by Jordan Dane
Lucas nodded. The memory of that Christmas had rooted in his heart and helped him survive Haven Hills. Gabriel had definitely gotten by his shield.
“Was Rayne really that cute, even back then?” Gabe asked. “Sweet girl.”
Lucas grinned and said, “I wanna rematch.”
“Yeah, I figured you might. Good man.”
With Hellboy at his side, Gabriel slapped him on the back as Luke heard the sharp trill of the whistle, Uncle Reginald’s signal that it was time to eat. Lucas gave in to his hunger and followed Gabe back to the clearing, but his mind wrestled with everything that had happened. Gabriel had given him plenty to think about and work on.
Haven Hills Treatment Facility—Ward 8
Hours later
Two men in white uniforms came to Caila’s cell and woke her from an exhausted sleep. She had no idea what time it was. They shoved the door open and went straight for her. One guy yanked her covers back and the other grabbed her by the arm.
“Where are you taking me?”
The men didn’t answer her. They didn’t say anything and barely looked at her as they hauled her by the arms down a hall. Caila’s feet were bare and cold. Her skin puckered in goose bumps. All she had on were the yellow top and pajama bottoms they’d given her to wear. The thin material made her feel naked.
They took her to a large exam room. She’d been there before, when they took more blood and hooked her up to a machine that measured something in her brain. This time when they opened the door, a woman in a white lab coat was waiting for her. Caila didn’t like her. Her pale eyes were the color of glacier ice and her ashen blond hair was pulled back tight to her head. She looked mean.
“Caila Ferrie. My name is Dr. Fiona,” the woman said. “Good of you to come.”
“Did I have a choice?”
The words were out of Caila’s mouth before she even thought as the men strapped her to what looked like a dental chair and secured her arms and legs. When they were done, the doctor ordered them to wait outside.
“Is that any way to show appreciation for my hospitality?” The doctor smiled. “You were living on the streets of L.A., not a safe place at all. Here you have a bed and food and medical care.”
“I’d rather eat garbage.”
Even though the exam room was ice cold, Caila felt sure the chill came from the doctor.
“If that’s what you want, that could be arranged, but you aren’t leaving here. You’re a danger to society. You’re not...well.”
“That’s a lie and we both know it.” She heard the hostility in her voice but couldn’t stop it. She had nothing left to lose.
“I’m the doctor. You are what I say you are and you’re in my hands until you cooperate.”
Caila glared at the woman until the doctor’s words sank in.
“Does that mean I can get out of here?” She didn’t wait for her to answer. “How? When?”
“That depends.”
“On what?”
“On your willingness to help me. You’ve been a good patient. You haven’t objected to any of my tests and—”
“You’re holding me against my will. I’m your prisoner.”
“A mere technicality.” Dr. Fiona grinned and looked smug. “Tests and lab work can only tell me so much. I’d like you to fill in the gaps so I can pinpoint my examination. Your freedom will depend on how forthcoming you are with me.”
Screw cooperation. Caila had lost her patience for promises from this woman.
“Where’s Oliver?” She fought against her restraints. “I wanna see him.”
“Tell me what I want to know and I’ll consider letting you see Zack. Would you like that?”
Caila almost choked. Zack? My God, yes. The faces of Zack and Oliver sprang from the darkness of her worst fears.
“What do you want?”
The doctor pulled up a stool on wheels and sat close to her. “Tell me how your gift works, but don’t bother lying to me. I’ve got data on you. A thick file. If I catch you in a lie, you won’t be the one I punish. Your friends will pay the price and I’ll be sure to tell them you’re responsible.”
Caila didn’t trust this woman. Not even a little, but she couldn’t stomach any more cruelty heaped on Zack and Oliver because of her. She lowered her head and shut her eyes tight as she talked. “My gift acts on its own. I can’t always control it, so I’m not entirely sure how it works.”
“You expect me to believe that? Do you care about Zack and Oliver at all?”
Caila jerked her head up when the doctor raised her voice to let her true colors show. Her face had pinched into a taut grimace.
“No, it’s true. I’m not lying. When I get stressed, I can’t stop it and I don’t always know what will happen.”
The doctor glared at her, considering what she’d said before she asked another question. “What did you do to Zack? Exactly.”
There was no way she could explain what she’d done and have this woman—or anyone—understand. Caila’s mind raced with what she’d say. Her usual justifications were things that she’d repeat in her head when she couldn’t sleep. It was all she had.
“When I came to L.A., I had no place to live and not much money. My first night at a shelter, I got robbed. They took everything while I slept. That’s when I met Zack.”
“Sweet, but get to the point.”
“He seemed nice. He talked to me and let me hang with him.”
“Yeah, I’ll bet. I’m sure it had nothing to do with sex.”
“It wasn’t like that with Zack. We never—”
Dr. Fiona laughed and shook her head. “Oh, don’t bother. I can understand you trying to control Zack with sex, but that’s not the kind of ‘gift’ I’m talking about. What did you do to him? Tell me and make me believe you.”
