Willpower

by Anna Durand

  "Let's skip the pleasantries," Waldron said. "I know your names, I know what you do here. Now let me explain my function."

  His gaze locked on Christine's. Her throat went as dry as the desert sand. Under the table, she clutched a handful of her skirt.

  "This is no longer your playground," Waldron said. "I'm here to make this project profitable."

  Mark stared at the tabletop and chewed the inside of his lip. Edward stared at the wall, face blank.

  Someone had to speak, for heaven's sake.

  Christine clasped her hands on the tabletop. Looking straight at Waldron, she said, "This is a research facility, not a McDonald's. We work for results, not profit, and what we do is for the good of humanity."

  "Finding ways of controlling psychic impulses does not benefit humanity, Christine. It benefits you."

  He'd used her first name. She puckered her lips, trying to avoid swearing at the cretin. She had a sick feeling she knew where the conversation would end up, and she didn't like it one bit.

  "It benefits everyone," she said, rising to lean on the table with both hands. "We don't want to control these impulses, we seek to understand where they come from and how they can be managed so that the individual might function normally within society. I used to think psychic faculties were aberrations that drove the afflicted insane or turned them into monsters. Since founding the project, I've come to realize these people are gifted, not cursed." She locked gazes with Waldron. "The government would love to use them as spies or assassins but I will not let that happen. I will not let you use them to line your pockets either."

  "Money is the last thing on my mind."

  "But you said — "

  "I said I'm going to make this facility profitable. I did not say monetarily profitable."

  She bit her lip. What did he mean? She wanted to know but feared the answer.

  "They are research subjects," Waldron said. "ALI owns them. Which means I, as director of operations, own them."

  "You're not the director of operations."

  Waldron gave her a vicious smile. He nodded toward Edward. "Ask your father."

  She gave her father a questioning look. His shoulders drooped. He averted his gaze to his lap. She felt her mouth drop open as he slowly nodded.

  Still slumped over his chair's arm, Mark slid one hand over his face to cover his eyes.

  "This is Dr. Tesler," Waldron said, gesturing at the gray-haired, freckled man, "the new head of research and development."

  Tesler smirked at her. She fisted her hands, sure she'd leap across the table and strangle both of them if she didn't control her anger somehow. What the hell was happening? Why was she the only one questioning the situation?

  Waldron glanced toward the corner of the room adjacent to the doorway and flicked his hand. A man detached from the shadows behind the door and shut it with a sharp click. She hadn't noticed the man before. His black clothing melded with the shadows. He was Norris, one of the new guards brought in last week, but he wore a black outfit instead of his usual brown uniform. Black gloves covered his hands. He donned black combat boots as well. Under one arm, he held a black full-face helmet.

  What the blazes?

  She looked at her father. Edward had shut his eyes. The wrinkles on his face had deepened into canyons. He pressed his lips together. When he opened his eyes and met her gaze, a chill slithered down her spine.

  Waldron spoke again, his voice dripping with arrogance. "After studying the security at this facility, I've come to one unpleasant conclusion." He settled his hands on the back of Tesler's chair. "It is a complete failure."

  "We've done fine so far," Christine said. "No one knows we exist."

  "Except everyone who works here and everyone they speak to outside the facility."

  "They signed confidentiality agreements."

  "Paper and ink." Waldron massaged the chair, flexing the sinews in his hands. "Every one of them is a potential breach and this is not a discussion. Measures have been taken. More will follow."

  Christine looked at her father. He had closed his eyes again, his expression unreadable. When she glanced at Mark, he turned his head away to avoid her gaze.

  Waldron pushed away from Tesler's chair. "From this moment forward, no one will enter or leave this facility without my express permission."

  "We are not prisoners, Mr. Waldron."

  "Correct. You are vassals and I am your lord."

  Waldron flicked his wrist and Tesler hopped out of his chair. As Waldron sauntered around the table, Tesler trailed behind him like a loyal pet. As they moved past Norris, Waldron flicked his wrist once more and the guard fell in step behind Tesler. If they'd begun to goose-step, the fascist image would've been complete.

  Christine swallowed against the tightness in her throat. She had no clue how things had changed so abruptly, and so terribly.

  Oh yes she did. The takeover was far more hostile than anyone had realized.

  At the door, Waldron paused. Without turning, he said, "Understand this. Anyone who challenges me, anyone who shows the slightest hint of disobeying me, will be silenced. Permanently."

  The trio exited the conference room. The door clicked shut. The ventilation system whirred overhead. In the space of a few moments, they had become prisoners.

  Mark cursed under his breath. Edward released a long, defeated sigh.

  Christine flopped into her chair and stared at her father. "What's going on?"

  "I've lost the war."

  "What war? Who bought us out?"

  Though she stared at him and waited for his response, he said nothing. His gaze was fixed on the far wall — or a sight beyond the wall. A sight inside his mind. A vision of what the facility would become, a slave regime focused on one goal.

  Mining the human mind for profit.

  Except Waldron claimed to have no interest in money. To him profit meant … what?

  Control.

