by Rysa Walker
BOOM . . . BOOM . . . BOOM . . . NO!
That last sound is almost a scream. Cregg does an odd stutter step, nearly tripping over the carpet, so I’m positive that he heard the voice, too. Lucas, on the other hand, is oblivious.
The racket—thumpthumpthumpthumpthumpthumpthumpthumpthumpthump—follows us down the hall, gradually fading as we pass the monitoring station. Timmons is there. Lucas breaks out of his sulk long enough to give him a wassup, then we keep going, passing my room on the right.
We eventually reach a door marked AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY. There’s another sign below that reads NOT AN EXIT. Cregg pulls up a token of some sort on his phone and waves it in front of the security panel.
Ahead is an even darker hallway. It narrows and dips downward as we go, almost like a tunnel. Lights are farther apart than before and we cast long shadows as we walk. It’s colder too, and there’s no sound aside from our footsteps on the concrete floor.
Under normal circumstances, this place would probably feel creepy, but I seriously doubt anything worse than these two will spring out of the darkness.
About a hundred yards later, the hall widens and we begin the slight ascent to a well-lit area ahead. I hear a faint hum. Maybe a heating unit? It’s definitely warmer here.
Another monitoring station, identical to the one at the testing rooms, sits unattended at the intersection of two hallways. Beyond it are two large rooms encased in cement block at the bottom and a clear material at the top. It distorts the view slightly, so I think it’s plexiglass or something other than plain glass. The unit on the right is dark, except for a small overhead light at the back of the room. I see machinery of some sort in one corner and what appears to be a smaller, clear unit in the very back of the room.
The lights are on in the room on the left. But black curtains block most of my view, letting only a few narrow ribbons of light shine through.
We turn into the left corridor, which ends at a door a few yards down. Cregg waves his arm at the security panel and we enter a second hallway. The glass or plexiglass reaches from ceiling to floor on the right-hand side, but again, a black curtain hides whatever is in the room. I’m guessing they pull the curtain at some point, however, because two rows of chairs are lined up on the other side of the hallway, sort of like a home theater setup. Just beyond the chairs is another doorway, leading into what looks like an office break room, with a sofa and fridge.
I stay on alert for the popping sensation of Dacia’s probe, and also for the humming sound that Molly remembers before Cregg took control of her body. Could I block him the way I did with Dacia? I don’t know.
For now, I sense nothing out of the ordinary. Even so, every bit of intuition tells me to stay out of that room.
When Lucas opens the door, however, I immediately change my mind.
Deo’s in there, sitting in the middle of the room with two other people—a girl about my age and a man. There may be someone else, but Lucas’s shoulders are blocking my view. I recognize the man instantly. He’s the older guy from the cafeteria, the one with the gray dreads who was writing mental graffiti on the table. The girl also looks vaguely familiar. She was probably at one of the other tables. It’s hard to be certain because her head is tipped back, almost like she’s napping.
I move to follow Lucas into the room, but Cregg puts his arm out to restrain me.
“Perhaps you should wait here with me. Lucas has something to attend to. It will only take a few moments . . . but you would probably find it unpleasant to watch.”
I push away from him, but the door clicks shut before I can reach it.
“What are you doing? I said that I would cooperate and I will. Just—”
The sound is muted, making me even more certain that this wall is something other than glass. But there’s no mistaking the fact that the booming noise was a gunshot. Followed by a second boom. And a third.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
“No!” My knees give way and hit the concrete floor so hard that I bite my tongue.
Cregg’s jaw tightens. “I was under the impression that Lucas’s gun was equipped with a silencer, but apparently not. You’ve jumped to the wrong conclusion, Anna. Deo is fine.”
It takes several seconds for the words to reach my brain. When they do, a flood of relief washes over me, followed immediately by white-hot rage at the way we’re being manipulated. But I swallow the words I want to shout at him. Assuming Cregg isn’t lying and Deo is actually okay, I can’t afford to lose my temper.
