10 Fatal Strike

by Shannon McKenna

  And the other vision she had with maddening regularity. Empty-eyed, shuffling people wandering through a silent urban landscape. Quiet and morose, not particularly violent, but terrifying all the same.

  She saw Hu’s and Anabel’s pasts and possible futures, too. It was uncomfortable, knowing so much about the intimate histories of the people she hated. She didn’t want to understand them, or to have compassion for them. Hell with that.

  Anabel unstrapped the restraints. Hu steadied her before she fell off the table. They hauled her wobbling body toward the door. Back to the rat hole. She turned to Hu. “How’s Leah?”

  Hu’s face twitched. “Shut up.”

  “Did she get the medical tests I recommended?” Lara persisted.

  The tension in Hu’s jaw said it all.

  “It’s just like I said, isn’t it?” Lara asked. “She thought it was just a little gastritis, but it’s esophageal cancer, right?”

  “I said, shut up. She’s none of your damn business.”

  But Lara was too stoned to act in her own best interests. When things started coming, one thing pulled another until it was a tumbling avalanche. “She doesn’t know what you do here,” she said. “You tell her you’re just a researcher, and she buys it, or pretends to. On some level, she knows what you really are. It makes her uneasy, but she stuffs it. Because she’s a nice person, you know? She actually cares about you. She deserves better than a sadistic, lying—”

  “Shut . . . up!” Whap. Hu didn’t hit as hard as Anabel, but the blow smashed her lip against her teeth, and once she tasted blood, there was no way to stop the words from flying out.

  “You’re poisoning her, Hu. If she stays near you, she will die. It won’t take too long, either. Want to know exactly how long?”

  Anabel slammed her against the rat hole door. The blow knocked the air from her lungs, left her gasping. Anabel’s face, which would have been beautiful if it had not been so tight and sunken, leaned into hers.

  “Don’t fuck with us,” she hissed. “Your life hangs by a thread.”

  Then cut it, already. Set me free. But she had no air to speak.

  Hu opened the many locks on the massive door. They muscled her through it. Anabel’s shove sent Lara stumbling to her knees.

  Lara coughed. Licked blood away. “I saw you, too,” she said.

  Anabel rolled her eyes. “Did you not hear what I said?”

  “About my life hanging by a thread? Yeah. You threaten me with death every couple of minutes. I take it that’s a no, then?”

  She looked up, and read both curiosity and dread in Anabel’s eyes. Kept her mind soft, as she felt the stabbing probe. Anabel was trying to read the memory for herself, but she couldn’t find the right tail unless Lara handed it to her. Not if she kept it soft and neutral.

  “You’d just lie,” Anabel said. “Drugged-up sneak.”

  “You’d know if I was,” Lara said calmly.

  “I read you already. And I didn’t see anything about me.”

  “I was shielded when I saw it,” Lara said.

  Anabel made an impatient sound. “Fine. Enlighten me, you dumb twat, so we can go get some breakfast.”

  “A man.” Lara rolled up onto her knees.

  Anabel’s laughter was harsh. “Oh, what a shocker! I’ve never met one of those before! Who is he, my next lay?”

  “A guy from your past. But I saw his present. Through his eyes.”

  “There are a lot of men in my past,” Anabel said. “Most of them aren’t all that interesting. You’ll have to do better than that.”

  “He wore plaid golfing pants.” Images tumbled in on her, one leading the next, like facts she’d always known. “Somewhere in the South. He was drinking a gin and tonic. Not his first.”

  Anabel’s face went stiff. Hu’s eyes darted between them, nervous.

  “It was a country club,” Lara went on. “Drooping, swampy trees. Louisiana, or Florida. He was watching the kids in the pool. One in particular. A blond girl in a yellow bathing suit, maybe nine or ten—”

  “That’s enough,” Anabel warned.

  “He had hairy ankles,” Lara told her. “I could tell, from the way his pants rode up. He was crossing his legs to hide his erection.”

  “I said enough!” Anabel’s voice was getting shrill.

