by Lynette Noni
Once I’m in the metal box and the doors close behind me, I just stand there for a moment, bracing myself. This is as far as I’ve ever come. From here on out, not only am I on my own but I also have no idea where I’m going or what I may find. What if I do come face-to-face with a Speaker who can modify memories? What if I have to follow Pandora’s advice and “be creative” to stop them from stealing my thoughts?
My fears spiral until I’m verging on panicking and I decide that enough is enough. I’ve chosen my path, and I will see it through, come what may.
Determined, I lean forward until the infused glasses are scanned, and I quickly follow with my glove against the panel. Once the access light shows Falon’s ID is accepted, I press the “Up” button.
Just like the first time I used this elevator, it again moves at a fast-enough pace to make me nauseous. When it comes to a jarring halt, I have to place a steadying hand against the wall to keep from pitching out of the opening doors. But I recover quickly and scurry into the antiseptic-smelling hallway.
The bleach-like scent burns my sinuses and calls to mind memories from my short stay at the psychiatric facility. I hug the wall of the long corridor full of twists and turns and what feels like hundreds of corners. I attempt to muffle my footsteps, but it’s a challenge with my boots clickety-clacking on the linoleum, so I’m forced to tiptoe until I reach the single doorway at the end of the path.
There is not a single part of me that wants to open the door. My heart hammers at the mere thought of finding out what waits on the other side. But I’ve come this far. I can’t leave now — not without seeing the truth for myself. So I tuck the glasses and glove away and reach out a hand to test the door.
The moment my skin makes contact, it must act like some kind of sensor, since the locking mechanism deactivates and the door slides open with a whoosh. I’m left blinking at the space in front of me that no longer provides any kind of hiding place, and I keep my body frozen, attempting to draw as little attention to myself as possible.
And that’s because, on the opposite side of the large room, there are three gray-uniformed guards leaning up against the wall, staring at me.
Or, on first impression, it seems as if they’re staring at me, but when none of them so much as blink in the space of the whole minute where I’m experiencing a mild cardiac arrest, I realize that they might be looking at me, but they’re not seeing me.
After risking a glance to the left and then to the right and finding no one else in the room, I edge my way inside. I continue until I’m only a few feet away from the guards.
“Can you — can any of you hear me?” I whisper, being very careful with my words, knowing that the adrenaline coursing through my body could make me more liable to slip up.
When none of them respond, I reach out to the one closest to me, a woman, and place my hand on her shoulder. She doesn’t react in any way, not even when I shake her.
“Creepy,” I say, feeling the need to fill the nightmarish silence.
I turn away from the three of them to take in the rest of the room, something I should have done upon entering it. As my eyes travel around what is clearly a professional medical laboratory, goose bumps cover my skin and I start to tremble. I’m used to Vanik’s lab downstairs, the one I visited every day during my “initiation.” I thought it had everything possible to make my life a living nightmare. But by the looks of it, that lab has nothing on this one. I don’t recognize most of the equipment in here — but I’m certain none of it is used for anything good.
And it gets worse — because unlike the hallways I’d traveled to get here, the walls of the lab are a glossy black.
Karoel.
The whole lab is encased in the nullifying mineral. Any words I create in here will require much greater effort, keeping me in check. That kind of limitation is not something I need right now, given what I might be facing.
Turning back to the three zombie-like guards and not allowing myself to consider why they might be here — or what has prompted their current senseless state — I say, “If you can hear me, I’m getting you all out of here. Right now.”
Before I can figure out how to do that, I hear clicking shoes and low voices approaching from the hall. My self-preservation instincts kick in, and I jump behind one of the larger medical machines — I think it’s an MRI scanner — just in time to hear the door slide open and the voices become significantly louder.
“… not saying I won’t figure it out eventually, just that it’ll be faster if you let me —”
“I’ve already told you where I stand on the matter,” Falon’s voice interrupts Vanik, and I feel my heart sink. Clearly, Kael was wrong about him being an unwilling puppet.
“And as I keep telling you,” Vanik’s nasal voice responds, “you should strongly think about reconsidering. You know what her worth would be to the project’s overall success.”
I peek around the MRI machine in time to see him gesture toward the zombie guards as he adds, “None of them would be necessary anymore, not if you give her back to me.”
Something about his words increases the trembling in my body.
“Alyssa Scott is off-limits,” Falon says.
I close my eyes in resignation because they’ve just confirmed Kael’s claim. They have known my identity all along.
So many lies.
So many secrets.
“But, Maverick,” Vanik argues, “just think of how much I could achieve by working with her again. Especially if you let me carry out all the proper tests, not just the child’s play you limited me to for her initiation.”
Child’s play? I don’t want to imagine what the alternative might have been.
“You could also damage her beyond repair,” Falon says, and I shudder involuntarily. “You already nearly did, if I recall. If it hadn’t been for Landon —”
Vanik makes an irritated sound. “Ward coddles her. You should never have brought him into this.”
“You were getting nowhere with her,” Falon disagrees. “For over two and a half years, neither you nor any of her other evaluators made any kind of headway. No one heard so much as a peep out of her until Landon managed to break her down.”
