Destiny: The Girl in the Box #9 Read Online Free PDF Page A

holding me tight, suffocating me. I straightened as the doors slid apart to reveal the fourth floor—and someone standing right in the middle of them.
    “Sienna,” Ariadne said, her face as drawn as I’d ever seen it. “I was just coming to look for you.”
    “Well, you found me,” I said, slapping my sweaty palms against my denim jeans. They felt like they were drenched, just from all that thinking—and dreading. “What’s up?”
    Ariadne hesitated. Never a good sign. “We just got a call from the Las Vegas Police Department.”
    I perked up. “Is the extermination starting there?” I paused. The local PD wouldn’t call us about something like that; they wouldn’t even know who we were or who to call, assuming they had any clue metahumans existed and were operating in their city.
    “No,” she said, a moment after all that ran through my mind. She paused again, pursing her lips, and I could tell she was having trouble saying what was on her mind. It was almost like she was looking for the best way to phrase it. “They found a body,” she said at last. I waited; if Ariadne was seeking me out to tell me this, it had to be important. “It’s … someone you know.” She bit her lip, toying with the edge of it. “They think it’s your Aunt Charlie.”

 
     
Chapter 6
     
    The knock sounded at my door as I was finishing packing. “Who is it?” I asked as I carried my overnight bag into the living room and set it down next to the table.
    “It’s me.” My mother’s voice came muffled through the door. “Let me in.”
    “If that’s not a metaphor for our relationship, I don’t know what is,” I said, my bare feet sinking into the tall pile of my carpeting. “You demand something, I immediately have to answer it.” My hand gripped the metal handle slickly; my palms were still sweaty. I opened the door.
    She was standing there with her dark hair still wound in a tight ponytail, her sharp jaw line protruding, arms folded. It was totally a mother thing to do—except she was standing in such a way that I could have knocked her flat on her ass with one good punch. That wasn’t really like her.
    “You heard?” I asked.
    “I heard.” She kept her arms folded as she stepped into my room. “You’re going out there?”
    “To identify the body, yes.” I closed the door behind her. She took care to avoid me as she passed. I was wearing gym shorts and a short-sleeved t-shirt while she was still rocking a leather jacket and jeans on a summer’s day. Her one concession to the heat of Minnesota summer seemed to be her lack of gloves, but she kept her hands tucked safely under her arms, so she wasn’t exactly living dangerously. “Someone has to.”
    “I could go,” she said stiffly.
    “You could,” I agreed, making my way back to my bag. I checked the zippers absently, fiddling with them even though I remembered closing them before I’d moved it out of my bedroom. “But I figured I’d do this myself.”
    We basked in the silence for a moment before she had to go and ruin it. “You’re running away.”
    I didn’t yell, I didn’t scream, I didn’t throw anything at her or grab hold of her until her soul came ripping out of her body. Though I was mightily tempted on all four of those counts. “I’m going to identify your sister’s body in Las Vegas and then I’ll be right back.”
    “You’re scared.”
    I pushed my lips together in a tight smile. “I’m not the one who’s probably going to die. He wants me alive, after all. What do I have to worry about?” Other than being the concubine of a genocidal maniac.
    “You’re scared of what’s going to happen if you fail.” She did not look amused. “You think he’ll—”
    “I don’t think he’ll do anything,” I said. “I think Weissman, lovely and caring soul that he is, will take that knife of his to everyone around here with all of his trademark enthusiasm and charm. I think everyone here will die screaming if I don’t