If Cregg can tell I’m angry, he doesn’t react. He simply steps forward and pushes a button on the security panel.
“Place a cover over the bodies before you open the door, Lucas. I’d like to avoid anything else that might undermine the testing.”
I fight down a gag, either from the taste of blood in my mouth or Cregg’s words or both. And I was out here. Deo was in there when Lucas began firing, right next to those people who are now just bodies. Probably thinking he was next.
Cregg reaches a hand down to pull me to my feet, but I ignore the offer and make my way to one of the chairs on my own. As much as I want to avoid angering him, I can’t make myself touch him.
If he’s offended by my refusal to accept his help, he doesn’t show it.
“That’s also why Daciana isn’t here this evening, in case you’re wondering. She would have been disruptive. Daciana was very angry that you managed to block her, and I need you to be able to focus on the task at hand rather than trying to keep her out. As useful as it would be to know for certain whether you’re being truthful with me, I decided to rely on my own knowledge of human nature. Because even if I told her to behave, I’m not certain Daciana could resist diddling with your brain.”
The phrasing is odd enough by itself. But in Cregg’s soft-spoken voice and usually formal phrasing it sounds almost obscene.
He seems to be referring only to our encounter at the police station. Nothing about my chat with Dacia earlier this evening. Does he even know about that?
Lucas’s voice comes over the speaker again. “What do you want me to cover them with?”
“You have an entire medical lab at your disposal, Lucas. I’m sure you can find something if you actually look.” When Cregg turns back to me, he adds, “Have a seat. Unless there’s something in there marked Use This to Cover the Dead Bodies in large red letters, this could take a while.”
He pauses expectantly. I think he’s expecting a laugh or at least a smile.
“Why?” I ask him. “The girl in there . . . she was just a child!”
“No, Anna.” He looks insulted. “The young woman you saw in there was twenty years old. It may surprise you to know that she’s been in our care for quite some time. We’ve prevented her from committing suicide on eleven different occasions. There is a school of thought that would argue Lucas just engaged in a mercy killing.”
“Was Molly Porter’s death a mercy killing, too?” I regret the words instantly. He must know I have Molly’s memories, but I don’t want to do anything to further endanger Deo. I’m sure Lucas has a few more bullets he’d be happy to fire.
Cregg smiles, a patronizing expression that goes nowhere near his eyes. “Of course not. Molly’s death was unfortunate yet unavoidable. At the time, I believed Lucas’s lax security was a single mistake, but I’m beginning to detect a pattern where he’s concerned.” He tosses a brief scowl in the direction of the door, then says, “As I suspect you’re aware, I did not kill Molly. But, as with these three, I did approve it. I couldn’t let the girl jeopardize national security and the lives of everyone in this operation.”
The scary thing is, he seems to believe what he’s saying. He’s actually trying to justify cold-blooded murder. I’m tempted to ask how he excuses forcing someone to mutilate herself. Cregg may not have delivered the deathblow. He may not even have been the one holding the garden shears when they snipped off her pinky. But he was the driving force behind all of it.
And nation
al security, my ass. That’s what all of his kind claim when the bodies start piling up.
I sit silently until Lucas opens the door. As we enter the room, I avoid the three plastic-draped figures and focus on Deo. He’s clearly shaken and far from his usual stylish self, dressed in mismatched sweats and looking like he hasn’t seen a shower or a comb in days. I take a few steps into the room and then stop.
This is the first time I’ve been in a room with the newly dead. The “freshest” hitcher I ever picked up was Bruno, who’d only been dead a few months. A jogger found him in the park the morning after he died, staring up at the sky. The weather had been decent the night before and the sky was clear enough that he could pick out a few stars. Aliens were the last topic Bruno thought about—no surprise there. A lot of his thoughts were about aliens. But he wasn’t thinking of the scary kind that night. Just the Grays. He fell asleep wondering if E.T. was a baby Zeta Reticulan and if so, did all of the Grays’ fingers glow orange like his did?