The betrayal stings almost as much today as it did when I first found out.
“So whether he ‘coddles’ her or not,” Falon continues, “even you have to admit that he’s getting results. And I won’t have you jeopardize that, not prematurely.”
“Maverick —”
“I said no, Kendall,” Falon states firmly. “Perhaps things will change when she has a better handle on her control. Until then, she’s just as likely to blow a hole in the middle of Lengard as she is to channel her power into something you can use for your experiments.”
“The tests I’m considering don’t require her to have control,” Vanik responds. “I need her biologically, not psychologically.”
“Enough, Kendall. You have my answer.”
I hear one set of footsteps moving away, and then Falon’s voice comes again, but from across the room.
“It’s late, and I still have to investigate how my kids accessed a restricted area earlier tonight. If you’ll excuse me?”
I remain where I am as the door slides into place behind him and almost wish he would return. With Vanik’s history of going off-book, I’m not sure Falon’s directive to stay away from me holds much weight. If I’m caught …
I need to get out of this Karoel-walled lab, and I need to get out now.
But just when I decide to make a run for it, the door slides open again, and I hear footsteps. Lots of them.
“Right on time, my precious ones,” Vanik says.
His affectionate tone churns my stomach.
“In, in, come in, my lovelies. Make yourselves comfortable,” he continues. “Any problems, Alvin?”
“Just with Camelot, as usual. Her resistance is strengthening. But it’s nothing I can’t handle.”
I know that voice. I know it beca
use it belongs to Dr. Manning. But I’m more concerned by his reference to Cami.
Carefully shuffling until I can sneak a glance, I struggle to contain my reaction at the sight before me.
My friend is here, staring out at nothing just like the three zombie-like guards, seemingly oblivious to everything around her. But she’s not the only one. A small group of Exodus recruits stand with her, some familiar, some not. Crew and the semitransparent Sneak are a part of the small, mindless crowd, but neither they nor any of the other Speakers appear to have any clue where they are or what’s going on. It’s like they’re sleepwalking.
“All right, my dears,” Vanik says. “Let’s get started.”
CHAPTER THIRTY
All I want to do is curl up in a ball and scream, but I can’t risk giving my position away. Not even as I witness the Exodus recruits willingly lie down on the examination tables, one after the other.
I make myself watch as much as I can, but it’s difficult. Vanik draws blood — a lot of blood. He uses two different syringes to extract other samples, as well: pinkish fluid from areas close to where their hip bones nestle into their pelvises, and water-like fluid from in between the vertebrae at the middle of their spines. I watched enough medical dramas pre-Lengard to have a good idea of what the samples are: bone marrow and cerebrospinal fluid.
Bile rises high enough in my throat that I have to keep swallowing it back down. And while what I’m witnessing is beyond disturbing, what concerns me more is that not one of the Speakers utters a sound. No pain, no distress, no struggle. These are the kinds of procedures that should be carried out under heavy anesthesia, but the recruits are wide-awake, staring blankly into nothingness while Vanik experiments on them like lab rats. Unlike me, they don’t even recoil when he inserts long, long needles into their bodies.
I know it’s because of Manning. Because of what he can do. And I know this because —
“Next one, Alvin,” Vanik says after he switches out some vials in his centrifuge and starts the spin cycle again.
“You, come here,” Manning says.
My heart skips when the light that flows with his command touches Sneak. Until now, none of the recruits tested have been known to me. But with the young boy being ordered forward, I struggle more than ever to remain hidden and keep from bolting out to save him.
“Lie down, don’t move, don’t make a sound. You won’t feel anything,” Manning commands.
I can sense the power of his words from where I’m crouching, even though they’re not directed at me.
I don’t know what the therapist’s ability is, but I know it’s the reason for the zombie-like lack of responses. It’s the reason no one is fighting for freedom. It’s the reason Vanik can do whatever he wants with their bodies.
It’s horrific.
And it scares me to realize how strong Manning must be if he can wield that kind of power even with the suppressive limitations of the Karoel surrounding us. That’s the only reason I haven’t left my hiding place and tried to Speak a way out of here for my friends and me. There’s no way I can go up against the kind of strength Manning must have, not here. Some all-powerful Creator I am.
“The samples I took during your last visit proved rather interesting,” Vanik says to the semi-invisible Sneak, snapping on a new pair of latex gloves as he approaches the unresisting boy. “I think today we’ll try something a little … different. A tissue sample — yes, that’s what I need.”
Vanik starts preparing a tray full of needles and scalpels, and I wonder if I’m going to faint.
“Alvin, pass me that drill.”
My whole body seizes up at Vanik’s words, at watching Manning hand over the device and Vanik line it up against Sneak’s skull.
When Vanik’s fingers move to activate the drill, I’m unable to keep a distressed sound from escaping my lips.
It’s the worst possible timing, since my gasp is like a homing beacon to my position. I duck back behind the MRI machine, hoping they didn’t hear me, but when the drill remains quiet, along with all other noise in the lab, I know something is wrong. I muster the courage to peek back out and can see neither Vanik nor Manning anywhere.
