Dragon: Out of the Box (The Girl in the Box Book 37) Read online

  Blinking her eyes again, her BMW's headlights chased away the early morning shadows as she cruised down the highway. It wasn't bumper to bumper yet, but give it an hour or so and it'd start to fill up; two hours and VA-28, this two-lane road, would be just another logjammed thoroughfare, even some 25 miles from Washington DC.

  Oh, how she missed living in DC. She and her husband had moved out to Manassas only six months ago. Six months she'd been doing this commute and she was already over the drive. Three days a week she went into DC, to Georgetown University, where she was an adjunct professor of Chinese history. Three interminable driving days.

  Cathy let out a little sigh. But at least it was only three days a week. Plenty of their neighbors commuted to Arlington or all the way to DC. Hell, one even went to somewhere on the outskirts of Baltimore – five days a week! And during rush hour. At least her schedule permitted her to get in early and leave before the afternoon rush.

  Still, this was getting to be a bit much. She took another sip of the smooth, cool coffee. The other nice thing about her husband's cold brew was that he didn't dilute it too much, so it had twice the kick of a hot cup. She needed that caffeine for this drive. Cathy was not, by disposition, an early riser. Nor was she a country person, and yet, as she looked out the window and saw a deer raising its head to look at her from out in the field, here she was, in the countryside of Virginia.

  She missed DC. She missed the shorter commute. But everything was so expensive in DC. Shane had suggested moving out, and she'd acceded after some argument. Maybe it wouldn't be so bad, she'd reflected. They could get a bigger house, have some more space to start a family. The pace of life could be a little calmer.

  Six months and she was ready to teach at the local community college if it meant she could stop this murderous commute and go back to sleeping in again.

  Fighting to keep her eyes open, Cathy Jang-Peters quietly cursed her husband's brilliant, pragmatic idea. At least the school term was getting close to finished. As an adjunct, she wasn't going to be needed during the summer. So she'd have a few months off to figure things out before next school year. What was she going to do? She looked behind her; a big panel van took up the entire rearview. Shifting her gaze out the window again, she saw she was passing a shadowy patch of trees that looked alarmingly skeletal as they breezed by the windows of her BMW.

  Well, she didn't know yet. But she'd figure it out. With less than two weeks to go to the end of term, she was ready for the break and a chance to consider the next phase of her life. It wasn't as if she had the brain power to think it through during these commutes. She took another sip of coffee. Maybe in the afternoons heading home, but definitely not the mornings, when she was entirely too focused on just staying alive and not crashing into one of these endless fields that surrounded the road she moved along in the early morning darkness.

  CHAPTER TWO

  Fred Brooks had been making the commute from his home in Nokesville, Virginia to Arlington, just outside DC, for almost twenty years. Back when he'd started, it had been a fairly easy thing. Smooth ride over open roads, right into Arlington proper where he worked. Easy shot out at the end of the day, too, a peaceful drive out I-66 to Virginia State Road 28, then follow through Manassas back home.

  Well, the times had changed. Fred had noticed, a little slow to adapt, but he got there eventually. Nowadays, if he left at the same time he'd left back when he'd started at work, he'd show up about 9:30 in the morning. Fred was a steady sort of guy, but even he knew when to adjust things up. So he'd started getting up earlier. Prepared himself for spending more time in the car.

  His coping mechanism was audiobooks. Time was, all you had was the stupid radio. Half commercials, thirty percent DJs blathering on, twenty percent music, and only ten percent of it he liked. His kids had shown him the way to salvation on this: first, music apps. Then, the audiobooks.

  Fred liked to read, but he didn't have much time for it anymore. Trying to squeeze in an hour before bed these days was an exercise in futility. He'd drift off early, because he woke up early.

  But the audiobook! He'd start it off on his phone when he got in the car, and it'd keep him going through Manassas and Centreville, all through his journey along I-66 into Arlington. End of the day he'd repeat, listening to the words of the narrator over the honking horns and background engine noise that surrounded his crawl back to Nokesville.

