“I mean, what did he really leave me?” I asked. “I didn’t even know his name until I was eighteen. Jon. Jonathan. Traeger.” I smiled almost morbidly. “I guess I could be Sienna Traeger if I wanted. Would she be a different person?” I felt the smile disappear. It wasn’t real, anyway. “No, he didn’t leave me anything. At least Winter gave me something.” I clenched my hand on the arm of the chair. “He gave me pain. Motivation to go past the moral line I’d drawn against killing. That could end up being important.” I looked at the stainless steel surface of the wall by the door and remembered one exactly like it in the old medical unit of the Directorate. “I’ve been past that line more times than I can count now. I live past that line, killing whenever I feel like there’s a need.” I sniffed and sat up straighter in my seat. “I killed half a dozen men in the last week alone. Watched even more than that die.” I stared straight into the distance, at the metal wall, and wondered if I’d see Wolfe’s face in it this time.
I didn’t. Just my own looking back at me.
I leaned toward Janus. “Do you remember that time in the elevator at Omega? When I asked you if I was monster?” I felt myself fill with emotion. “You told me a monster wouldn’t care.” I held my hand over my mouth, like I was trying to hold in what was attempting to force its way out. “I’m not sure I care anymore, not when it comes to Century. I want to stop them, mostly, but it’s more than that now. I want to hurt them. Hurt Weissman for what he did to you, to the others. For how he made me feel—powerless, like I was a nothing. I want to break him,” I said, and felt the burn in my words. “I want to crush him, him and his boss.” I felt myself sniff a little. “It makes me wonder if you would think me a monster for wanting to do that, or if you’d reassure me the way you did in that elevator.” I felt a little warmth in my eyes. “Because I can’t remember anyone doing that for me before, not like that.” I sniffled, and felt the wetness on my cheeks. “Like my dad maybe would have done, if he’d been alive to do it.”
I heard the door swish open and I hurriedly wiped my cheeks clear. I kept my head turned away from the door even as I heard light footsteps make their way over to me. I kept my eyes on Janus, turned away from the figure approaching me, even though I knew who it was.
“It’s so sweet of you to come visit,” Kat said as she stopped next to the chair. “I know it means a lot to him.”
“Yeah?” I rubbed my wrist under my nose and tried to avoid sniffling. “I’ve heard they can hear us, even in a coma.”
“I’ve heard that too.” She put a hand lightly on my shoulder.
“I need to get him out of here,” I said, and stood abruptly. “We need to move him quietly to somewhere safe, off campus, like a hospital elsewhere in the country. No one’s going to know who he is if he’s at Abbott Northwestern in Minneapolis. Here, with us, he’s a sitting duck. It’s an invitation for Century to murder him while he’s sleeping.”
“No,” Kat said quietly. I had yet to look her in the face. “He trusted you, Sienna. He believed in you. He would want to be here.”
“The storm’s here, Kat,” I said, toneless, watching the monitor above his bed. “The one we’ve heard about, it’s arriving, and it’s going to hit us right here on campus—again. I practically called it down on us. I need the few metas who can still fight, and I need them up front with me, not protecting others.” I looked sidelong at her, just a glance, and saw her trying to catch my eye. I quickly looked away. “He’s not safe here.”
“He’s not safe anywhere,” she replied. “He wouldn’t want to leave. I don’t want to leave.”
“Did Karthik come talk to you?”
“He did,” she said. “Sienna, you don’t need to worry about us. We’ll stay out of your way. I’ll protect him as best I can, and if I can’t ...” She shrugged, and I saw it out of the corner of my eye. “Then it’s the way things will be. I’m not going to run from them. Not now.” She took his hand, holding it carefully in her own. “I’m tired of running from them, and he wouldn’t want to hide in anonymity, waiting for the world to end around him.”
“Here he’s just another lightning rod,” I said, staring at the frail figure on the bed. “Just another target that Century wants dead.”
“Maybe we’ll buy you some time to hit them back,” she said, and I caught the hint of wistfulness in her voice.