Dread wells up within me, and I know I have to get out of here. I can’t stay in this Karoel-lined room for another second watching my friends fall victim to a psychopath.
Just as I find the nerve to run, to attempt to get past the Karoel and Speak us all to safety, a stirring in the air prickles my skin in warning, prompting me to spin around. But I’m too slow to react as Vanik, having snuck up behind me, crashes the drill down onto my skull.
Pain explodes from behind my eyes and I crumple into a heap at his feet, unconscious before I hit the ground.
*
Wake up, Lyss. You have to wake up.
I’m in a dream. I know I am because I’m standing on a cloud with rainbows streaming all around me, shining like glitter in the sunshine.
But that’s only one reason I know I’m dreaming. The other is that Kael is here with me.
Smith projected me here, he tells me. We don’t have long.
Part of me considers how amazing it is that Smith can project into my unconscious mind, but the other part of me doesn’t have the energy to care much at the moment.
Lyss, you have to wake up, Kael says again.
I don’t want to, I tell him. I want to stay here. It’s peaceful. And I’m tired.
I know you are, princess, he says, closing the distance between our dream selves and placing his hands on my shoulders, squeezing gently. Help is on the way, but you need to wake up, and no matter what, you have to stay awake. It’s very, very important.
I shake my head, and the rainbows blur around me. I don’t know if I can.
You can, he tells me, his midnight eyes trapping mine. You can, and you must. We’ll get you out, but you have to help us. Just stay awake.
Everything hurts, Kael.
I know it does, he whispers. Just hold on a little longer, princess. But now you have to WAKE UP!
*
I jolt awake, groaning as I come around fully. The pain I felt upon passing out seems but a shadow of the agony currently tearing through my body. I struggle to open my eyes and succeed only after a few attempts. I feel more tired than I’ve ever felt in my life. But that doesn’t make sense. Not until I can finally lift my lashes and see the cause of my exhausted state.
Blood.
Bags and bags of blood.
All of it mine, and still more being drawn from my veins.
I gurgle in horror and try to sit up, but something holds me down. I’m shackled to the examination table at my neck, my hands and my ankles. Panic wells up within me, and adrenaline overrides exhaustion. I begin to wrestle against my constraints, but I stop almost immediately when a searing agony shoots from two points on my lower back, one in the center, one toward the side.
I break out in a cold sweat because I know — I know — what that means: that Vanik has already completed his nightmarish procedures on me and extracted my fluid samples. I feel so violated that I have to swallow back my dinner as it tries to make a reappearance. And then, heedless of the pain, I begin to wrestle anew.
Mindless with terror, I let minutes pass before I realize this is a useless battle — and I have other ways to fight for my escape.
With tears of fear and exhaustion in my eyes, I concentrate harder than I ever have in my life as I focus on my restraints and croak out, “Release!”
Nothing happens. No light flashes. The bindings don’t loosen their hold.
“Release!” I cry again. “Release me! Let go!” I hiccup through a sob and whisper out a tremulous, “Please, let me go.”
It’s no use. With the Karoel surrounding me, I may as well be mute.
“I wouldn’t bother if I were you,” Vanik says.
I recoil as he moves into my line of sight.
“You don’t have enough energy to Speak. And in attempting to prove me wrong, you’ll only
tire yourself out faster.”
I can’t imagine being more exhausted than I already am, but his words ring true as my body weakens more and more from the excess blood loss and my head injury. It’s worse, so much worse than I felt after the paintball skirmish. I can barely string a single thought together, let alone concentrate enough to Speak. Even if the walls weren’t limiting my power, I’d still be in a world of trouble. But just because I can’t use my ability doesn’t mean I’m ready to roll over.
“You sick bas —”
“Careful, now, Six-Eight-Four,” Vanik interrupts, “or my hand may just … slip.”
I draw in a ragged breath when I see him holding a scalpel in one hand — and a razorblade in the other.
“It’s a shame to get rid of this lovely hair of yours, but it’ll only be in the way,” he murmurs, resting both blades on a metallic tray lined with all kinds of other instruments. “I’ll need a clear point of access to extract the required tissue. A mistake could be catastrophic, at this point. But don’t worry — as long as you remain still, the procedure should be minimal risk.”
My entire body quakes. I don’t know what “minimal risk” means, but I’m certain it’s much more dangerous than Vanik is letting on.
He turns fully toward me and leans over until his rancid breath is in my face.
“You have no idea how long I’ve waited for this day, Alyssa Scott. Ever since you arrived at Lengard, you were kept from me. You were protected from me.” He spits the word like it’s an offense.
“You tortured me,” I rasp out, alarmed by how weak my voice sounds.
“Electroshock therapy hardly constitutes torture,” he replies dismissively. “And besides, if I couldn’t study your physical samples, I was damn well going to research your brain chemistry. But then you had to go and cry to Landon Ward. He even had the audacity to threaten me. Why couldn’t he see I was only trying to help you? That’s all I’ve ever wanted. To help you — all of you. To help Speakers everywhere.”
I don’t know what’s worse: the words he’s saying or that he seems to believe them.
“None of that matters now,” he intones. “Because with your help, I’m going to change the world as we know it.”
