“Of course, Councilwoman,” I said. Two could play this game, I thought.
In the beginning, many of the questions were the same as the day before. I tried not to show how annoying I found the repetition.
They had me recount the story I’d told them the previous day. Instead of asking for clarification on confusing points, they hammered me with question after question until I became so confused that I wasn’t sure which way was up, let alone what the truth was. Just when I thought I knew where one line of questioning was headed, one of the council members would throw a wrench in the mix and ask, “And how did that make you feel?” like this was a therapy session with Dr. Wythe.
They asked me about destroying Donavon’s cabin when I’d been a pledge, and whether, now that I was older and had had time to reflect on the incident, would I have acted differently?
“No,” I snapped without thinking, recalling the rage I’d felt seeing Kandice’s long hair spilling over the side of Donavon’s bed.
“How many people have you killed, Ms. Lyons?” Amberly asked.
“I don’t keep a body count,” I replied through gritted teeth.
“Five? Ten? A hundred?” she prompted.
“I said, I don’t know.” Calm, cool, collected, I chanted.
“You don’t have many friends, isn’t that correct, Ms. Lyons?” Victoria switched gears.
“I have enough,” I said uneasily, not sure where this was going.
“Is it because you think you are better than your peers? Because your talents are superior to theirs?” Victoria urged.
“No,” I scoffed. “I’ve been a little busy to worry about a social life.”
My palms were sweating, and I discreetly wiped them on the folds of my dress.
“Busy? Busy planning the assassination of your parents’ killer?” Victoria asked.
“Busy training to become a Hunter,” I clarified.
“But you wanted to become a Hunter to avenge Francis and Katerina, correct?”
My temper was reaching the breaking point. The casual mention of my parents’ names was one brick too many in my wobbly control.
“Yes, I did. Wouldn’t you?” I shot back angrily. Cool, calm, and collected were gone.
“You have quite the temper, Ms. Lyons,” the doctor said. He’d been fairly quiet up to this point.
“Since the day I was born,” I said. Maybe not the wisest remark, but it was true, and I didn’t want them thinking I’d developed this attitude after being injected.
“On a scale of one to ten, ten being highest, how much has being injected with the creation drug affected your personality?” Amberly asked.
I met her smoky gaze and shrugged. “Two,” I lied.
My personality shift was noticeable, but manageable. At least, now that I knew the cause it was manageable. While no one called me a liar, the accusation was on all three minds.
“The night your parents were killed, what happened?” Victoria again.
I swallowed hard. This was the first open-ended question they’d asked me. Even the ones about my feelings regarding a particular incident had facilitated one word answers. This, though, this was different. I felt the mood in the room shift and had the horrible realization that this was what they’d wanted to talk about from the beginning. My actions that horrible night were going to be what condemned me to containment, not anything that had happened since the injection.
“Ms. Lyons, answer the question,” Victoria said impatiently, tapping one red-tipped nail on the glass table in front of her.
“TOXIC men entered the hotel room where my family was staying, killed my parents, and took me.” I shrugged. “End of story.”
Victoria smiled condescendingly as she shared a conspiratorial glance with first Amberly and then the doctor. She made an annoying clucking sound with her tongue and shook her head. “No, Ms. Lyons, that is not the end of the story. According to our records, you killed the intruders.”
A gust of wind whipped through the room, conjured from nowhere. I sat on my hands and tried to think happy thoughts. Calm, cool, collected. Calm, cool, collected.
“Ms. Lyons, we are interested in understanding the extent of your abilities, both before and after the injection. Now, please, answer the question.”
“Why?” I snapped. “Obviously you have the answer in front of you. Do you want me to admit it? Fine, I did it. I killed those bastards and I don’t regret it. Are you happy? Does that help you understand how dangerous I am? What a threat I am?”
I could hear Crane’s voice in my head telling me to reel it in. Any minute now armed guards were going to bust through the door, sedate and shackle me, and I’d wake up tomorrow in some freaky European psycho ward.
