Claire shrugged her shoulders and rolled her head from side to side. He hadn’t been this bad in quite some time. The arrival of Dr. Cans had awoken some sort of hope in him and the depression had rolled away, like fog peeling away from the ocean. That hope had only seemed to improve with each new session he had with her, but something must have happened yesterday to change all that.
Now there wasn’t an ounce of hope in the man. His bound eyes were cast down and the tilt of his shoulders suggested the weight of the world. Claire was trying to decide if she had the reserves to initiate conversation when the opportunity was lost. Andre dropped into the seat to Miguel’s right and slapped him on the back.
“Hey buddy,” he said roughly. “You look troubled. What? Things not going well with the new doctor?”
Claire shot Andre a look but he only grinned back. It galled Andre that Miguel was here under his own free will while the rest of them had no say. Really, Claire couldn’t see where it made any difference anymore. Even if Miguel did want to leave, he wouldn’t be allowed. So while he might be interested in cooperating, she wouldn’t necessarily say he was any better off than the rest of them.
Miguel shrugged Andre’s hand off his back and leaned away without speaking, which only seemed to spur Andre on. He wrapped his arm around Miguel’s neck and leaned in.
“What? The fancy new doctor a disappointment?” he asked. “She not able to take care of your little problem? What is it again?” He looked up at Claire. “All the colors of the rainbow, or something like that?”
The small case slid towards her across the table as Miguel’s plate went flying. The anger had come on so suddenly that it caught Claire by surprise. Miguel lurched to his feet and shoved Andre back. Andre wasn’t a small man, but neither was Miguel. Claire subtly pushed her own chair away from the table, creating some distance between her and the now furious men. She had never actually seen Miguel angry and it was spellbinding.
He had taken plenty of abuse from Andre and Amy before, but he’d never reacted. Never let it affect him. Probably because he knew they were right, to a point. He had been kidnapped like the rest of them, but instead of fighting the institution in whatever way possible, he had acquiesced. Given in, but not given up. With each new doctor, Miguel had brightened slightly. And with each departure, he’d wilted again. But he’d never given up. Not like he seemed to have today. And in his despondency, Andre’s spite had pushed him over the edge.
“Yes,” Miguel spat out. “All the colors of the rainbow. All the colors. Do you know how many colors in the light spectrum are invisible? Do you have any idea what it’s like, seeing things that should be invisible? People think you’re crazy! You think you’re crazy.”
Andre just looked at him for a minute, sizing up the situation. In his surprise at Miguel’s rage, Andre’s own had dimmed, and now he was trying to read the new situation.
“Nobody sees invisible colors, man. That’s why they’re invisible.”
“Well, that’s kind of the point, isn’t it?” Miguel asked, losing the spark as quickly as it had come. “Why would I be here if this was normal? If it didn’t make me valuable.”
The emphasis on the word ‘valuable’ gave Claire pause. Of course the company thought these abilities they accused them of having were valuable. They wouldn’t be here if they weren’t. She had always known that. Like she had always known they would never be allowed to leave. But apparently, Miguel had been entertaining different ideas.
“I take it your session with the good doctor didn’t go that well yesterday?” Amy asked, poking her head over the back of the couch, where she had been lost in Pride and Prejudice, another book pilfered from the doctor’s stash, for the last two hours.
“Depends on your definition,” Miguel said. He seemed to sag all at once, the fight leaving him completely. He stepped over his chair and reached down for his plate, meatloaf and mashed potatoes smeared across the yellowing linoleum, before he upended his chair and sat back down. From the corner of her eye, Claire saw the usually-invisible security guards melt away from the windows. They had been alert, ready to respond if Miguel didn’t calm down on his own. It wouldn’t have been the first time they’d had to intervene, but it would have been a first for Miguel.
“If figuring out how all of this,” he gestured up towards the blindfold that seemed to permanently cover his eyes, “works, then I guess it went great. Dr. Cans is very good at what she does.”
Even without the benefit of eye contact, the ironic twist to his tone wasn’t fooling anyone.
“So what isn’t Dr. Cans good at?” Claire asked, knowing his mood was tied into what he’d learned.
“Nothing,” he said in defeat. “She’s good at literally everything. Too good, in fact. Which means I know she’s not wrong.”
“Not wrong about what?” Amy asked, settling into the chair on Claire’s right, drawn to the conversation despite herself. She unconsciously tucked the book under her arm as she leaned in a little closer.
