I push my hair out of my face, straighten up, and take myself back into a trance. I will see him today. I will take control of this talent. No excuses.
Show me Doctor Pearce, I command again, not conjuring a picture this time, but instead the feeling I get whenever I see him. It’s a strange, physical feeling in the pit of my stomach – a mix of relief and anxiety that seeps out until it thrums through every part of me, and my heart flutters faster.
Show me Doctor Pearce. I fear him when he’s angry, but even then, he makes me feel safe. Boundaries. Rules. Consistency. Certainty. I craved them my entire life BTD without even knowing it. There is no chaos when the doc is there. Everything is orderly. Peaceful.
Show me Doctor Pearce. I need him. He needs me. I’m precious to him. He protects me. He cares enough to keep me safe. I don’t feel safe here.
Show me Doctor Pearce. Frustration flashes through me. Show me Doctor Pearce! Still I’m staring at nothing but the insides of my own eyelids. Dammit, show me Doctor Pearce! A rumble starts up in my throat. How the hell can it be this hard? This is my talent – I should be able to control it. I’m failing. I’m failing the doc again, and he hates failure. Failure is weakness. Weakness is abhorrent. Show me the doc! Let me see the doc! Show me! Show me! Show me!
I don’t even realise I’m shouting until I hear the words bouncing back at me off the walls. My eyes fly open and I think I’m going to puke. I failed. Again.
“Fuck!” I yell, grabbing the pillow and flinging it across the room. I jump off the mattress and launch that, too, throwing it awkwardly. I scream and slam my palm into the wall. It sends a jolt through my hand and my lip curls into the snarl. I deserve the pain. I failed. I pound a fist into the brickwork and unleash another scream of fury. My knuckles split open, but I don’t care. I relish the sting and the throbbing pain. I pound the wall again.
“Anna!” a voice calls through the speaker. Scott’s voice. Scott, who brought me here, away from the doc. Away from my home.
I scream again, and lash out at the wall with my foot.
“Anna, calm down.”
Calm down? I’d snort if I wasn’t so furious with myself. When in the history of calming down has telling someone to calm down actually calmed them down? And I was captured by someone so stupid. I must be even more stupid. Even weaker. I grab one of his photos from the wall and tear it down, tearing my fingernails in the process. I don’t care.
“Anna, please. Talk to me. What’s going on?”
I answer him only with another scream – I don’t know what words are anymore, my tongue and lips don’t remember how to make them. I am fury. White hot, wordless, raging fury. I am pain. I am hatred. I scream, and pound my hand into the photo wall, smearing blood across the images.
I am failure.
Chapter Twelve
Scott
“Anna, please, listen to me.”
The woman on screen didn’t so much as pause. He took his thumb off the intercom button and swivelled his chair to face Nate.
“She’s not listening. I’ve got to get in there.”
“No way. She’ll kill you. I’m sorry, mate, but she wants you dead even when she’s not losing it.”
“Look at her!” Scott snapped, gesturing to the screen where Anna was throwing herself around like a caged animal, punctuated with screams of pure anguish, each one rending his soul. “I’ve got to do something.”
“I’ll go,” Duncan said, pushing himself off the far wall. “It’ll be safer in an illusion.”
Scott shook his head, flicking his eyes between the screen and the illusionist as Anna’s screams filled the air between them.
“It’s not working. Look how long we’ve been here and she’s no closer to remembering who she is.”
“Aye, well getting yerself killed won’t work, either.”
Scott sunk back into his chair, and thumbed the intercom again.
“Please, Anna, just calm down. Talk to me.”
She didn’t reply, except to rip a photo in half.
“She’s going to kill herself if she keeps going,” Scott said. “Her stitches have already burst. We’ve got to stop her.”
“We could tranq her,” Nate suggested. Scott shook his head fiercely.
“What good is that going to do? We need to find a way to get through to her. We can’t keep her like this forever.”