“You were ten, yes?” Amberly asked, amazingly nonplussed by my outburst.
I inhaled deeply, breathing in the calming vibes she was giving off. “Yes.”
The three Council members, my judges and jury, conferred with one another using eye movements and head tilts, and had I not known better, I would’ve sworn they were communicating telepathically. Then I noticed that Victoria wasn’t the only one clicking her nails on the table – just the one who was the most annoying about it – they all were. They were passing messages on the electronic tabletop.
Desperate to know whether bars and hospital gowns were in my future, I dropped my mental walls and started to peek behind Amberly’s curtain of resistance. Hers was the weakest mind of the three, also the weakest will. If I had to manipulate one of them, she’d be my target.
“Ms. Lyons,” Victoria said abruptly.
I felt like I’d been caught stealing an extra dessert from the school cafeteria. Guiltily, I stared at my lap and willed my burning cheeks to cool.
“Do you still want revenge for your parents?”
I hesitated. Not because I didn’t know the answer. Hell yes, I wanted revenge. Did I admit that, though? Would the admission paint me as the bloodthirsty monster they thought I might be?
“Ms. Lyons, Talia, please, honesty is best here.” Victoria’s voice was gentle, soothing and I wanted to tell her the truth. She wasn’t manipulating me, that wasn’t her Talent – Morpher by the feel of her brain patterns. Yet, the urge to be honest was like a physical pull, and the words were tumbling out of my mouth like rocks before I could stop them.
“Yes. I want Mac to look me in the eye and admit it was him. I want him to tell me why. And then, when he’s finished, I want him to suffer the way I have all these years.”
It was hard to determine who was the most surprised by my frank statement and venomous tone. Victoria’s gold eyes were large and round. Amberly’s normally full mouth had thinned to two white gashes. And the doctor looked, well, frightened. Awesome.
The room was entirely silent except for four beating hearts, no one even breathed. I thought for sure I’d messed up epically. Maybe I had misread Victoria. Maybe she was some type of Manipulator or demon, because I felt like she’d possessed me and forced the truth out.
“I think that will do for now. If you would follow Dr. Kramer, he can begin the physical examination,” Victoria said with a smile that could have frozen boiling water.
“Wait, what? That’s it? How’d I do? Did I pass?” I asked. “And what do you mean a physical examination?”
“It will be painless, Ms. Lyons. Much less so than this question and answer session,” the doctor told me.
Super convincing, I thought wryly.
“We will speak again after the physical,” Victoria said. “No determination can be made just yet.”
I didn’t like where this was heading. I didn’t want Dr. Kramer poking and prodding me like an animal. I’d come to hate doctors over the past year and half, and he had yet to prove he was an exception to the arrogant rule. But I had come this far. Besides letting my temper get the better of me once or twice, the evaluation hadn’t been so bad. I’d refrained from morphing and attacking one of the council members – Victoria – and I wasn’t handc
uffed just yet. All in all, best-case scenario.
Dr. Kramer rose and I realized he was a tiny man. Sitting, he’d appeared square. Square head, square jaw, square frame. Standing, the statement was even truer. He was as tall as he was wide.
“This way, Ms. Lyons.” He gestured to the far end of the room where a door blended seamlessly into the white wall. Only my keen eyesight and the faint outline let me know it was actually there.
I stood and followed him, my sandals flip-flopping on the hard tile floor. The door had no handle or knob, but opened on its own when we were positioned in front of it. The nerves from earlier returned, creating a maelstrom in my stomach.
Dr. Kramer entered first, and I followed a step behind, unwilling to show Victoria and Amberly my hesitation. I wanted to appear confident, even if I felt anything but. Once inside the auxiliary room, I nearly sagged with relief. Dr. Patel was waiting for us.
“Ah, Ms. Lyons, good to see you looking so pretty today. How are your bruises? They appear to be healing nicely,” he said.
I touched the side of my face. The Council hadn’t asked about them – not that I minded – and I’d almost forgotten they were there.