The trio I’m trying not to look at are a different matter altogether. I can feel their presence in the room. If I let down my walls, I’m pretty sure I would suck them up like a vacuum.
Cregg seems to think I’ve stopped because I’m waiting for his approval. “Oh, by all means, Anna. Go speak with your friend. I assure you he has not been harmed in any way.”
At a bare minimum, Deo has been abducted, forced to watch as three individuals were murdered, and probably led to believe he was next. All of those things fall well within my personal definition of harm, but I don’t argue with Cregg, and he moves on to berate Lucas for failing to use a silencer.
I give the corpses a wide berth and crouch down next to Deo. My hug is an awkward gesture that includes the chair, since his arms are secured behind it with duct tape.
“Are you okay?”
The question is stupid, given all that has happened, but he nods. “Why’s your mouth bleeding?”
Even though I usually don’t give Deo the partial-truth treatment, I can’t bring myself to add that it’s because I thought he was dead. He’s had to deal with enough without feeling guilty about that, too. “Bit my tongue.”
He raises one skeptical now-barely-blue eyebrow. “Really?”
Maybe it’s shock, but that strikes both of us as funny, and for a moment we half laugh, half cry as I hold him close.
Cregg is apparently done reprimanding Lucas. I feel his eyes on my back. Apparently Deo notices too, because he whispers, “I heard him say Lucas. Is the other guy Cregg?”
I nod.
“What do you think he wants with you?”
“He said it’s a test.”
I glance at the bodies, which I now realize are covered from the waist up with trash bags. Duct tape around their calves secures them to the chair legs. Blood drips onto the floor, flowing in rivulets that converge about a foot behind them, pooling up in a small, recessed drain in the floor like one we have in the kitchen area at the deli.
The apple juice I drank earlier rises into my throat, and I have to pull my eyes away before I lose it.
Cregg claps his hands once to get my attention. “Anna, you’ll have more time to speak with Deo later, assuming all goes well. We need to get started.”
“Deo, I promise. I will get you out of here.” I give him one last hug before I go.
“You should have a fairly good idea what the test will entail,” Cregg says as I approach, “given the setting. But—”
“I wish you would have talked to me before. Because it doesn’t work that way. I can’t just decide to pick up someone’s . . . psychic remains. I don’t have control over when it happens. Not everyone sticks around. And I don’t pick them up where they died.”
“Are you finished?” Cregg asks. His voice remains level, but his eyebrows move downward.
When I don’t respond, he continues. “Clearly you do know why you’re here. You aren’t the first person I’ve encountered with this ability, Anna, so I probably have a better understanding of how it works than you do, since you have only your own limited experience as a guide. These three individuals experienced a traumatic death. Which is unfortunate but necessary, since in my experience, that means they have not yet entirely—in the words of the great bard—shuffled off this mortal coil. In order to pass this test, you will need to convince us that you have, as you put it, picked up at least two of them.”
“You should have done one at a time. I don’t . . . I don’t think I can pick up more than one, especially when I’m still processing Molly.”
It’s only partly a lie. I’ve never had more than two hanging out at once, and since I’ve gotten better at keeping my shields up most of the time, I’ve been able to hold it to just one. There were even a few glorious months at a time where my head was all my own.
The problem is more that I can feel them hovering in the room. I can almost taste the panic, the confusion. I’m not sure I can handle even one in that state, and I’m not sure how I’ll hold the others off.
“I hope you’re wrong about that,” Cregg says. “Because if you can’t pick up at least two, then you will have failed an important facet of this test.”
“And we’ll know if you lie,” Lucas says. “We know everything about those three.” He looks like he’s about to say more, but stops when he sees Cregg’s expression. I don’t think Lucas likes having to curb his tongue. His jaw is twitching like it did in my room when Ashley walked in.
I ignore Lucas’s comment and focus on Cregg. “And if I pass you’ll let us go?”