Caila knew this woman wouldn’t understand. No matter how she explained what a decent friend Zack had always been to her, this cynical woman would never believe how it was. But saying what she actually did to him would never come out right either. She couldn’t look the woman in the eye when she blurted out her answer. This time it had to be the truth, for Zack and Oliver’s sake.
“I gave him memories, good ones of another life with...me in it. I made him feel safe and loved. I was afraid he’d leave me and I needed him. My gift did it, not me. I swear.”
“You made him love you?”
“Not...love, exactly. I shared my dreams with him, of a life we could have. We both needed that. He was scared too. I didn’t do anything to hurt him.”
“Sugarcoat it all you want, honey. You wiped out his free will and got a white knight in the process. How does it work? Tell me.”
Caila did her best to describe what happened in her body when her gift took over. After the heat welled up inside her, she felt an uncontrollable urge to touch and make a connection. Her fingertips on Zack’s cheek. A kiss for Oliver. Hearing the words coming from her mouth—to the delight of this hideous woman—made her feel like a worse monster.
“So you have to summon your ability, through an emotional reaction? Fear, for example. It doesn’t come from a random touch. Is that it?”
Caila lowered her head and nodded.
“Did you do the same thing to Oliver?”
She felt the heat on her cheeks when she said, “Yes.”
“Well, that explains a lot.”
The doctor stood and walked over to a door. She unlocked it using a key she had dangling on her ID badge. Caila had noticed the key before. Inside the smaller room were a desk, a computer and some file cabinets. The woman unlocked one of the file drawers and pulled a file that she tossed on the desktop, before she swiveled a computer monitor around. She made sure Caila could see a split screen of four colorful scans of the human brain.
“The b
rain is a complex organ. There are one hundred billion neurons passing signals to each other over one thousand trillion synaptic connections. The brain gives us the ability to think, communicate, create, dream and experience our emotions. Memory is a huge part in this process. What we learn and feel, we retain as memory and it changes how we behave in the future. It becomes instinct. Memory can also be manipulated. A rather simple process, really. Using the power of suggestion can—”
“Why are you showing me this?”
Caila had no patience to listen to this woman talk about science, not when Oliver and Zack were her lab rats. She stared at the screen, looking for a label that showed Zack’s name. All she wanted was a connection that meant something to her.
“I thought you’d want to know about Zack...and you.”
The woman smiled when Caila couldn’t hide her strong reaction. She had to know where Zack was.
“You see, in Zack, whenever I stimulated his mind with suggestions of you, I observed different lobes in his cerebral cortex become highly active, regions dealing with his memory. These are his scans and here are the hot spots I’m talking about.” The woman pointed to the screen. “The long-term memory had me puzzled, especially when I knew you didn’t know him for very long. Our people had begun tracking you in L.A.”
“Tracking me. Why? What does this have to do with me?”
“You’re my latest science riddle, that’s why.” The doctor looked smug. “If memory is simply what a person sees, what if new memories can be infused into someone’s brain by showing him a different past? Would it change him? It would seem that you, my dear, can control anyone’s future by manipulating their past. You did it to Zack and now Oliver. That’s extraordinary.”
“I don’t know anything about that.”
“No, I guess you wouldn’t. A gift like this is wasted on someone like you.” Dr. Fiona narrowed her eyes. “So let’s talk about something you do know about. Oliver came to see you the other night. Tell me about that.”
Caila felt the heat rush to her face. “What? No, he couldn’t have. I was...locked up. So was he, right?”
She had only one instinct when it came to Oliver’s visit. She had to lie. It was one thing to talk about her gift, but telling this woman about Oliver felt like a secret that wasn’t hers to tell. She didn’t want to get him into more trouble.
“I thought you wanted to see Zack. The only way that will happen is if you’re honest with me. Did you see Oliver the other night?”
Caila felt the sting of tears and fought them. She gritted her teeth, not sure what she’d say. “Yes, I saw him, but that was only a dream. There’s no way he’d show up in my room.” She raised her chin. “That’s the truth. I swear.”
“Yes, I suppose it is, according to you. Surveillance recordings show something else. We see everything that happens here. Cameras are everywhere.” The woman glared at her. “Oliver is remarkable. On our surveillance cameras, he shows up like a beautiful glimmer of light. Pure energy. What did he look like when you saw him?”
“Like a ghost. What did you do to him? If what I saw was really him, is he dead? How could he appear to me like that? You did something.”
“I only released him to become what he was always meant to be.” The doctor smiled. “Of course he has me to thank for that. And now that I know what you’ve done to him, I can use that.”
“Why are you doing this to us?”
“You really don’t know? Or do you think we’re just stupid?” the woman said. When Caila couldn’t answer her, the doctor shook her head. “You may think you’re human, but you’re not. You’re a diseased limb that should be amputated. You, Zack, Oliver. You’re all the same.”
“You promised I could see Zack.”
Dr. Fiona looked confused by the shift in topic, but she quickly recovered. “Yes, I suppose you’ve earned that right. I see no harm in it and a promise is a promise.” The woman nodded. “I’ll have Zack brought to you.”