  This morning he was listening to a book— non-fiction – about the mystery of Polynesian settlement in the Pacific. Fred liked to mix things up. His last had been the latest Dan Brown novel, but switching over to non-fiction kept things interesting. This book was not up his usual alley, but he had no complaints. He could tell it was good because it kept him at rapt attention. When a book was boring he'd find himself sliding into the doldrums of sleepiness, staring out the window and remembering little.

  He was really into this one, though, cruising along VA-28 and nodding in interest as he went. He was paying such careful attention that he almost missed the subtle flash across the field to his right – almost.

  But not quite.

  It was followed, a moment later, by a quiet popping noise somewhere ahead of him, and then the flash of crimson brake lights in the early morning dark. The big Mercedes Sprinter in front of him was slowing, and Fred tapped his brakes, too, slowing his car as his mind left Polynesia behind and started to focus on putting together the pieces of what he'd just seen.

  CHAPTER THREE

  Cathy Jang-Peters

  “Dammit!” Cathy hurriedly put her tumbler down, managing to thumb the lid closed as she braked, the car threatening to slew to the right.

  It was a flat tire. She'd heard it go, but couldn't believe it. The pop had not been subtle. Nor had the sudden jerk of the wheel as her car threatened to go off road and down the abrupt drop to the field below the shoulder.

  A few years ago VA-28 had been a rural road. The continued, rapid expansion of Washington DC had pushed people out into places like Manassas in order to afford to live here, and now the road carried thousands of people per day. Infrastructure hadn't quite caught up with the needs, and so as Cathy pulled over, she felt the also-not-subtle thump of her tires leaving the pavement, the shoulder ending abruptly.

  “No, no, no,” Cathy moaned as she let the BMW drift to a stop on the shoulder. Damn.

  Figured. Just a couple weeks to go and she'd picked up a nail in her tire or something. Well, there was nothing for it. She'd have to give Shane a call and–

  A flash of headlamps in her rearview mirror made her stop halfway to reaching for her purse and the cell phone within. That big van had pulled in behind her, slightly more on the road than she was. In her sideview mirror she could see a shadowed figure get out and stop behind her.

  One nice thing about moving out here? The people were pretty decent. She'd lost count of the number of times she'd seen someone pulled over and another person pulling in behind them or slowing beside them to make sure they were all right.

  Cathy opened her door as another car pulled slowly by. There were actually two vehicles stopped behind her, she noted as she got out. The van, and an older sedan just behind it. “I'm fine,” she said, waving to the man standing just outside the van. “Just picked a flat or something.”

  “Do you need any help?” he asked. He had a little bit of an accent, and familiar at that. Cathy's parents were Chinese; she'd recognize the accent anywhere.

  “I'm just going to call my husband once I make sure it's a flat,” she said, nodding at the shadowed man, who kept his distance. That was nice of him. She circled around to the rear passenger side. Yep, the rim was buried in the dirt, the rubber flattened entirely on the bottom side. “Damn,” she muttered to herself. Well, she'd have to call Georgetown, too–

  Cathy looked up, a sudden flash of motion sending a tingling feeling down her spine. The guy – that shadowy guy – he was standing behind her. “Hey, wha–”

  That was all she got out before he stu
ffed something – cloth, stinking of a heavy chemical scent – in her face.

  The darkened sky swirled around Cathy, and all the energy left her limbs. She swayed, fell, and the man caught her as the sky closed in.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Fred Brooks

  “What in the poxy pits of hell...?”

  Fred had pulled in well behind the Mercedes van, killing his lights as he did so. He could see just fine by the bright white ones that the van was sending out, illuminating the BMW ahead, the one that had lost its tire. Fred had mostly pulled in as a courtesy. He always did, when he saw someone on the side of the road, just in case they didn't have cell phone service. That was an artifact of his upbringing, back before cell phones.

  He'd done just that, here, and was about ready to pull out once he saw the gentleman get out of the van to go help. Still, something had held him in place. Maybe that flash across the field he'd seen right before the BMW lost the tire and started to swerve.

