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  Untouched

  ( The Girl in the Box - 2 )

  Robert J Crane

  Still haunted by her last encounter with Wolfe and searching for her mother, Sienna Nealon must put aside her personal struggles when a new threat emerges - Aleksandr Gavrikov, a metahuman so powerful, he could destroy entire cities - and he's focused on bringing the Directorate to its knees.

  Untouched

  The Girl in the Box, Book Two

  Robert J. Crane

  Prologue

  Above the Podkannaya Tuguska River

  Russian Empire

  June 30, 1908

  His skin was wreathed in flames, burning red and yellow, as he streaked across the early morning sky. Aleksandr Timofeyevich Gavrikov was not yet eighteen. I can’t believe I killed her , he thought. I have done murder.

  The air felt cold in spite of the fact that his skin was covered by a solid inch of fire. How is that possible? he wondered. The wind that whipped across his face did not affect the flames. This is unlike anything I have ever seen…unlike anything Father has ever seen too, I think… The smell of rank, stale water rose up from below him in the swamps. A river cut the land, the shine of the rising sun refracting off it. He was several hundred feet up, flying— as though I were a bird , he thought. Without flapping my arms, I can fly! Just like Father.

  He felt a thrum in his heart at that thought. He will hurt me for this; worse than he ever has before. Perhaps things would have been different if mother had lived, he thought for the thousandth time, then dismissed it. I am on fire and flying through the air and I have done murder. Had mother lived long enough to see this, the shock would have killed her.

  Seventeen years , he reflected. Seventeen years of hell for me and Klementina. But no more. The flames on his skin burned brighter as he thought about it, of all the abuses, the beatings, the nights he heard Klementina squealing and crying when their father went to her—

  The flames that covered him changed, grew hotter. The cold air was warming around him, and he hovered a few feet above the water, staring at himself, his reflection, in the river below. How many times, Klementina? How many times did he hurt you? He and Klementina were forced to stay on the farm on all but the rarest of occasions. His sister was fair— beautiful , he thought. More beautiful than the peasant girls he had seen when they had gone into Kirensk. Her green eyes were hued with some blue, and her skin was tanned and freckled. Her blond hair hung about her shoulders as she carried buckets of water in from the well. She was far, far more beautiful than the girls he had seen in Kirensk.

  He drifted close to the surface of the water, looking at himself. No skin was visible; he was a glowing fire, shaped like a man. What…am I? Even Father does not burst into flames when he flies…

  “Aleksandr!” The word crackled through the air, and panic ran through him. He whipped his head around to see his father flying toward him from above, eyes narrowed, his teeth bared in rage.

  I will get such a beating for this , Aleksandr thought. I will be chained and locked in the shed for a week.

  He remembered the time when he’d had courage. A year earlier he had awoken to hear Klementina crying, his father slapping her in the only bedroom of their farmhouse. It happened so often, and every night it had, he turned over, shut his eyes tight, and covered his ears with his old, threadbare pillow. It almost shut out the cries of his sister and the primal, disgusting grunts of his father.

  He had thought he couldn’t bear it any longer. He had run into the room in the middle of the night and grasped his father by the shoulders, throwing him off Klementina. She huddled, clutching a sheet to her, moaning and sobbing, her eyes wide with fear. The first two punches had been so satisfying; he heard his father’s nose break, watched the blood run down his lip. Then the drunken eyes had focused on him, and his father had brought a hand across his face in fury.

  Aleksandr had gone flying across the room. After landing, he could dimly hear Klementina crying, saw her covering herself with the blanket as his father approached him. He could smell the awful night smells, the stink of sweat and fear. The blood was slick and running across his eye as his father leaned down to him. With another punch, everything went dark.

  When he awoke, it was midday, hot, and he was chained to a stake in the middle of the shed. No water, no food, until after dark when Klementina came to him, bringing him some crumbs of supper and something to drink. Her eyes were black and swollen, and a trail of dried blood led from one of her nostrils to her upper lip.