  “He was looking at her, but he was thinking about you. How he enjoyed the time that he had you locked up in the basement for . . . how long was it? Years? So nice, to indulge his urges whenever he liked, without having to fly to southeast Asia to do it. He was fantasizing about buying a private pet again, but he’s a big man in the community. Local district attorney, right? Such a risk. Expensive, dangerous. But then again, so are tickets to Bangkok. So maybe it’s a wash.”

  “Stop it!” Anabel shrieked. “Stop it!”

  “Knowing that, I can almost feel sorry for you,” Lara said, touching her bloodied lip again. “Almost.”

  Anabel’s foot slammed into her ribs. The following horrible interval was measured by blows. She curled up around her vital organs while Anabel kicked her. Ribs, thigh, buttock. Fireworks in the dark.

  When it stopped, Anabel was panting, deep gulping rasps. “You were supposed to get an hour with the window, but no. Those privileges are for good little girls. Bad little girls stay in the dark.”

  “Like you did?” Lara croaked.

  The door slammed shut. The lights cut out. She wouldn’t get fed today, not after pissing Anabel off like that. Her belly cramped, nastily.

  She wondered how long her body could hold out in these conditions. Calorie deficit, sleep deficit, light deprivation. Whatever collateral damage this drug might cause. How much longer did she have to take this? Weeks? Surely not more than that.

  She curled up on the bed, in the fetal position, and her mind went straight to him, of course. To one of her visits before, when he was still amorous and ardent. In the last one, he’d been waiting for her, lounging bare chested in a big chair, feet up. The room surrounding him was foggy because her attention was always focused so completely on him, but it was sure to be beautiful. Everything in the Citadel was beautiful.

  When he saw her, his eyes lit with a hot, hungry glow. He got up, approaching her with pantherish grace. Her breath stuck, and her thighs clenched, and her throat locked. She just stared, mute and dazzled, stupid with longing. Letting him press her against the wall.

  He kissed her, his tongue thrusting and stroking. He handled her so skilfully with his big, warm hands. She shivered with delight, remembering how her body trusted his. Melting, boneless.

  He’d fallen to his knees, lifting the white, filmy skirt she wore, the one that looked suspiciously like a bridal gown. But she was always without underwear when she visited the Citadel. Nothing to stop him from burying his face in her muff, venturing with his fingers and his tongue, to tease and probe. When he tasted her lube, he thrust his tongue voluptuously deeper, circling her clit, and ah, God. Delicious, protracted, knee wobbling, sobbing delight. And that was all just preparation, foreplay. When he actually got down to it . . . whoa.

  When the drug wore off and she was dragged back into waking reality, she was quivering and wet between her legs. She wanted to stay forever. It was a brutal shock, to jolt back into her body, strapped to the gurney, with Anabel screaming. Where did you go? You just first dosed, you dumb cunt! Who taught you to block like that?

  Maybe they would kill her, once they got frustrated enough.

  She lay there in the dark, tears leaking slowly out into the stale wool blanket on her cot. She missed her Lord of the Citadel. Except that he was not hers. And he did not want her anymore.

  Big mistake, to type onto that computer, but she was so lonely. Starved for companionship. Even if he was just a mental construct.

  But hey. Never open up, never get rejected. It was a policy she’d employed for most of her life, so why wouldn’t it be valid here, too? Leave it to Lara Kirk to create an imaginary friend who rejected her.

/>   She had to laugh, and instantly regretted it. It hurt her sore ribs. Crying in bed, like a girl who’d had a fight with her boyfriend.

  Truth was, it didn’t matter if he wanted her or not. Let him be rude. Let him just try to keep her out. She’d be back the second they dosed her, like a guided missile. If he wanted her out, he’d have to beef up his security. She’d go to the Citadel this second, but she couldn’t make it on her own. She needed their fucking drug to get airborne.

  God, how she hated that. Hated herself for being too far gone even to crave freedom anymore. She didn’t know what she’d do with freedom if she had it. But a drug-fueled sexual fantasy? Hell, yeah. Sign her up for that.