  Fred Brooks had done twenty in the Marine Corps, retired at age 38, then embarked on his second career as a database administrator. He hadn't started as that, but he'd grown into the role. He had the full Marine pension, and was heading rapidly toward his second retirement. He was looking forward to it, at 58, fully aware that he had more days behind him at this point than ahead.

  But old habits died hard, and Fred had been a Marine gunnery sergeant. He'd fought in Desert Storm. Still carried a 1911, his preferred sidearm of choice, in the glove box. Just in case. Arlington wasn't the same as it had been twenty years ago, after all.

  He was parked far enough back to see the lady get out and check her car. He saw the man from the van zip up to her, too, almost too fast to be believed. One of those metahumans, his brain informed him, as he went for the glove box. He saw the white cloth dangle from the man's hand, saw the door of the van open on the passenger side, a couple more shadows getting out–

  Fred was out in a hot second himself, adrenaline firing, old instincts, all that training coming back to him. He circled around behind his own Buick and got into cover behind the trunk. He may have been getting old, but his hands didn't shake when he raised his 1911. “Put the lady down!” he shouted, drawing a bead on the fellow who had grabbed her. She was limp in his arms.

  The other men, the ones that had just come out of the van, both looked at him. Only for a second, though, and then they went for their weapons–

  Fred aimed for center mass, giving the trigger a squeeze. He'd taught a generation of Marines at Camp Pendleton how to shoot, and it had not left him, though it had been about six months since his last range trip. Two shots ripped into the chest of the nearest target, then he switched and drilled two more into the second. That man had pulled out a pistol from his waistband, but didn't even have a chance to clear it before he dropped.

  Fred kept in cover, but drew his bead on the third man, the one with the woman in his arms. Here he had to be more careful. There was a hostage, after all–

  The third man dropped the woman from the BMW, throwing his hands up. A flare of light made Fred duck, instinctively. It was orange and bright, and that fellow's silhouette seemed to change. Fred fired off a high shot as he went into cover behind his trunk.

  Fred didn't sink all the way down, just squatted with his sights still on target, at the shadowed man. That orange flash grew for a moment – two flashes, then, the man's eyes going bright and fiery like his eyeballs were about to explode into flames–

  Then they faded, and he turned and fled, bolting across the field to their right so quickly that Fred could barely keep his pistol on target. Ten seconds and the man – demon, maybe, with that fire coming out of his eyes – had disappeared into the woods across the field, to about where that shot had come from.

  Fred circled back to his driver's side, keeping the vehicle between him and the woods. He ducked all the way over, not wanting to provide a target for the sniper over there. They were probably gone, given they hadn't shot at him during the action, but they could come back. He didn't want a bullet in his chest to be his warning.

  Once he was safely behind cover, Fred snatched his cell phone out of his open door. Traffic had stopped in both directions on VA-28 now, and he huddled behind his vehicle. Hopefully that woman up there was okay. He'd try and check on her in a minute, but first he needed to do this, the most important thing he could, now that the shooting had stopped.

  The phone was in his hand and dialed in a hot second. Now the shaking was starting, the adrenaline wearing off. Still, he got the phone up to his ear and squeezed it there, bringing his hand back to his pistol to steady in case he had to take another shot.

  “911, what's your emergency?”

  Fred tried to think of what he needed to say. There was a lot. A metahuman. Men with guns. A kidnapping. How was he going to get all that out, plus check on the woman? “I need police,” Fred said, finally, “and an ambulance. We got a woman down. Someone tried to kidnap her.” He swallowed, heavily, huddled behind the hood of his car. “I think it was a metahuman.”

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Sienna Nealon

  Driving out of Washington DC against morning traffic was my idea of heaven. Getting out of DC at all was actually my idea of heaven, especially since it was now mid-May, and the humidity was starting to settle on the former – and honestly, current – swampland that was our nation's capital.

  Doing so with Kerry Hilton in the passenger seat, chattering her little millennial heart out as I drove?

  A little less heavenly.