  He had not intervened since.

  “Aleksandr!” The shout came again, and Aleksandr turned, blasting away from the river, up into the air above. The chill was back, the coolness of early morning, but this time it was fused with the tickle of the flames that wreathed him. His father was following, he knew. He won’t let me go. Not after what I’ve done.

  He climbed higher and higher in the sky, felt the chill increase. He looked down, and the Tunguska River was so far below that it was but a line. He felt the flames start to die, saw his skin peeking out from beneath the place where the fire had burned so hard only a minute earlier. He’ll catch me. He’ll lock me away. I won’t be able to stop him.

  The air was thin, and he couldn’t breathe. He gasped for breath, but it didn’t seem to help. He looked back; father was gaining on him, coming up behind him, his face fixed, eyes blazing in a way that told Aleksandr that this might be the last time…

  He felt his father’s hand close around his arm, felt it tighten, then felt the bone crack, and Aleksandr Timofeyevich Gavrikov tried to cry out with a breath he didn’t have. His father had broken his arm, and the excruciating sensation felt as though someone had jammed a knife into his upper arm and twisted. He felt the pull of his father’s strength, dragging him down, down, down. He fought, he struggled, but without breath he failed, sagging. He was pulled down, and after a moment he felt his breath return, felt the chill start to fade.

  Felt the heat under his skin return.

  “You have killed her!” His father’s words were barely audible over the wind as they descended. “Your sister is dead because of you!”

  “I did not mean to,” Aleksandr’s words came out ragged. “She touched me and…”

  “You killed her,” his father said again, and backhanded him across the face with his free hand. The smell of the swamp water below reminded him of the night smells, of the fear.

  The heat under Aleksandr’s skin grew, his breaths grew deeper and less forced. He beats me during the day and tortures Klementina at night. “You will never be able to hurt her again.”

  Another backhand was his reward. “I never hurt her!”

  “You hurt her all the time.” Aleksandr heard a menace in his own voice that had never been there before. It reminded him of the time he’d had courage. The heat underneath his skin was unbearable; it was burning, aching to get out. “I may have killed her this morning, but you have killed her every night since she was a girl.”

  “LIAR!” His father struck him again, and the heat became intense within him. His eyes were burning, his skin was burning, and suddenly it was on fire again, and his flesh was covered in flames. “What…?!”

  His father yelped and his hand withdrew. Aleksandr felt himself fall for a second before he took over and felt the power of his own flight return. He hovered a few feet from his father, staring at the old man with unfettered contempt. “You have flown for as long as I can remember, Father.” The menace was there. The courage was in his voice. His father was cradling his hand, a blackened, burned husk of what it had been: a strong, powerful limb that he used to beat his children. “It appears that I have taken more from you than I would have imagined.”

  “You are my son,” came t
he ghostly reply.

  “I am not. I am my mother’s son.” He felt the heat, still under his skin, even as the fire raged on top of it. “I am my sister’s brother. I am Aleksandr; not Timofeyevich nor Gavrikov, because I want nothing of yours that I don’t need.” Without hesitation he flew at his father, slammed into him, and the searing under his skin unleashed as they fell toward the earth below. Seventeen years of hell , he thought, and it all came out at once—a torrent of rage, fire, flame, an explosion of his anger. He watched his father’s skin blacken, his eyes disappear in the initial flash of heat, watched his flesh burn away, then the bone turn to ash and then dust.

  The world went white all around, the trees below were like little pieces of tinder in the wind, picked up and flung through the air, the landscape flattening for miles in every direction. A screeching sound filled his ears, and cracks like thunder went off one after another.

  When it was all over, Aleksandr Timofeyevich Gavrikov was no more.

  And Aleksandr flew off, taking the only thing of his father’s that he wanted.

  The gift of flight.