  Maybe she’d die in the Citadel, when her time came. That would be a better point of departure than the rat hole or the gurney.

  She’d let go of hope long ago. All she wanted now was relief.

  She was a psi-max whore.

  3

  The frosty dawn found Miles in a worse state than he’d been in since he hiked in weeks before, and the day that followed went straight downhill from there.

  Last night’s episode had fucked his fragile equilibrium all to hell. The shield was intact, but his sensory overload was worse than ever. Wind shrieked through the Forks. Mold, decomposing leaves, pine needles, humus, all combined into a heavy, yeasty blast of organic compounds that stunned him into immobility. He sat wrapped in his thermal bag for hours, hands clamped over his face, struggling not to retch.

  It was colder today. Snowline creeping downwards. He pulled on the warmest clothes he had, shivering. Poor Miles, delicate flower. Bring on the fucking smelling salts. No climbing today. He’d kill himself if he got blindsided thinking about what had happened with the—

  No. Nothing had happened. It was a dream. Nobody was talking to him. He was on a mountaintop, twelve miles from the nearest human being. He was not even a telepath. Stop it with that crazy shit. Stop.

  He dumped a packet of bean soup into a plastic mug of water, stirring with his finger. Gulped down the resulting ash-colored gruel. He was getting sloppy. Hadn’t eaten anything fresh in a while. He wondered if there was anything edible growing in the forest this late in the season.

  He headed into the woods, resolved to find something with phytonutrients in it. A few hours into his search, he choked down some mushrooms, but they were wrinked and moldy, and the taste was too strong to endure. A couple of withered wild onions made his stomach burn. A person needed a genuine appetite for this. He gagged, spat twigs and dirt. Yikes. Evidently he wasn’t the frontier type.

  The onions gave him a coughing fit, and he ended up crouched on the ground, grimly waiting for the pounding in his head to ease.

  Fuck foraging. Icy wind chewed sullenly at his ears. He got back to the campsite, gathered wood, chopped and split it, and settled in for a cold, sleepless night by the campfire. He was going to have to beef up supplies soon, if this turned to snow camping. It could, at any time.

  A bug caught his eye, trundling across the forest floor. It butted up against the toe of his boot, got itself turned around and went on its way. He was so absorbed in staring at it, the sensation crept up on him.

  Lara. That zingy, bright feeling. If he let himself look inside at the images, he would see her, in her white, frothy dress, doing that sexy get-through-the-wall pole dance.

  Don’t look. He stared at the flames, kept the camera in his head switched grimly off. He would not play this game with himself, goddamnit. He was not tuning in to this channel. His damaged prefrontal cortex could go fuck itself. He was not falling for this.

  The sound startled him. It was the beep his phone made when a text message came in, but he had no smartphone. It was miles away, swathed in plastic, stowed in the box bolted under his truck.

  Just ringing in your ears. Memories of sounds. Breathe. Let it go.

  But he couldn’t help flashing on the screen in his head. Reading the words that glowed there.

  hey u there?

  Don’t do it, asshole. Don’t talk to her again. You’re encouraging your own mental illness. Entrenching it.

  He knew exactly what was happening. He’d researched it extensively. The part of his brain that governed language and abstract thinking had been blasted by Rudd’s psychic attack, causing biochemical changes, alterations in his brain connections. This caused miscommunication between the prefrontal cortex and the langague area in his temporal cortex, resulting in auditory hallucinations. Hearing voices. Which this was not, strictly speaking. But it was close enough.

  It was also known as schizophrenia.

  He would not listen to those messages. Especially if they started asking him to do things. But even as he lectured himself, his response was pounding out, scrolling down the screen, in a big, bold, yelling font.

  wtf? what r u trying 2 tell me about my fucked up brain that i dont already know? u dont exist! its just me! give it up, go away. integrate, already. pls!! stop torturing me!

  He held his breath for a moment. There was a long pause.

  wow strange i thought u were the dream

  no Miles typed back. that wd be u so dont try 2 fck with my head i wont play

  not! im not u! or a dream! im myself. crystal clear?