  “So this guy, like, didn't even ask me out,” Kerry said, shaking her head, face all askew. “DC guys, like, don't ask. They come at it all low-key, like, 'Hey, what are you up to tonight? There are some people getting together. Maybe you could come out.' And then you get there, and boom – no one's there but you and him. Have you noticed that?”

  “I have not noticed that, no,” I said, so glad my reflective aviator glasses could shield my eyes so as not to give away the fact they were rolling furiously. “I haven't exactly been in the dating pool here, though.”

  “You should stay out, definitely,” Kerry said, evincing her obvious disgust. “It's a toxic pool. Like radioactive. The men are all chicken shits and bullshit artists.”

  “Well, it is DC,” I said. “Maybe they're all future politicians.”

  “Yes, I think that's it,” Kerry said, nodding along. “All worried about their downside risk of humiliation. It's all about saving face. I mean, it's a little different on Tinder–”

  “Yeah, I don't really care,” I said, but she went on anyway as I took exit 53A off interstate 66 onto Virginia State Highway 28 south, green trees blowing soundlessly in the wind as my millennial sidekick went on.

  She talked my ear off as the traffic slowed, clotting on the four-lane road. I hit the lights and siren myself, because she was too involved in telling me a story about some sexual non-conquest, and I rolled along the shoulder at about thirty to avoid smoking anyone who opened a door. I went as fast as I deemed safe, because there was not a chance in hell I was going to spend one minute more in the car with Kerry Hilton than I had to.

  Seeing flashing lights ahead came as a great relief. The local police had closed one side of the highway, and thus the traffic jam. A sheriff's deputy was managing traffic as the four lanes merged to two, creating a zipper-merging mess in both directions. Driving on the grass, I was immune to all that. I pulled off next to an ambulance in the middle of the cluster of law enforcement vehicles, killed the siren but left the flashers going, and bailed out in the middle of one of Hilton's sentences. Something about a malfunctioning diaphragm that I really didn't need overshared.

  The scene was a hot mess, both literally and figuratively. Even though it was May, summer was well underway in Northern Virginia, and I felt it as I strode across the highway, cars honking as the sheriff's deputy stopped them to let me pass. Kerry Hilton struggled along behind me, prompting a fresh bevy of honks as the already strained p
atience reached critical mass and found an auditory outlet.

  “Could you slow down just a little?” Kerry called to me as I made my way over to the plainclothes officer standing in the middle of it all. She was in charge and it was obvious, hair a little gray over her ears, watching my approach cool as a cucumber.

  “Nealon, FBI,” I said, going formal as I offered my hand to her.

  “Stacks, Prince William County Sheriff's Department,” she said, giving me a brisk shake.

  “Hilton,” Kerry said, rushing to get her hand in there.

  Stacks gave her a once-over, found her lacking, then turned to me. “911 call at about 5:30 this morning from a Fred Brooks,” she nodded to an older, African-American gentleman in a shirt and tie who was standing by the side of the road with a couple local deputies talking, “who witnessed the occupants of this van pull over next to this BMW,” she nodded at each exhibit in turn, “which developed a flat tire after Brooks said he observed what appeared to be muzzle flash across that field.” She pointed helpfully.

  I raised an eyebrow. “Was it really muzzle flash?”

  “We did find disturbed ground where he pointed us,” Stacks said, as though having to concede something painful. “But no shell casings, and we haven't found a bullet yet.”

  “Wow,” I said, looking at the BMW. “That's strange. But I was promised metahumans, so tell me how this involves me.”

  Stacks evinced a little annoyance at me rushing her along. “When the driver got out of the car, she was chloroformed by the occupants of the van.” She nodded at a rag that was on the ground, marked by a yellow evidence tent bearing a 1. “Mr. Brooks pulled his gun and asked them to stop. They tried to draw on him,” she nodded to a couple bodies covered by white sheets on the side of the van, “he dropped them. Third suspect had fire coming out of his eyes,” she nodded to Brooks, “according to the witness, then sprinted across the field and disappeared in ten seconds flat.”