  Mark rose from his chair and tugged her hand. He wanted to go. She didn't want to leave her father, but he wasn't there anyway, not mentally. She let Mark lead her out of the conference room, down the shadow-infested corridor, and to the offices that occupied the end of the corridor farthest from the elevator. Standing in the false twilight, holding hands, they exchanged tense looks. He appeared as numb as she felt.

  After a moment, Mark entered his office through a door marked with his name and the title "Director, Information Systems."

  She stumbled into her own office. Though she glanced at the lettering that spelled out her name and the designation "Assistant Director, Research & Development," her mind registered nothing. The words slipped through her brain unprocessed. Perhaps they had never meant anything. No, they had once held meaning. The title had signified her father's faith in her intelligence and dedication, the importance of the work she performed here. Now it signified nothing.

  She sensed what would come. Her intuition warned her, like a tornado siren whooping as a twister headed toward the heart of town. This tornado struck in the darkest night. She couldn't see it coming. She couldn't stop it.

  The phone on her desk rang. She jumped.

  Snatching the phone from its cradle, she mumbled, "Christine Powell."

  "Turn on your computer," a male voice instructed.

  "Who is this?"

  "Do it."

  The voice. She recognized it. "What do you want, Waldron?"

  "Do it."

  Her chest tightened as if a python had wrapped its body around her. Hands shaking, she wiggled the mouse to wake her computer from sleep mode. She drummed her fingernails on the desk. Through the phone, she heard Waldron breathing.

  "It's on," she said.

  "Watch."

  A window opened on the screen, the video feed from the RV room. She recognized the pale blue walls, the bulbs that simula
ted natural light, the plush recliner positioned in the center of the room. Eggshell-colored carpeting covered the floor. Another chair, a new chair, sat beside the old one. It resembled a dentist's chair, minus the comforts. The secretary, Vanessa, reclined in the new chair.

  No. Not reclined. Christine leaned closer. The girl was strapped to the chair with leather restraints that crossed her forehead, wrists, and ankles. The feed had sound too, which emanated from her computer speakers with a tinny quality.

  The girl sniffled. "Please let me out."

  An explosion thundered. The girl shrieked. Her body jerked, then sagged.

  The camera zoomed in on her. Blood had begun to soak her blouse, in the center of her chest. Her eyes stared, vacant.

  "This was a warning," Waldron said through the phone. "Don't expect another."

  Click. The dial tone buzzed in her ear.

  Christine dropped the phone.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Present Day

  Grace slumped against the chair. At the back of the store, inside the restroom, metal banged on metal as Earl struggled to repair what she had broken. A twinge of guilt rippled through her. She didn't know exactly what she'd done, so she had no idea how badly she might've screwed up the works. Later, she'd find a way to make it up to the poor guy.

  If she survived to later.

  She couldn't understand why her family, the people she had known and trusted her whole life, would let criminals take over their life's work. Why they let Waldron and Tesler bully them. Why they just accepted the situation.

  "Why didn't they stop Waldron?" Grace asked.

  "He assigned armed guards to watch them," David said. "They were prisoners, controlled in every aspect of their lives and work. They practically needed written permission to take a deep breath."

  "But why? What was the goal? I don't get it."

  "Waldron showed them what would happen if they rose up against him. The secretary was a stand-in."

  "For what?"

  "Not what. Who." He hesitated, his gaze intent on her. "You."

  She closed her eyes. Waldron killed an innocent woman as a warning to her parents. If they resisted, he would do the same, or worse, to their daughter.

  Grace opened her eyes. The threat must've worked. She now knew, however, that Waldron could not kill her. His boss wanted her alive.

  "Why would my mother tell you all this?"

  "She didn't have to. I followed her to that meeting, psychically. No one knew I was there."

  "You like following women, hey? Or is it just the ones in my family?"

  "No." He averted his gaze to the tabletop. "I heard Norris talking to another guard. He mentioned Waldron and said the facility was about to become a fun place. Coming from Norris, that's not a good thing. He was fresh out of maximum-security prison when he came here. I went to the meeting so I could find out what was going on."

  "My grandfather would not hire dangerous criminals."

  "He didn't know. ALI hired new guards after the buyout, and he had no say in it." David settled a hand over hers. "After that initial meeting, I followed Christine, Mark, or Edward as often as I could without being detected."

  "Then tell me the rest."

  Still kneeling beside her, he sat back on his heels. "This is where it gets really nasty."

  Eight months earlier

  Christine hesitated, one hand on the knob, her gaze focused on the sign that now adorned the door. The workmen had replaced the "Off limits — Under construction" sign with a new one that read "Isolation Chamber 1." How many more rooms had they converted into isolation chambers? And what precisely were these chambers for?

  Three weeks ago, Waldron had ordered the RV room and all the other travelers' suites renovated. She'd argued that they remodeled the suites the previous year to create the kind of quiet, calming atmosphere the travelers needed to invoke their abilities. The suites needed no makeover. She still cringed when she recalled how Waldron had fixed his dark eyes on her and said, "No more coddling, Christine."