  He felt absurdly stung. u’ve got attitude 4 some1 who sneaks in uninvited and starts twiddling with my shit

  At some point in the strange exchange, he’d given in and looked, so of course now he couldn’t look away. She was seated in the chair, that wafty skirt spread all around. She stared at the screen, hands in her lap, face expressionless. She lifted her hands, and typed slowly,

  i dont have anyplace else 2 go

  That sounded so forlorn. It made him miserable. Which ratcheted up the crazy quotient. Which pissed him off, and made him sarcastic.

  pity party?

  That evidently pissed her off in turn. She did not reply, but she didn’t leave. She just sat there, staring at the screen. Chin up. In a huff.

  oh come on u have got 2 b kidding he typed.

  She shook her head. Crossed her arms over her chest.

  not fkg fair u cant diss me in my own head he pounded in.

  She couldn’t resist that opening. Her hands went to the keyboard.

  evidently i can appeared slowly, letter by letter.

  Miles started to laugh. Helplessly snorting into his hands, tears spilling over. He’d seem bonkers to anyone watching. But hey. He was bonkers. This was irrefutable proof. That was the real reason he was here, after all. So no one had to witness what Rudd’s mindfucking had reduced him to. A whack job who heard voices. No, correction. A whack job who saw texts. Leave it to Miles, the geek freak, to put a computer engineer’s special twist onto the time-honored process of going batshit.

  Okay, fine. He was convinced. Time to get the prescriptions filled.

  So this was to be his future. Mental institutions, halfway houses. A career bagging groceries at best, if he could keep from drooling on them. That was the level at which he functioned on those meds.

  He started breaking camp before he’d even made any conscious decision to do so. No reason to drag it out now that the decision was made. He no longer saw her image, even when he looked for her, but he sensed that she was still in there. He felt her bright glow. He couldn’t stop feeling for it. It had been so long since he’d talked to someone.

  Yikes. That thought made him cringe.

  But at least his mind was made up. The wind smelled of snow, he was getting worse, not better, and he’d better get some help before he was too far gone to help himself. Before he became dangerous.

  The woods were pitch dark, but one of the few advantages to his Spruce Ridge brain makeover was night vision. He could hike through trackless woods at two A.M. as easily as at noon. He hoisted his pack.

  He was a couple of hours into it when the beep sounded. At that point, he didn’t even try to resist. It was useless effort.

  The screen read u there?

  He had nothing
further to lose at this point, not even his sanity. It was already long gone, so what the fuck. He mentally typed out lara?

  There was a long, shocked pause. Then,

  how do u know my name?

  I know who u r. l c u when I dream. Wt r u doing in here?

  hiding out was her terse reply.

  huh?

  this is the only place they can’t get me

  dont understand, he typed.

  i dont need u to understand. I just need a place to hide.

  bad day? he asked.

  oh u have no idea was her reply. Then she winked out again, like she had last night. But this time, she was gone completely.

  His senses kept on groping for her.

  His pace quickened to a run as he reflected upon two unsettling things. One, the brief conversation had given him an erection. His crotch strained against his jeans. Two, his headache was gone, for the first time in what felt like forever. Not that he was complaining. He felt almost giddy. Probably it was all about blood flow. The erection, the headache relief. Vasodilators doing their thing. But still. The sensory input was as intense as ever, but he was taking it all in and processing it, as if it were normal to see in the dark at two in the morning. Or hear a bird’s heartbeat. He had more bandwidth. A lot more.

  Talking to Lara was evidently therapeutic.

  God forbid he get obsessed over a ghost girl. Granted, he had a tendency to fixate on unattainable chicks. But getting all wound up about a figment of his own imagination? A woman who had shuffled off this mortal coil before he even met her? Come on. Get real.

  No further beeps sounded on his Lara sensors in the time it took to hike down to the truck. That was good, since his current plan was to medicate her out of existence. The idea made him uncomfortable. Like he would betray her by smashing a pharmaceutical hammer down onto that part of his brain that could talk to her.