“No. I brought my lunch with me today.”
“Okay.” He turned back to Lisa. “Can I walk you out?”
“Sure.”
He led her through a back door and to another elevator. As soon as the doors closed, ensconcing them inside, his stomach growled.
She grinned.
Laughing, he patted his flat abs. “See? I told you. I shouldn’t have skipped breakfast this morning, but I was running late.” The elevator smoothly carried them upward, the motion barely discernable. “You want to join me for a bite?”
Smiling, she shook her head. “Thanks, but I have to hurry back to campus for my next class.”
He smiled wryly. “I know how that is.”
The doors slid open.
Lisa strode with him across the marble floor of the fancy lobby. “When do you think I’ll find out if I was chosen to participate in the study?”
“Depends on how many more people they intend to screen.” He held one of the large front doors open for her.
Heat embraced her as she stepped outside. Bright sunlight drove her to squint after being inside the more dimly lit building.
“Where are you parked?” he asked as the door swung closed behind them. “I’m way the hell back by the cows.”
There was indeed a field dotted with cows beyond the farthest parking lot. “I am, too.”
Together they began to walk through the closer parking lots.
“I’ll see if they validate parking for study participants or just for applicants,” he mentioned, “and let you know so maybe you can park closer next time.”
“If there is a next time.”
He glanced over his shoulder at the building getting farther away behind them, then smiled. “Don’t worry. You’ll be chosen. I’m not supposed to say anything, but you got more right than anyone else I’ve tested.”
Her eyebrows flew up. “Really?”
“Yeah. You did great. For the first time, I felt like I was actually conducting a study instead of just doing busywork.”
She bit back a laugh. “So… you haven’t interviewed any big-time psychics?”
“Nope. Although there was one guy who got so many wrong that I started to wonder if maybe he wasn’t psychic after all. It just didn’t seem possible that someone could get almost every single one wrong without knowing the right answer.”
Lisa laughed.
“Just don’t tell the docs I said that. We aren’t supposed to share results with applicants.”
“My lips are sealed.” Lisa paused when they reached the farthest row. “Which direction are you in? I’m parked over there.”
He jerked his thumb in the opposite direction. “I’m over there.”
She extended a hand. “Well, it was nice meeting you, Brad.”
“Nice meeting you, too.” He clasped her hand and gave it a nice firm shake. “Maybe they’ll assign me to be your caseworker when they choose you.”
“That would be great.”
Still smiling, he backed away. “Have a good one.”
“You, too.”
Turning, he strode down the long line of cars.
As Lisa made her way toward her old, battered economy car, she hoped Brad was right about her being selected for the study. Life had been beating her up for years now. It’d be nice if something finally went her way.
A month later, Lisa handed her final exam to Dr. Aguera. The last to leave, she lingered a moment.
Leaning back against his desk, he set her exam on top of the pile behind him. “How’s the study going?”
She smiled. “Great.” Brad had been right. The Anomalous Cognition Research Institute had called her two days after she applied and told her she’d been selected to participate in the study. She had begun the following week. And Brad had been chosen to be her caseworker or the research assistant she worked with. “They’ve added more numbers to the cards. More shapes and colors, too. And instead of the four suits—hearts, diamonds, clubs, and spades—they’re using cards taken from a standard deck to see if I can accurately identify both the suit and the number.”
“How’s that going?”
She shrugged. “Okay, I guess. They haven’t kicked me out.”
He narrowed his eyes. “You getting any lotto number premonitions yet?”
She laughed. “No. But I did actually have some money left over in my bank account when I finished paying last month’s bills, so I’m going to take it as a win.”
“Can’t argue with that. Have they mentioned adding any dietary changes or chemical enhancements to your daily routine?”
“Yes. They asked me to start taking a multivitamin, one with a lot of vitamin B and folate.”
He crossed his arms over his chest, brow furrowing. “Did they supply it?”
“They offered to, but I declined and said I’d buy my own.”
“Good. They seem like they’re on the up-and-up, but I’m paranoid enough to worry they might’ve tried to dose you with something they thought might… I don’t know… enhance your psychic gifts.”
“I worried about the same thing.”
He shook his head with a smile. “The world we live in, right?”
“Right. They did ask if I would consider letting them give me a PET scan while Brad asks me questions.”
“Brad is the research assistant you’ve been working with?”
“Yeah.”
“They must want to see what lights up when you employ your gift.”
She laughed. “It’s so weird that they think I’m really psychic.”
“Hey, maybe you are.” Dr. Aguera pressed an index finger to his temple, lifted his chin, and intoned, “I’m thinking of a number between one and a million. What number is it?”
“Easy—742,361,” she promptly replied with a grin.
His eyes widened. His hand fell to his side as he stared at her in shock.
Lisa quickly lost her smile. “What?” She gaped. “Are you saying I got it right?” she asked in astonishment.
Relaxing, he grinned. “No. I just wanted to see your reaction.”
They laughed.
“If they’d said they wanted to do an fMRI, I wouldn’t see anything wrong with it. But I’d avoid the PET scan or any others that involve exposure to radiation. The damage caused by radiation is cumulative, so you only want to get those if you have to for medical purposes.”
