In the Wind: Out of the Box, Book 2 (17 page)

I hang there for a minute, pondering my options. Looking forward, looking back, I realize I can keep crawling my way forward using the lip of the train window for a handhold. Worst comes to worst, if I fall I can probably save myself from splattering on the ground.

Probably.

I let my hopes rest on that thinnest of possibilities, and I start inching my way forward. I realize that there are guys with guns just above me somewhere, and they will probably look over the side soon-ish. I’ve got one solution for that problem, and it requires haste, so I scoot along as fast as my weary fingers allow.

When the first head pops cautiously over the side of the train, followed by the barrel of a gun, I’m ready and lucky, because he does it just above me. I drop to holding the window with one hand, and throw up the other while unleashing a gust. I catch a scream in the air and look through the train in time to see the guy fly off the other side. Better luck next ride, pal.

I expect what happens next, but it doesn’t make it any more fun. I swing forward about four feet, just before someone blindly fires a gun over the side of the train. I see nothing but a hand and a pistol, so naturally I blast it with a gust. I see the gun go flying, which is enough for me to call that one a win.

The train rattles and shifts as the tracks turn to the right. I hurry up, reaching the end of the windows, and I peek my head over and look up the train, then down. One guy fumbling for a gun behind me, two more suited thugs ahead, fully armed. I sigh and try to figure out what the hell to do next.

I’m hanging on the edge here, and my options are up or down. I could go back but not forward, which is a shame because forward is the direction I want to go. I remember that Doctor Perugini came into this thinking it was a vacation, and that gives me a strangely inappropriate case of the giggles as I hang, suspended by the tips of my fingers, about seven feet from hitting the ground.

I try to think about what Alpha Male would do in this situation, but then I realize that Beta Male would not have even jumped on this train to begin with. He’d be curled up with a good book back at the apartment, sitting in the wreckage, hoping his sister would return his call. While that would certainly be safer than what I’m presently doing, it wouldn’t be nearly as scenic. I think this as I pass over rolling hills that look almost golden. If they were green I could almost believe we were in Wisconsin. The buildings are a dead giveaway, though, their red tile roofs, and square, blocky villa construction.

We pass into a tunnel without warning and I feel the concrete wall inches from my back. Which is sweating, big surprise. Any second now I could get shot at by the guys who are working their way down the train. It’s probably too much to hope for that any of them have been splattered by the tunnel, right?

As soon as we’re out of the dark, I hurl myself back onto the top of the train, using my powers to blast back to my feet. The guys with guns are only a car length away, and they’re scrambling to their feet. They’re wobbly, though. This is my chance, though it’s still a long shot.

Then I see Lorenzo coming up fast from behind them, and my long shot gets even longer.

I sprint down the car, hoping I don’t lose my footing as I go. The lead guy comes up, unbalanced, tipping his pistol up to get a shot—

I throw a hard gust and it feels like I’m trying to push concrete off my hands, I’m so tired. Wind comes out, though, in spite of my certain belief that I’m going to dry fire, and it causes the guy to pinwheel his arms, eyes wide. His balance is compromised just enough for me to knock him aside as I pass, and he goes tumbling from the train with a scream that’s comical, if a little short.

Man, that sounds cold. It’s like I’m becoming Sienna.

The next guy snaps off a shot, and I dodge my body sideways, hoping that by presenting him a side profile he’ll at least have a harder target. It works on the first two shots, and then he has to steady himself because of his precarious firing position. I throw a gust at him that feels like I’m seriously reaching into my arms and ripping the veins out, but it knocks him backward. He slams into the car and his gun goes bouncing over the side, and that’s enough for me for the moment.

I’m just about ready to call this a victory when Lorenzo comes down for a landing and blasts me with a full-force gust. It hurls me back, slamming me against the top of the metal car, but I manage to keep from falling off. He looks pissed, and I don’t imagine he’s going to offer me a helping hand.

It’d be nice, but I’m not counting on it.