His mouth turns down in a look of exaggerated sympathy. “You know that can’t happen.” Cregg’s voice stays smooth. It reminds me of the snake in that Jungle Book movie. It could almost lull you to sleep. “If you fail the test, Anna, you’ll be in the same sad situation Molly found herself. You know too much about me and this facility for me to simply let you go, yet you won’t be of any value to me. On the other hand, if you pass the test, you become a valuable commodity I can’t afford to lose. Given the trouble we’ve gone through to get you here, I don’t think any incentive would convince you to work with me if I allowed you to come and go at will. The reward for passing is that Deo will be allowed to come with us.”
“No deal. If I pass your test, I’ll stay, but you have to let him go.” Deo is protesting, but I keep my eyes on Cregg. “As long as I can check in with him regularly and be certain he’s okay, I’ll do whatever you want. And he’ll keep quiet about everything he’s seen for the very same reason—you’ll have me as a hostage.”
Deo’s shaking his head vehemently. “No way, Anna.”
“Aww. Looks like lover boy wants to stay.”
Since I really couldn’t care less what Franco Lucas thinks, I don’t bother to correct him, but Cregg makes an exasperated sound. “This is what I was talking about, Lucas. You are an incredibly poor student of human emotion. Have you never been in a relationship that didn’t involve sex? If you’d observed Anna’s face when she looked at the boy, you’d have seen that hers is not a romantic attachment. She feels . . . parental. Responsible for his well-being. And I’m sensing a great deal of guilt for putting him in danger in the first place.”
It annoys me when Kelsey slips into this sort of psychobabble, but coming from Cregg it’s almost laughable. I’m tempted to ask how many years he spent in analysis. Clearly not enough. I doubt he would appreciate the snark however, so I focus instead on clarifying the rules and regs of this ungodly test he’s cooked up.
“How long?”
Cregg looks surprised.
“How long do I have to finish the test?”
“I hadn’t really considered that,” he says. “I guess the best way to put it is that this isn’t exactly a timed test. Our schedule has a bit of . . . flexibility. But at some point, if there is no result, I think we might have to conclude that you’re not really trying. And that would be . . . unfortunate.”
His eyes move very deliberately toward Deo.
“So, that
’s the stick side of the equation. The carrot, per your request, is that we’ll release him. If he cares as much about your well-being as you do about his, I think we can trust that he’ll keep quiet about our little arrangement. So . . . are we agreed?”
I’m not sure I believe him. I have a feeling that Cregg’s lying face is indistinguishable from his regular face. But it comes back to the same question I asked myself earlier: What choice do I have?
“Agreed.”
“Then I shall leave you to it. I can never focus with people watching over my shoulder, and I doubt you can, either.”
I try to keep my expression neutral, but it’s hard, because suddenly I’m seeing Cregg again in the cabin. Half dressed, half lotus, eyes half closed as he struggles to make Molly dig a small knife into Dacia’s upper arm.
“Should we take the boy with us?” Cregg asks.
“No. I’ll be able to focus better with him here.” That’s completely true, because I won’t be distracted wondering whether Cregg is practicing his skills on Deo. “In fact, could you untie his hands, please?”
Lucas snorts and says no instantly, but Cregg asks me why.
Deo beats me to it. “Because those three people just took bullets to the brain. If she manages to pick one of them up, it’s not going to be pleasant. It might even be dangerous. She may need someone to pull her back, to remind her that she’s Anna, that she’s still alive.”
Cregg considers this and nods. “I guess that’s reasonable. Go ahead and release him, Lucas. The door will be locked and we’ll be right outside. They’re not going anywhere.”
As Lucas frees Deo’s hands and feet, Cregg nods toward a cabinet at the back of the room. “There’s water in there should you need it. Hit the call button once you have a result. Or if you need food. Many of us have a high caloric burn rate when we’re active. I’ve noticed that’s especially true of the second-generation adepts like yourself.”
“I’m fine.”
The idea of eating anything in a room with three still-bleeding corpses nearly pushes me over the edge. I just want Cregg and Lucas to go.