“Okay. Thanks again, Dr. Aguera. I never would’ve had this opportunity if it weren’t for you.”
He smiled. “I’m glad it turned out well for you. Have a great summer.”
“You, too.”
Fifteen minutes later, Lisa strolled into the ACRI’s lobby and found it empty.
“Hi, Lisa,” the woman seated behind the desk said with a smile.
“Hi, Carol.”
“I’ll let Brad know you’re here.”
“Thank you.”
Lisa had barely seated herself when the door on the far side of the room opened and Brad greeted her with a smile. “Hi, Lisa. You can come on back.”
Once she joined him, Brad led her past the empty screening rooms and turned down another hallway that led deeper into the basement.
“How’d your Bio II final go?” he asked.
“Well, I think.”
“Just out of curiosity, does your gift ever come into play when you take exams, maybe help you guess correctly if you don’t know the answer?” He and the other researchers truly believed she had a psychic gift.
She shrugged. “I don’t know. I’ve never really thought about it.”
“Do you always get As?”
“Yes. But I attribute that more to taking good notes and studying my butt off than to anything else.”
He opened a door and ushered her inside.
It was the same room they’d been using since she’d been selected. Larger than the first, this one held a longer table with more comfortable chairs. Upper and lower cabinets painted steel gray lined two walls. A third wall—the one op
posite the door—boasted a large framed mirror. Lisa glanced at it, wondering anew if perhaps it was a two-way mirror behind which faces peered at her.
Creepy. She hoped not.
Brad crossed to a minifridge beneath one cabinet and retrieved two bottles of water.
Lisa settled herself at the table as he took the chair across from her.
Once more, a wooden slat divided the table in two and kept Lisa from seeing the surface on the other side. But this time a laptop graced it rather than a clipboard and Brad typed in her responses instead of scribbling them down.
Reaching across the divider, he handed her a water bottle. “It’s hot today, isn’t it?”
“It is.” And she still had to walk all the way from the farthest parking lot, so she was pretty much a sweaty mess. “I think it’s supposed to reach a hundred degrees tomorrow.”
He grimaced. “Great. The AC just went out in my car.” The cap on his bottle crackled as he turned it, breaking the seal. He took a long swig, then set it aside. “Okay. Today we’re going to focus on faces.”
“Okay.” Lisa picked up her water bottle. Condensation already gathered on the exterior, dampening her hand. The cap made a crackling noise as she twisted it and removed it. Then she tilted her head back, brought it to her lips, and let the refreshingly cold liquid slide down her throat.
A chill skittered through her as it instantly went to work, lowering her body temperature.
“We’re going to start with face cards taken from several different standard decks,” Brad continued. “We’ve painted the backs so they all look alike, but the royal images bear some differences.” He held up the cards to show her the black backs, then turned them and fanned them out so she could see the array of figures. Some of the royal figures were dramatic and fancy. Some were funny and cartoonish.
“So you want me to tell you whether it’s a king, queen, or jack?”
“The first time,” he confirmed. “Then we’re going to go through it again and I’ll ask you to include the color—red or black. Then we’ll do it one more time and I’ll ask you to include the suit, too.”
“Okay.” She set the water aside.
“Great. Here we go.”
Lisa spent the next fifteen minutes guessing the figure on the cards he held up. As she did, her head began to ache. Reaching up, she rubbed her temples.
Brad’s brow furrowed. “You okay?”
She nodded. “Just a headache. Probably the heat. Or a sinus headache. My allergies have been bugging me a lot lately.”
“Mine, too. You want me to find you some aspirin or acetaminophen or something?”
“No, thank you. I’m fine.”
“Okay.”
They began round two.
Lisa got the distinct impression she wasn’t doing as well today.
Brad really did have an expressive face and looked alternately puzzled and concerned. “You sure you’re okay?”
“I’m sorry. My head is really pounding. And my vision is a little blurry. Maybe that’s throwing me.”
“Your vision is blurry?”
“A little.”
His brow furrowed. “Do you get migraines? I don’t remember any mention of that in your medical history.”
“No. I was up late last night, doing some last-minute cramming. That’s probably all it is.” That and the heat, though the room they currently occupied was nice and cool.
“We can reschedule if you want. I don’t think Dr. Jensen would mind.”
She waved a hand. “No. We only have another half hour to go, right?”
“Right. Okay then. Let me know if you change your mind.” Brad shuffled the deck and once more began holding up cards.
Lisa did her best to concentrate, but her headache just got worse and worse by the second. Her stomach began to churn a little, too. Crap. She hadn’t picked up the flu, had she? She was run down from staying up late studying too many nights in a row. And the guy next to her in her US history class two days ago had spent the entirety of the final-exam period coughing and hacking with his mouth wide open.
“Lisa?”
She blinked. “What?”
Brad was studying her with blatant concern.
She glanced at the card he held up.
Oh. Right. “King of shpades.” She frowned. Wait. Had she said spades or shpades?