  Chapter 1

  Sienna Nealon

  Present Day

  I awoke in a cold sweat. The red light of the clock told me it was close to five A.M., and my eyes searched the room around me, trying to acclimate after another nightmare. I worked to get my breathing under control as I sat up, walls spinning around me. The only other light came from the windows and the far distant lamps that lit the Directorate campus.

  The Directorate. That’s where I was. A secret organization dedicated to policing humans with powers beyond the norm— metas, they were called. I still wasn’t sure I believed that the Directorate did what they claimed to, but I had very little evidence as yet of what their true intentions might be. All I knew was that so far they’d helped me when no one else had.

  I still didn’t trust them.

  My breathing returned to normal. I blinked my eyes a few times to adjust to the darkness and then I stood, letting my feet touch the soft, carpeted floor. The room smelled sterile, with just a hint of dust from what I assumed was the reconstruction it had undergone. I looked back through the glass, which was flawless, having been replaced only a couple days ago. Hard to believe it was such a short time.

  Until a little over a week ago, I had been a prisoner in my own home for over ten years. Mom kept me from leaving with a simple threat: if I got out of line, was disobedient in some way, offended her or didn’t mind my manners, she locked me in a six-foot-tall metal sarcophagus. It certainly kept me from running. The drywall dust had a light and pleasant smell compared to the stench of being locked in that metal box for days at a time.

  I had left my house in a rush, pursued by agents of the Directorate, who, at the time, I thought had ill intentions toward me. I’d met a guy named Reed who also helped me. Good looking, in a tall, dark and handsome kind of way, if you’re into that. I kind of am. Maybe. He helped me get away from the Directorate for a while, but we got attacked by a beast.

  The beast’s name was Wolfe. He had lived for thousands of years, had killed countless people before we crossed paths, and after we tangled, he became obsessed with me. Everyone tells me I 'm strong. Wolfe was stronger. So much stronger that it wasn’t even a contest. He manhandled me, humiliated me, bent me, broke me, cut through a dozen or more armed Directorate guards, and left me in a bloody heap more than once.

  I shook away the thought of Wolfe as I padded, barefoot, into the bathroom. I felt the cool night air against my skin. I was wearing only a bra and panties, less than I had ever worn to bed in my life, but there was a reason for it beyond simple tactile pleasure.

  When I squared off against Wolfe for the last time, it was because he had held the entire city of Minneapolis hostage, leaving a trail of dead bodies until I came out of hiding and faced him. The Directorate higher-ups, Old Man Winter, his gal Friday Ariadne, and even one of the agents, Zack (he’s a cutie, that one) begged me not to go up against Wolfe again. They urged me to wait until their highly trained team of metas, M-Squad, returned from a mission so they could handle it. But people were dying, and Wolfe seemed unstoppable. Since all he wanted was me, I went to give him what he wanted.

  Meta powers are twofold. One, they have enhanced strength, speed, dexterity—attributes far above a normal human’s. I can lift heavy objects, run faster and farther, leap fences, and essentially do stuff that makes everyone but Superman look pathetic. I was reminded of this again as I went to take a drink of water after washing my hands and I accidentally burst the bottle, soaking the bathroom floor, the sink, and myself.

  I shouldn’t think about Wolfe while I’m taking a drink. Or handling anything delicate, come to think of it. But these days, it’s hard not to think about him all the time.

  The second set of powers a meta possesses is unique to each one, to his or her type of metahuman. Wolfe, for instance, had skin that was highly adaptable to damage. If he got shot, the next time it happened he was able to take a greater amount of that kind of damage. I saw a shotgun go off at point blank range and leave nothing but red marks on his skin.

  It was in my final confrontation with Wolfe that I had discovered my other power. I am a succubus, possessed of the ability to drain a soul, or the essence of a person, with nothing but the touch of my skin. He had me in a chokehold, but I touched him, and he screamed, and I drained the life out of him.