The two men looked at Scott in silence. He recognised the look on their faces. Defeat. Dammit! He wasn’t giving up on Anna. Not after they’d come so far. He’d been forced to live without her once, and he would never do that again. He couldn’t bear to be without her, but seeing her like this, watching her punish herself day in, day out was torture. And hearing her call out for Pearce made him sick. He would get through to her. He would remind her who she was. There had to be a way.
He eyed the illusionist again. Maybe there was.
Chapter Thirteen
Anna
The room’s completely trashed and my fists are a bloodied mess. There’s blood smeared across the walls, too. I don’t care. Half the photos are in tatters on the floor, the other half are flecked with my blood. The pillow’s shredded and the bed’s upended. I’m vaguely away that the stitches in my arm have popped – again – but I don’t care about that, either. The camera is about the only thing left intact, and that’s just because I can’t reach it. I stoop to grab a plastic plate from the floor and launch it at the lens. It bounces off and falls harmlessly to the floor. The voice has given up speaking to me, at least, but they’re watching me, I know it. I grab the chair and almost miss the slight ripple in the air. I toss it anyway, swinging it with all my strength before launching it at the camera. Duncan appears just as it leaves my hands, and hits the camera, breaking into a half dozen pieces on impact. The Scotsman ducks, covering his head as the pieces fall done around him.
“Hello t’ you too, lass,” he says, straightening.
I pick up one of the chair’s legs and throw it at him. It turns to dust before it reaches its target. I grab a piece of the shattered backrest, but before I can throw it he says:
“We can do this all day, Anna, but I thought maybe you’d rather tell me what’s bothering y’ so I can fix it.”
By way of response, I launch the bit of chair at his head. It freezes mid-air and clatters to the floor. I turn my glare on it and it bursts into flames – though I note the flames don’t scorch the floor, and the nearby bedspread doesn’t catch light. Duncan’s doing, no doubt. Wonder what he’d do if I set him on fire. Before I can find out, the walls disappear, the furniture vanishes, and the floor turns to grass. I look around and see birds circling the lake in the distance. Ryebridge lake.
“I told you never to bring me here again,” I snarl, stalking towards the Scotsman. He shrugs.
“Wasnae my idea, lass.”
The air shimmers beside him, and then he comes into existence. The traitor. Scott. I freeze in place. Is he one of Duncan’s illusions?
“I’m real,” the illusion says softly. I look at Duncan and cock my head, then immediately hate myself for wanting his guidance.
“It’s true, lass.”
He speaks to Scott from the corner of his mouth, in a voice I suspect I’m not supposed to hear.
“I’m not sure how long I can keep this up for.”
Scott nods in response, then turns to me, hands held out to his side.
“No tricks, I promise. I just wanted to speak to you without anyone getting hurt. I’m worried about you.”
“You should be worried,” I snarl, conjuring a Sig-sauer in my hands and aiming it at him. Duncan looks wary but Scott only shakes his head.
“That’s not what I meant.” He plops down into the grass, apparently unconcerned about the deadly weapon I’m pointing at him.
I hesitate, unsure what to make of him. That’s not the response I was expecting. The man’s insane – none of us know what’ll happen if I kill him in here. Does he want to die or something? Or does he just
think me incapable? My lips tighten.
“You’re hurting,” he says simply.
I glance down at my bruised and bleeding knuckles. A quick blink and they’re fixed. In here, at least. Scott does that sad smile of his.
“That’s not what I meant, either.”
I’m not sure what to say to that. I drop my hands to my sides and let the gun fade out of existence. It’s not like it was having the intended effect anyway. What sort of idiot isn’t afraid of a gun?
“Anna, could you stop antagonising the men with guns, please?”