Brad slowly lowered the card. “Are you sure you’re all right?”
A wave of light-headedness washed over her. Lisa gripped the edges of the table as she reeled to one side in her seat.
“Shit!” Eyes wide, Brad leapt up and rushed around the table. He gripped her shoulder firmly with one hand to steady her and knelt beside her. “Lisa?”
“I’m not feeling so good,” she murmured.
He gently brushed her hair back from her face, then felt her forehead. “No fever.” He leaned closer and stared into her eyes. “Your pupils are dilated.”
“So’re yours,” she murmured. His nearly eclipsed the blue of his irises.
His frown deepened. “I’ll go get help.” Rising, he spun to face the door… and lost his balance. Staggering to one side, he threw out a hand to brace himself against the counter. “What the hell?” He sank to his knees.
Lisa tried to call his name, to ask if he was all right, but couldn’t seem to make her mouth work. Darkness floated at the periphery of her vision, then rushed forward. The sensation of falling took her. A clatter arose. Pain pierced her when her head hit the floor.
She tried to move. Tried to call for help.
But everything went black.
Chapter Two
Taelon ground his teeth as pain assaulted him. Endless agony. Excruciating.
Every time he thought it couldn’t get worse, the butchers would find a new perverse torture to inflict upon him. Neither remorse nor empathy glittered in the eyes that followed the path of the knife as it cut away a piece of flesh here, another there. Instead, gleeful fascination lit the expressions partially obscured by masks, pleasure in the face of his pain. Needles pricked his skin, stealing more blood than he could afford to lose. One of the doctors injected a substance in a tube that ran into his vein. His head swam. His thoughts grew hazy.
He should have listened to Ari’k. The stoic Yona guard, whom Taelon considered a friend despite the latter’s emotional detachment, had urged caution and counseled patience. But so much time had passed since the Earthlings had gotten their hands on Amiriska that Taelon could find no patience. The information Janwar had unearthed was outdated. The Gathendiens knew where Amiriska had been taken—a military base in the province of Texas. But that base had been destroyed shortly thereafter.
Had Amiriska died there? The Gathendiens thought so but had no proof.
Sometimes, when whatever drug the Earthlings pumped into him plunged Taelon into near-unconsciousness, he imagined Amiriska escaping her ruthless captors, razing the building that had imprisoned her, and finding a safe haven nearby in which she could await rescue.
But Riska was sweet and delicate. Yes, she was a hard negotiator and could stand her ground in political battles. She could match anyone in a war of words. But she had never been trained to fight physically. They had never seen the need to drill her in methods of war and self-defense because unmarried females in his society were always chaperoned. Violent crimes were rarely committed on Lasara. And Amiriska had nevertheless always been well guarded as a member of the royal family that ruled their planet.
Until she snuck away from her guard on the way to a diplomatic meeting and flew to Earth with only a small crew. Taelon still couldn’t figure out how she had managed to do that.
Electricity shot through him, stiffening every muscle in his body.
Drekking Earthlings and their torture.
Tears threatened when he imagined these monsters doing the same to his little sister, but he blinked them back. The butchers would assume the pain they inflicted elicited them and would take pleasure in seeing them fall.
A
ri’k, as lacking in emotion as the rest of the Yona people, had bluntly concluded that Amiriska had most likely either been killed in the fire or transferred to another facility. The closest they could find that met the same criteria of the first was this one. Most of the military bases on this continent were known publicly. This one, like the one that had originally incarcerated his sister, was secluded, hidden, and shrouded in mystery.
Taelon’s body continued to twitch involuntarily after the electrical current ceased. He ignored the chuckles and loathsome comments of his tormentors.
Ari’k had volunteered to teleport to Earth and perform reconnaissance. But his unusual skin coloring would have drawn too much attention. Taelon’s second-in-command had recommended sending a Lasaran soldier down instead to gather intel. But Taelon possessed a gift that gave him an edge neither the Yona nor any of the Lasaran soldiers had. He could make others see what he wanted them to. So he had pulled rank and come himself.
The room tilted and whirled as the dizziness increased.
It had been yet another miscalculation. But it had yielded clues.
These butchers knew about Riska. He had glimpsed it in their thoughts before they’d drugged him that first time.
Was she here? Was she close to him right now, being tortured like him?
If so, he should be able to feel her. Though he didn’t bear her gift of being able to recognize and trace any individual’s unique energy signature, on Lasara most family members could sense when a loved one was nearby.
Was the drug interfering with his ability to sense her? Or…
He swallowed hard.
Was she dead? Had the butchers taken their torture too far and killed her? Was her body frozen in stasis, a rare specimen preserved for these monsters to study?
More pain. More dissecting.
He had made several mistakes in his urgency to find her. But he refused to let those cost him his life. He wouldn’t die—couldn’t die—until he knew his sister’s fate. And every once in a while these butchers let something slip when they spoke. He just had to bide his time and cling to life as long as he could.
If his sister still lived, he would find some way to free himself, rescue her, and send her home before he punished those responsible for harming her.
The Lasaran (Aldebarian Alliance Book 1) Page 3