“Thank you, doctor. They don’t hurt at all.”
“Good, good. If you would be so kind as to remove your dress and change into the clothes in the bathroom, we can get started.” He pointed towards a small nook off of the main area. Bathroom was a stretch for the curtained-off corner of the large hospital-like room. It was more of an alcove with a sink and toilet. The rest of the area was covered in medical machines, monitors, and computers. In the very center was a rubber mat with two footprints. On the ceiling above the mat, an ominous-looking clear plastic tube was ready to descend upon its victim and swallow her whole.
I tried not to shudder. Painless maybe. Traumatizing definitely.
I shuffled to the sectioned-off area and closed the partition, cutting off my view of the doctors and theirs of me. Their words were still audible, and as I changed into a pair of white shorts and plain white tank top, I listened to their conversation. Unfortunately, the one language I wasn’t fluent in was medical jargon. So, I had no idea what they were talking about. I caught phrases like “neuro-something-something imaging resonance something” and “artificial stimuli inducer.”
Yikes, I thought, that sounded creepy.
I didn’t linger behind the curtain. I wanted this ordeal over with posthaste.
“Ready,” I declared as I rejoined the doctors. “Evaluate me.”
“If you could stand on the feet, please,” Dr. Patel instructed me.
I complied and tried not to glance up at the tube that was surely about to claim me as its lunch.
Dr. Kramer began affixing electrodes to my chest, neck and temples. Then he wrapped a strap around my ribcage along my bra line. Next, he retrieved a syringe and took three vials of blood from the vein in my left elbow. The sudden blood loss left me dizzy, and I swayed a little.
“That is the most pain you will feel,” he promised.
Doubtful, I thought.
Dr. Patel, who’d been fiddling with the dials on one of the many monitors in the room, came to stand in front of me. “We are going to take a look inside your head,” he said.
I scowled.
“It will tell us if there has been any deterioration,” he continued. “Then, we are going to perform situational analysis.”
“Which means what, exactly?” I asked.
“The electrodes attached to your body will send images to your brain, and we will gauge your reactions. It will let us know how your mind perceives threats and how you will react in a given situation.”
Oh no, I thought, a test I couldn’t lie my way out of.
Both doctors stepped back, and I heard a faint whine from above. I closed my eyes and waited for the tube to engulf me. I heard the low hum as it spun in slow, steady circles around my body. Soft clicking let me know the contraption was taking pictures. As promised, the procedure was painless. I didn’t feel a thing except for the buzz of electricity that the machine gave off, but the sensation wasn’t unpleasant.
“Now we will begin the situational analysis,” one of the doctors said. His voice was muffled by the thick plastic, and I couldn’t tell which one it was. My head felt woozy and starbursts exploded behind my closed eyelids. I tried to open my eyes but found only blackness when I did. Panic seized me for a brief moment before I sank into darkness.
My eyelids spasmed uncontrollably like the repeated clicking of a camera shutter. Just as I started to think I was having a seizure, the movement stopped. My heartbeat was sluggish and irregular, a thump thump followed by a long pause before another soft thump. I breathed in and out to calm myself. The plastic tube was just clearing my head, and the evaluation room was visible once again.
“See? Painless,” Dr. Kramer smiled at me.
We were face to face, his poufy hair giving him an inch on me.
“Is it over?” I asked, trying to recall the procedure.
“You performed beautifully,” Dr. Patel said.
“You may change back into your own clothing, and we can rejoin the others,” Dr. Kramer added.
“Okay.”
I stumbled when I stepped off of the mat, and Dr. Patel hurried forward to catch me. He guided me to the alcove, but didn’t follow me inside. Stripping off the white clothes took longer than it should have since my motor skills were impaired like I was drunk or something. The feeling didn’t last long. By the time my dress was firmly in place, I was in control of my body and mind. And I was livid. What had they given me? When had they done it?
The syringe, I realized, it had been coated with a sedative or something.