The lake is gone and we’re in a park with old rusting benches. Two of Pearce’s men are stood with guns drawn on us, and Helen and Nathan are standing by doing nothing. It’s the day of Janey’s funeral, and we’ve been betrayed. We told them to come alone, but they didn’t. Instead they brought armed guards, ready to force us back to AbGen by any means necessary. I can shift and escape, no problem, but Scott’s standing there, utterly unafraid, as though he’s the one who won’t get hurt if bullets start flying. Why isn’t he afraid? What if they decide to hurt him to control me? Suddenly I’m afraid enough for both of us.
I blink and drag myself back to the present. Scott and Duncan are staring at me. Too late, I realise that the flashback played out in front of them thanks to the illusionary world we’re trapped in, and the whole scene was coloured by my terror that Scott would be hurt.
“How long have you been having flashbacks for?” Scott asks eventually. I sigh, and drop down onto the grass. Not too close to him, though.
“Since the alley,” I admit to the grass beneath my feet.
“I wish you’d told me,” he says, his voice barely audible above the gentle breeze.
“And I wish you’d let me go,” I snarl, plucking a handful of grass in my fist. “So I guess we’re both disappointed.”
“You could never disappoint me.”
“Stop doing that!” I shoot, staring straight at him.
“Doing what?” He seems genuinely perplexed, but I know it’s all just an act.
“Pretending you care about me!” I snap anyway, tossing my fistful of grass back on the ground.
He starts to reach out to me, then catches my glare and lets his arm drop.
“I’m not pretending, Anna. You knew that, once.”
“I believed your lies once. Never again. The doc showed me the truth.”
“He twisted things around, but deep down you know what the truth is. I saw it in your flashback.”
“And I was wrong. That’s what I felt then, not what I feel now. That was before I learned how things really are.”
The trembling in my hands and the uncertainty in my gut give lie to my words, but now isn’t the time to weaken. I clench my hands into fists so Sc– so the traitor can’t see his words are getting to me.
“And how are things really? What is the truth according to Pearce?”
I tense at the sharp edge in his voice, ready to spring, and he immediately raises his hands.
“I’m sorry. It’s hard seeing you like this. I know you’re still in there somewhere.”
“I’m right in front of you,” I say coldly. “You not liking what you see doesn’t change that.”
He gives me a lopsided smile that doesn’t reach his eyes.
“Anna, I will love you in whatever form you take. I just don’t want to see you hurting yourself like this, because of Pearce’s lies.”
“He’s not a liar,” I all but shout at him. My hands tremble again and curl into fists. Pearce – I mean, the doc – is the one thing holding my crazy world together. He’s not a lie.
A discrete cough sounds behind us and I jump, then chastise myself for my sloppiness: I’d forgotten the illusionist was there. Scott nods in response to whatever reminder Duncan was conveying.
“Duncan’s right, we don’t have long. I don’t want to spend it arguing.”
And when he says it, I notice the slightly translucent quality to the world we’re in, like the illusionist is having trouble holding it together. Interesting. I bury the observation quickly because Scott seems to have some way of knowing my every thought, and focus on the rest of his words.
“Well if you came here looking for some sort of inter-cranial booty call,” I say, “you’re going to be disappointed.”
He laughs, and for a second his face is completely unguarded. It makes him look younger. I cock my head to one side, examining him. The sound is completely at odds with everything I’ve come to associate him with. This is the guy who – like it or not (and I’d have to go with not) – seduced me, turned me against AbGen, almost had me commit murder, and made me centre of a rebel effort to overthrow the doc. A sinister chuckle would be more fitting.
The sound fades under my scrutiny and his face gets serious. I almost demand he makes it again, then I shake my head and try to clear my mind. Doctor Pearce said this man was my weakness. He was right.
“Well, you haven’t tried to kill me yet, so I suppose that’s progress.”
“There’s still time,” I say.
“Not much,” he says apologetically. “I asked Nate to leave some things in your room. Do me a favour though – if you don’t want them, leave them by the door. No need to smash them up.”
He smiles half-heartedly, and my lips start to respond before I press them into a tight line.
“See you soon, Anna. I love you.”