  Never had she given him permission to call her Christine. Everyone except Mark and her father called her Dr. Powell. Of course, Waldron asked no permission before taking such liberties. She couldn't imagine him asking permission for anything. The man took whatever he desired, from liberties to lives. Still, she despised her name when it came from his lips.

  The renovations had taken less than the month originally estimated. Now as she stood outside the "isolation chamber," the tremors in her hand jiggled the knob. She breathed deeply, struggling against the fear that clawed at her psyche. It was a room. Four walls, a floor, and a ceiling. A room couldn't hurt her — or anyone.

  She twisted the knob. Locked.

  Digging her keys out of her coat pocket, she inserted the one for the RV room. The key didn't fit. She tried all the others on her ring. None fit. Waldron couldn't lock her out. She had gold clearance, which gave her access to every room in the facility and every file on the computers.

  She was a vassal now, not a scientist. Waldron let her retain the title of Assistant Director, but it meant nothing anymore. The facility belonged to Xavier Waldron.

  The hell it did. She whisked her tablet computer out of another pocket and punched in a direct message to Waldron. "Please send me key to isolation room 1."

  A locked door hinted at a secret. Waldron didn't want her to see the room. Why? What had his men done in there? She envisioned the possibilities, and her skin prickled.

  At the end of the corridor, the elevator doors parted. She glanced sideways at the doors. Waldron stomped out of the elevator toward her.

  Halting beside her, he said, "I was coming to see you when I received your message."

  "You've changed the locks."

  "How observant of you, Christine."

  "Give me the key. I have access to all the rooms."

  "Afraid not."

  She clenched her jaw. "I have gold clearance."

  He fingered the ID badge clipped onto her lapel. "I've reevaluated all clearances. Yours is now blue."

  She bit the inside of her cheek. He had bumped her down two rungs on the clearance ladder. The act would lock her out of most of the labs and all of the traveler suites — or the isolation chambers, as they were now designated.

  "What are you hiding?" she said.

  "You're very pretty, Christine. Very desirable." He seized a clump of her hair and yanked her closer. "But much too curious for your own good."

  She winced at the pain in her scalp. Her eye level fell at slightly above his nose. Their gazes locked as he flattened his other hand into the small of her back and crushed her against him until her nose smashed into his. His lips grazed hers.

  Her stomach flip-flopped. She grimaced, struggling to push away from him. His arms were too strong, enveloping her like metal restraints.

  He chuckled. "We could come to an agreement, Christine."

  "I'd rather be gnawed to bits by piranhas, Xavier." She emphasized the name with a near snarl in her voice.

  He mashed his mouth on hers.

  She bit his lower lip.

  Maintaining his grip on her hair, he touched the reddening spot on his lip. His voice grew rough as he said, "You want to see, Christine? You want to know? I'll show you."

  He withdrew a set of keys from his pocket, and then jerked her head backward. She bit back a cry and spat at him. He unlocked the door, thrusting it inward. Darkness cloaked the interior.

  He hurled her through the doorway.

  She landed on her hip. Pain stabbed down her legs. A gasp exploded from her.

  Stalking into the room, he flicked a switch and light flooded the interior. The floor, the walls, and the ceiling had been reduced to bare concrete. A single fluorescent panel had replaced the natural-light bulbs. In the center of the room, the austere metal chair s
at where the recliner had once stood. The barest amount of cushioning softened the chair, and leather restraints dangled from it. A metal table occupied the nearest corner of the room, its surface home to devices she didn't recognize. In her soul, however, she perceived their purpose.

  The concrete exuded a chill that infected her flesh. She rubbed her arms.

  Waldron towered over her. His arms hung at his sides, hands clenched into fists. His lips he flattened together. The fluorescent lighting flickered off his eyes.

  She avoided thinking about the shiver she'd gotten the first time she saw him. She avoided thinking about the violence with which he'd thrown her into this room. She avoided thinking about what might come next. Her thoughts concentrated on one image — the young girl, Vanessa, strapped into the chair that occupied this room, her face a blank oval, tears staining her cheeks, eyes red, skin white as a corpse's. She'd begged her captors for mercy, knowing they would grant death instead and praying it would come quickly, painlessly, but knowing it would not. When death came for her, it would rent her flesh, contorted her muscles, and wielded a pain beyond agony.

  Christine swallowed, but the mass in her throat remained. Was she really thinking of Vanessa, or herself? Neither, she realized with a jolt. The face that replaced the secretary's in her mind's eye belonged to Grace.

  Waldron slammed the door shut. "Let me demonstrate this room's function."

  "I know what it's for."

  "Get in the chair."

  "Are you insane?"

  In one step, he reached her. He grabbed both her wrists and hauled her off the floor, across the room, and to the chair. The concrete scraped her bare knees as her skirt rode up her thigh. She flailed her arms and legs but found no purchase, no advantage. She couldn't reach him.

  He shoved her into the chair.

  She lashed out at him. He smacked her so hard her head snapped back into the chair's headrest. Lights popped in her vision, phantoms of the pain ricocheting through her head. Waldron secured the restraints around her arms, legs, and forehead.

  "If you kill me," she said, her voice a little slurred, "it will be the end of you."