“You imbecile!” he says, voice nearly lost on the wind. He’s about twenty feet away thanks to his neat little attack as he descended, blowing me back. “You think you can oppose us? As though we are the pathetic little metas just manifesting that you are used to tracking down?” He sends a gust my way that hits me hard, even at twenty feet, tilting me backward and almost knocking me off the train. “You are nothing compared to me. I don’t know why Hera always favored you; you are weak.”

I blink, my head aching a little from the slam against the car I’ve just endured. “I dunno, man, maybe it’s your personality?”

He rips another gust at me, and I dodge off the side of the train, a move I’m becoming sadly good at. My fingers find the window ledge and I swing forward, then fire a downward gust that gives me a surprising lift, considering it’s mostly dispelled by our forward motion. I spring back onto the roof of the train; Lorenzo is only ten feet away.

“She gave you everything!” he shouts and blasts at me. I throw up enough of a gust to cancel most of it out and duck under the rest because he aims high. I’m ready for his next move, and he does as expected—goes low to try and rectify that error. He’s got it in his mind to blast me the hell off this train, and if he does, I know I’m not going to be able to get back on.

I leap as he fires, with the aid of my own gust. It’s like nails in the forearms this time, and I’m not talking the kind Isabella might deploy if she got feisty; more the kind Father Emmanuel’s Lord and Savior got staked to a cross with. It effing hurts, but it doesn’t stop me from landing nearly on top of him.

Lorenzo reaches out and grabs me by the shirt, clearly aiming to take this fight up close and personal, and I’m damned sure ready for it. I punch him in the face and he rocks back, throwing a counter of his own that catches me across the jaw. “Keep your mommy issues to yourself, okay, Oedipus?” I manage to spit out in spite of the pain.

He snaps out of my punch like it’s nothing and slams into me roughly, taking control of the situation. We hit the roof of the train and I fight to get him off of me, forgetting there’s not a ton of room for rolling around.

Whoops.

I feel the train drop away and we’re in mid-air, free falling toward the ground below. I’m on top and he’s got hold of me tight with one arm. I can see the ground racing toward us, and I let go of him to throw out my arms to keep from slamming into the dirt and grass at killer speed. I summon a gust with all I’ve got left. The agony is astounding, pain up my arms all the way to the shoulders this time, but I keep myself from slamming into the ground.

Unfortunately, dipshit Lorenzo hangs on for the ride. And then he does something really stupid, presumably out of panic.

He blasts out with a gust of his own using a hand he’s got wrapped around me.

If it had hit me, it would have thrown me into the air and him into the ground, which would have been a beautiful—if ironic—end to our little battle. Unfortunately, it goes past me and hits the ground, sending the two of us into a horizontal spin.

Right toward the train.

But it doesn’t send us into the side of the train. Oh no. That’d be too easy. It sends us right at the tracks.

I can see the wheels slicing past at high speed. A couple cars have shot past in the moment since we’ve fallen off, and we’re nearing the back of the train. I watch those metal wheels spinning, almost in slow motion, like my brain can sense death is coming.

We’re heading straight for them.

I don’t even have time to scream before they pass and we dive right under the train. I can feel the carriage going by about a half inch above my head. Wheels streak past, lightning fast, and I’m only controlling my panic barely. We’re still moving, and I’m pretty sure that we’ll be bisected any second now. I imagine derailing the train with my head, getting split in half because the guy who’s clinging to me is too stupid to know when to quit.

And then we pass under the train unharmed, and I flare the gusts again, this time sending that shattering pain into my biceps while sending us five feet into the air.

I can feel the world drifting around us as Lorenzo takes stock of the situation. It’s on his face as we’re hovering there, suspended in the air a few feet from the train. His fear is almost a tangible thing, and I know in that moment that he’s fully aware of how close to death we both just came.

And then his face crumples into a fury and he puts a hand directly against my chest and fires a gust.

His move drives us apart at high velocity, ripping me from him at furious speed.

I fly through the air until I crash into something—glass, heavy, with shattering sounds that fill my ears. I tumble down, falling over a table, landing facedown on carpeting, and it takes me a moment of disorientation to realize I’m
inside
the train.