He fades, and a moment later Duncan fades out too, and then I’m back in my cell.
I sit up groggily and look around. I’ve been laid on the bed, which has been remade while my mind was otherwise engaged. My blood’s been washed off the walls and the photos are back up. The only sign of my temper tantrum earlier is the crease lines running through half a dozen of them, and a carefully taped up tear that had separated me from Scott in the windswept photo. The chair I smashed in the illusion has been righted at the end of my bed, and there are a few items on it. I shuffle along the bed and take a look at the trio of objects. I pick up a small, rectangular object, and turn it over in my hands. An iPod. I didn’t realise these things even still existed. I haven’t seen one in forever, but then I suppose they were hardly going to give me a phone loaded with music. They’re not that stupid. There’s a Bluetooth speaker too – I guess I’m not to be trusted with wires, either. I scoff. As if I need a weapon to hurt them. I am a weapon.
I set them aside for the moment and squint at the last object. It’s a small silver heart: a locket of some sort. I vaguely recognise it, but it triggers one of those BTD-memory headaches. I shake my head, trying to clear it, which just makes the headache worse. My hand stretches out towards the heart, then stops short. I stretch out the last few inches and pick it up between trembling fingers. The chain is gone from the locket, but I remember that it was delicate silver, made up of intricate links. I remember the feel of Scott’s hands as he fastened it behind my neck. A shudder runs through me and I quickly set it down, and pick up the iPod instead. I haven’t listened to music since before the doc took me back in. I don’t mind, we were too busy training to have time for distractions, but since I’m stuck here with nothing better to do…
I turn it on, set it to random, and lie back on the freshly laundered sheets.
Chapter Fourteen
By the following evening, I’ve listened to all of the songs on the iPod, most, but not all, more than once (because Scott has some seriously questionable taste in music). The battery’s already down to one bar. I’d forgotten how much I loved music, even if I can’t sing to save my life. I make a mental note to ask the doc for an iPod when I get back to him.
And I’ve decided that’s going to happen today. No more waiting around for someone to come save me. I’ve become passive, and being passive never won anyone their freedom. I’ve spent most of the day alternating between meditating and listening to music while I hammered out the details of my plan. It’s going to work. Duncan showed me his weakness yesterday, and I fully intend to exploit it. He knows I’
m strong inside his illusionary world, but he’s about to find out exactly how strong I am. We both are.
I’m sat cross-legged on the bed when he comes to me. My eyes are closed but I can feel the subtle changes in the air that mark my entry into the illusion. I open my eyes.
“Evening, lass.”
I incline my head silently in greeting, then reach over and turn the iPod off. I could do it with my mind, of course, but there’s something soothing about the mundane act. The room falls silent. I stretch languidly and rise to my feet. The space beside Duncan stays conspicuously empty.
“Where’s Scott?”
“He thought you’d want some space before he saw you again.”
“Oh.” If I’m disappointed, it’s only because I don’t want to have to put my plan on hold any longer than necessary. Now that I’m prepared, I want to test it out as soon as possible.
“If he was wrong, I can bring him here.”
I hesitate, then nod.
Scott flickers into existence beside the illusionist. He looks confused, then Duncan mutters quietly in his ear. He claps the tracker on the shoulder and steps back. The room fades away and is replaced by a grassy bank and calm waters. By unspoken consensus, we’re back at Ryebridge lake.
“Anna,” Scott says with a smile, but he doesn’t move towards me.
I know I need to time my moment carefully. Too early and Duncan won’t be weak enough for this to stand even the remotest chance of succeeding. Too late and whoever they’ve sent to bring me food and tend my wounds will be gone. I’m only going to get one shot at this.
“Thanks,” I say grudgingly. “For the iPod.” I scuff my feet and add: “And the locket.”
“The locket’s yours. I was just returning it to its rightful owner. Nate found it left behind where Pearce captured you.”
Unleashed (TalentBorn Book 4) Page 9
