smell of stale, heated air filled the room, annoying me. An FBI agent named Li had ambushed me at Customs in the Minneapolis airport with a SWAT team arrayed in front of me like a firing line. If I had moved or done anything untoward, he would have smoked me. So I let them cuff me and haul me off in the back of a van, against my every instinct.
I studied the empty room that they had placed me in. I’d been here waiting for at least two hours, according to my internal timekeeper. After years of being imprisoned in much tighter confines than this, I had developed a pretty decent sense of time. I stared at the one-way mirror in front of me, giving it a hard look that I hoped would convey my dissatisfaction with my current predicament without giving away the fact that I was deeply, deeply nervous. I kept my hands still, my eyes as slow in their movements as I could, left my face expressionless, and just sat there like I was at the dullest event I could possibly be attending, all while experiencing a bout of lethargy. I based my performance on the workers I had seen at the DMV when I’d gotten my driver’s license. I hoped it worked.