Caila swallowed hard as the doctor ordered the uniformed men into the room to escort her back to her locked cell. She kept her face from showing how excited she was about seeing Zack, but she couldn’t stop her heart from reacting. His face and his eyes flashed pictures in her head. She didn’t care if her memories of him were real or not.
Zack would finally know she’d come for him. She had his back.
7
Stewart Estate
Dusk
Gabriel had nervous energy that needed to be worked out of his system. Whenever he couldn’t settle down and his senses got shifted into overdrive, he had to find a release. After he’d taken a long run, he went to his uncle’s well-equipped gym to finish up on weights and an abusive round with a seventy-pound punching bag. After he stripped off his T-shirt and got down to wearing only his sweatpants, he bound his hands in elastic wrap, donned boxing gloves and got to work.
In no time he shifted into high gear and battered the bag in blinding succession, sidestepping and circling it with each driving blow. The muscles in his legs burned and his fists ached with every jab.
Stay focused and keep moving. Use the pain.
His gloved punches had a rhythm that intensified as his underlying anger toward his father stirred the demons inside him. He missed his mother, missed his life and missed a dead ten-year-old boy he’d never met. He picked up his pace and circled the bag, focusing his whole body on every blow. His lungs were heaving and sweat trailed off his arms and back as he bobbed and weaved. He switched up the speed and varied his combination punches—left jab, straight right, left hook. Gabriel had hit the zone.
When he saw movement in a wall mirror, he shifted his eyes to see his uncle at the doorway to the training room.
“You’ve s-saved me,” he panted. “The bag...has a keen right cross.”
Panting, Gabe yanked off his gloves and left the white elastic wrap on his hands. He’d worked his way toward exhaustion and it felt good.
“Your mother used to tell me about your penchant for boxing.” Uncle Reginald brought him a white towel and bottled water. “Rocky would be very proud.”
“High praise indeed.” Gabriel grinned and wiped his face with the towel. “And who couldn’t benefit from a solid theme song, eh?”
“Sorry to disrupt your workout, but I had to know. How did Lucas do this afternoon? I wanted your assessment.”
“He’s amazing,” he panted.
“Tell me something I don’t already know.”
“Okay, if you insist. A pig’s orgasm can last an astonishing thirty minutes.”
His uncle grimaced. “Good Lord, you don’t say. Now I have another reason to appreciate bacon.” The man smiled. “I noticed Lucas came back a bit damp. Seems to me that your mother gave you a similar swimming lesson. Did you breach his defenses?”
“Some lessons are classic and worth passing on. I got by his shield this time, but he’ll make that harder in the future. Exactly the point of our exercise. He’s clever, that one.” Gabe grinned, cracked open the water bottle and drank. “The power I feel from him, I can barely contain it. He has no idea how incredible he is. He’s holding back. I know he is and I don’t know why.”
“You were like that at his age. Your mother worried over you too.”
“What? She never told me that.”
“She didn’t know how hard to push you, to achieve what she knew you could do. Sound familiar?” Uncle Reginald winked. “Guiding the young can be a test of patience.”
“Yeah, I get that. But I’ve been having more visions. Violent ones. I’m channeling them through Lucas, and he doesn’t seem to feel them like I do. Maybe drawing the faces makes each one stick with me. Lately they’re haunting me even when I’m awake.”
“How do you know Lucas isn’t feeling the same? Have you talked to him?” His uncle crossed his arms an
d cocked his head. “You have to remember that he just got out of the hospital. This is all new to him. These visions must be frightening, yes?”
“You’re probably right, but I have a bad feeling. These visions are escalating for a reason. He may not sense that like I do.”
“What are you feeling?”
Gabe only shrugged and took another pull of water.
“Tell me exactly, Gabriel. Come on.”
“I feel like I’m alone on a dark ocean, treading water without land in sight. When I’m not haunted by the faces of terrified kids, that’s what I see in my dreams.” He sighed. “We’re not ready. Not even close, but it feels like...”
“Like what?”
“Like we’ve run out of time.”
He couldn’t look his uncle in the eye. In his heart, he wondered if Lucas had a point. He didn’t know if his intention toward his father was about revenge or something else, but he couldn’t say that. He simply wasn’t prepared to share that much with his uncle, not when those thoughts were so muddled in his head. He settled on telling his uncle a fraction of the truth.
“Am I pushing them too hard...or maybe not enough?” he asked. “The truth is that I won’t know any of those answers until it’s too late...until I can only watch things happen like I did the last time.”
“No, Gabriel. You did more than watch. You stopped the bleeding and you stepped in when it would have been easier to stay in hiding. I’m proud of you.”
His uncle tried to make him feel good, but Gabe had to make him see.
“Before, when it was only me, I had nothing to lose,” he told him. “That was my edge, but I’ve lost that. All I have now are...doubts.”
“Oh, my dear boy. Don’t you see?” His uncle held Gabe’s face in both hands, as he used to do when he was a boy. “You think having nothing to lose gives you an edge, but I think it’s better to have something worth living for. I think you’ve found that. Don’t you?”