People are staring at me. There’s shattered glass in my skin, not that I can tell over the throbbing, screaming pain in my arms and shoulders. I see eyes, countless eyes, fixed on me in shock. I think I’ve crashed their tea party or something, and I’m just sitting in the middle of an aisle, rolling in the foot or so of space between chairs.

It’s a rude shock, getting heaved through a glass window, and I’m just about over it and ready to try standing when someone comes flying in to land at my feet. He does it right, sideways through the narrow window, exhibiting a kind of flight control I wouldn’t have believed possible from an Aeolus without seeing it.

Alpha Male is definitely not Alpha Aeolus. Which is good, because that’s an alliterative nightmare.

“She gave you everything!” Lorenzo says again.

“God, are you still on about that?” I ask, rolling to a sitting position as I pluck a shard of glass out of my arm. Blood wells up in the wound. “We just went under a fricking train and barely survived. Take a moment and—”

He throws his hands in a sideways motion like he’s summoning Tony Stark’s armor to him, but I know that’s not it. The wind launches me from the floor and I feel the pain as I smash through the window on the other side. The glass shatters as I go through shoulder first, and I feel weightless, once more, as I plummet to the ground.

“You seem like a man who has careful control of himself and all around him,” she says. The flattery is all the sweeter for being the truth.

Anselmo cannot help but smile more broadly. This is a very astute and observant woman, to have picked up on this so quickly. “It has often been said,” he agrees. Cordial conversation is a mark of civility and class—and this woman? She is among the classiest he has met.

She leans in a little closer, toward the aisle that separates them. “To have set things up in such a manner, to conceal your means and motive … it is impressive.” She shrugs slightly, as though it is a compliment hard given, and he revels in it all the same.

“There is an element of planning,” he says, “of fastidiousness. To orchestrate great things, one must be great.” He is not one for false humility; why should he be? “The old gods, they had flair. They could move openly, show their greatness to all. Impose fear where needed. Hiding like dogs?” He waves his hand. “This is the challenge of a secret society like … well, you know. Our kind—metahumans—we were fools to ever accept that we should hide ourselves.” He inclines his head in thought. “And the same is true of La Cosa Nostra, ’Ndrangheta, and the others. It takes a strong man to walk tall in the face of his enemies.”

She nods, and he can tell she understands. “You are such a man, then.” She plays a little coy for a moment. “But if it is as you say, then you mean to … walk tall in the face of those who oppose you?”

He smiles. “
Si.
I do.”

She blinks, bats her eyelashes. “But how would you do such a thing? There are so many who would stand against you …”

He feels the thrill, the excitement. Months of planning, months of work, of considering possibilities and trying to find the way to bring them to fruition. “They are of little consequence.”

She cocks her head shrewdly. He loves the look in her eyes. “How …?”

He smiles and tells her—just a hint, really. It is enough to cause her beautiful eyes to widen, and very much worth it.

I almost hit the ground before I spin enough to blast a gust off the dirt just in time. I throw everything I have left into it for the millionth time, and my chest hurts all the way through my lungs this time.

The gust is good enough to propel me about six feet up, then I start to drop. I throw up a hand and catch the edge of a window again. I hang there, getting my bearings for about half a second.

I’m on the last car of the train.

Again.

I sigh at the utter lack of progress. Two steps forward, one step back would feel like a prize-winning performance compared to this. All I’ve done since Lorenzo has showed up is lose ground, and I’ve got pretty much none left to lose.

I’m resigned to slinging myself back up onto the roof of the train to try again when a guy appears above me with a gun, and I remember I left one more of these goons back here to deal with. Aw, hell. I thought I at least knocked his gun away.

I go to throw air at him and nothing happens. It’s almost as embarrassing as the time when I was a teenager and my car sputtered and died on a date, right in front of the girl’s house after I’d picked her up.

Almost.

He fires, and I sling myself to the side, channeling my inner Spider-Man and hurling myself up onto the car faster than he can bring his gun around. I’m lucky it’s a pistol because he’s at least halfway through the magazine on gut instinct before I get up on the carriage.