  Hence the bra and panties for sleepwear. If anyone came for me during the night, I wanted to be able to defend myself. I didn’t think anyone would, but when you’ve been imprisoned in your own home for twelve years and then turned loose in a world where everyone wants a piece of you, it’s easy to develop a sense of paranoia. Except it’s not paranoia when they’re actually after you.

  I sighed, feeling the water dripping down my skin. I looked at myself in the mirror. I didn’t know for certain, but I was pretty sure my meta powers also included enhanced hearing, smell, sight, taste, and feeling, because it felt like I could see every detail of the water drops that were tracing their way down my pale belly.

  I wasn’t very tall, about five foot four, and my brown hair was tangled from the way I slept on it. My eyes looked more blue than green, and I had acquired a couple of small freckles since the last time I had studied myself in the mirror. I had yet to see the sun, but I had spent enough time outside that they had formed, one on my cheek and one on the tip of my nose. I stripped, removing the wet clothing, and toweled off before I turned off the light.

  As I turned to leave, something in the mirror caught my attention. A flash of black eyes, tangled, matted, dirty hair, far different than the slight mess that mine was, and a vision of wicked teeth, the type a predator would use to rip and shred its prey. The eyes watched me, and I could almost taste the desire for my blood—and something else, less savory.

  So pretty , the voice came. So pure and sweet and untouched .

  “Dammit, Wolfe,” I said, my words coming out as close to a growl as I could imagine, “Can’t you just go away?”

  The unfortunate side effect of my power, one which I had told no one about yet, was that I now had Wolfe bouncing around in my head. He gave a running commentary on my life; his thoughts ranged from the mundane to the disgusting, and I got all of them—unfiltered, profane, and revolting. Living a life cooped up with my mother had kept me more or less innocent, and having this diseased freak sharing my skull was giving me nightmares, both figurative and literal, as I got to witness his crimes every night as I slept. And there were so many.

  Can’t go away , he whispered back. You and Wolfe are bound together, little doll. Intertwined.

  I resisted the urge to vomit in my mouth and flipped the light switch, casting the bathroom in the bright aura of the overhead lamps. The reflection of Wolfe was gone from the mirror.

  Such sweetness , he intoned, his words growing with verve in my head. Wolfe would have touched you, Wolfe would have made you scream with pleasure—


  “You would have died,” I said to my reflection, as though I could sense his presence behind my eyes. “Oh, wait,” I said with mock joy, “You did. And it couldn’t have happened to a more disgusting creature.” I thought about it for a beat. “Actually, you dying did make me scream with pleasure—”

  I felt a searing pain in my skull, one that dropped me to my knees. With my eyes almost squinted shut, I could only see blurry shapes in the mirror; one was flesh-toned, on its knees, the other was behind me, stalking back and forth—

  I turned, but there was no one there. I fell back on my haunches, felt the cold linoleum of the bathroom floor against my backside, and lay down, closing my eyes and putting a hand over my throbbing head. “You’re such a bastard,” I said. “Why don’t you tell me what you know about my mother?”

  I stared at the ceiling, waiting to see if Wolfe would reply. He didn’t.

  Mom had gone missing about a week before the Directorate had ousted me from my house. Everyone here denied knowing anything about her disappearance. Wolfe knew something, I suspected, but in the last day or so of sharing skull space with me, he’d been cagey.

  He was there, I could feel him, skulking in my brain. The headache was his doing. Whenever he had a burst of strong emotion, I felt its effects. Yesterday, when I was leaving the medical unit, a stay caused by my last fight with Wolfe, Ariadne had offered me different options of where I could stay on the Directorate campus.

  “We have a variety of dorm rooms,” she said, talking in a quiet voice, as though I were too brittle to be exposed to words spoken at normal volume. “Or, if you would feel safer, you could stay in the secure room in the Headquarters basement—”

  “How about the dorm room I stayed in before?” I asked her, not sure where the question came from.