Thrusting the curtain aside, I stomped forward. “What did you do to me?” I demanded.
Dr. Patel looked sheepish. Dr. Kramer looked first startled, then like I’d offended him by asking.
“Ms. Lyons, a powerful Mind Manipulator such as yourself can alter the results if conscious. This was the only way to get a true reading on your threat level.”
I’d been categorized a lot in my life. TOXIC dubbed me a Mind Manipulator at the age of ten. By sixteen I was afforded the honor of Elite. Never once had anyone given me a threat rating. Honestly, I was a little curious. Was I truly lethal?
“And? How’d I stack up?” I asked.
“Let us reconvene with the others.”
Hmm, that remark could be taken either way.
When we reentered the big room on the other side of the seamless door, Dr. Patel accompanied us. That lessened my fears for some reason. While I didn’t know the man well, I liked him. I thought maybe he’d advocate for me if the need arose.
Dr. Kramer took his place at the rectangular table. Dr. Patel stayed firmly by my side as I sat in my chair, further reassuring me that I had a friend.
“Ms. Lyons, I will make this brief,” Victoria began.
Shit.
“Just as I suspected, you are extremely dangerous. Your threat level is off the charts.”
I was glad I was sitting because all my bones seemed to melt inside of me.
“Your brain is exhibiting signs of slight deterioration. Nothing irreversible if the cure is found sooner rather than later.” She paused for dramatic effect, and had my muscles been functional, I would’ve leapt for her. “In light of the current predicament UNITED is facing, I believe you are an asset to our cause. Your need for revenge, while violent, will help bring Danbury McDonough to justice. At this time, it is the feeling of the UNITED Council that containment is not necessary. However, I am recommending that you be reevaluated once a month for an indeterminable amount of time.”
Now my head spun for an entirely different reason. I wasn’t going to be locked up. I was dangerous, sure, but I was free. Crane had been right: she wanted my talents too badly to contain me.
The council members waited expectantly. I figured they were waiting for a thank you, but I wasn’t about to give them the satisfact
ion.
When I just stared at Victoria and her colleagues with open defiance, she cleared her throat and continued. “The UNITED guard will be arriving in the next several days. President Crane has been so kind as to let us set up a home base in Coalition territory. Should Director McDonough fail to appear before the Council in Bern in the next seventy-two hours, we will be forced to strike. I am offering you a place among the guard, if you are interested.”
“I am,” I said quickly. No way was I letting them take down Mac without me. And it would come to that. Mac wasn’t the surrendering type.
Victoria smiled. A genuine smile that lit up her golden eyes and projected twin rays of sunshine onto the table in front of her. “I thought you would say that. Word will be sent to you in due time. For now, you are free to go about your business.”
She didn’t have to tell me twice. I was out of my seat and practically running through the door before she finished her sentence. My first thought was Erik. I wanted to tell him the good news. Then, another thought had me changing course and heading upstairs: Penny. Had her evaluation gone as well as mine?
I reached the main atrium on sublevel one, where I ran into Crane as he was coming down the spiral staircase. His expression was grim and his eyes were like endless pools of black tar.
“Ian? What’s wrong?” I asked, terrified that Penny had been carted off.
“TOXIC attacked the Underground station in Kentucky,” he said.
The temporary joy of freedom gave way to panic. Erik’s family was at that station. Alex was at that station. I’d failed. Failed Kandice and Donavon and their son.
“When are we leaving?” I asked.
“Get changed and meet me in the command center.”
I didn’t waste time responding. I practically flew to the elevator.
Chapter Twelve
After saying a hurried goodbye to Erik and Henri, I’d joined Crane and a group of soldiers in the command center on sublevel one. Frederick was among the gathered. Since he’d left the Kentucky station, he’d been using his remote viewing gifts to keep an eye on Alex and Erik’s family. During his morning check, he’d seen the quartet being forced from Frederick’s home by TOXIC operatives. The four of them were being held captive in a rec center at the station.
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