“What it all means,” Miguel said. “The head injury, this,” he said, again gesturing up towards his eyes, “and I thought -”
“You thought she could fix it,” Claire said. It made such perfect sense. She hadn’t considered it before, but obviously that was the driving force behind Miguel’s pacificity. “It’s the reason you cooperate. You want it to go away.”
“Of course I want it to go away!” he burst out, some of his fire reigniting under pressure. “Why else would I play along?” He shoved his chair away from the table again and started to pace. “You don’t know what it’s like to not be able to trust your own eyes! When it first started, I couldn’t explain it to the doctors because I didn’t know what I was seeing. I didn’t even know it was color because I had never seen anything like it before. Can you imagine?”
For the last year, Miguel had fleetingly and haltingly mentioned this ability that crippled him, but Claire had never believed him. Had never even given it a thought. Because it was impossible. Maybe animals could see beyond the usual spectrum of visible light, but not humans. Not Miguel.
Claire could feel his agitation, had swallowed down his despair only a few minutes ago. It wasn’t an act. It was deep and visceral and she suddenly had no problem believing his story. And the implications of that frightened her.
“Did you know I only drove at night, that last year I ran the route?” he asked, turning to face them. “I didn’t sleep much anyway and the darkness helped to mute the color. But it was still bright as day. And day, well…” Miguel ran his hands over his face, grinding his palms over the blindfold where his eyes would be. “The day was unbearable.”
“What was it like?” Amy asked quietly. Claire glanced to her right. Amy was leaning forward, elbows propped on the table, hanging on every word. Andre was hardly better. His arms were also folded on the table, but he was looking down at his hands, expression blank. Both felt…afraid. Miguel’s tale was striking a little too close to home for their liking.
“I can’t describe it,” Miguel said. “It was…overwhelming. The colors I didn’t even know existed. And the brightness of it all…I felt like my head was on fire.”
“Is that when you started wearing the blindfold?” Andre asked.
“For the last few months I was out, I would park and lock myself in the trailer of my truck before the sun started to come up.” He shrugged. “The sleeper cab was still too bright, but the trailer was liveable, as long as I kept my eyes closed.”
“The trailer?” Amy asked. “Wasn’t that dangerous?”
“Did it matter?” he asked philosophically. “I could die from the heat in the trailer or I could die from the heat inside my head. At that point, it didn’t really matter. But I was lucky,” he went on. “I knew the route well enough that I could usually find a truck stop or annex that would have at least some shade through the day.”
Claire had been fighting the urge to ask anything more, but curiosity finally won out. “So why wear the blindfold
now?”
“I don’t have to when I’m in my room,” he said. “That’s why I spend so much of my free time there. The man who brought me here ordered my room special. There’s blackout windows and curtains, and the lighting fixtures have been removed. But anywhere else, closing my eyes isn’t enough.”
“Can you see through the blindfold?”
What a strange life they lived, Claire thought, that made that an appropriate question to ask.
“I can see through the blindfold and the backs of my own eyelids,” Miguel said.
Well that was…something. The three of them stared at Miguel, sure he must be joking but equally sure that he wasn’t. Eyes still downcast, his fingers toyed with the small case that had been propped under his lunch tray before it had taken an impromptu flight across the common room.
“What’s that?” Andre asked, interrupting the silence to nod towards the box.
Miguel looked down but at that moment, the door to the common room opened and Dr. Cans strode in.
Claire leaned towards Miguel and pitched her voice low. “Does Dr. Cans know you can see through the blindfold?”
He nodded his head. Disappointing. “Does anyone else here know?” Claire asked, refusing to be thwarted.
“No one else has ever asked,” Miguel answered, looking at Claire curiously. She could feel the eyes of the group on her but she studiously ignored them in favor of sitting back in her chair and shifting her attention to Dr. Cans, now approaching their table.
That information could be…useful. She just needed to think on it.
Chapter 30
Logan
Logan threw his full weight behind the jab, connecting with the bag and sending it careening across the room.
He was annoyed. Logan didn’t get annoyed very often, but now it rolled over him in waves. He was annoyed by the echo in the bunker space they had opened up on the other side of the basement wall, he was annoyed that the heavy bag absolutely refused to stay in place when he hit it, and he was annoyed that he even had to work out in an underground bunker at all.
When Dave had found the blueprints that showed the extra space on the other side of their wall, Logan had been thrilled. It was a simple job to open the wall and having the extra space to spar certainly spared Dave’s meager belongings the beating they were taking from Logan and Quincy training in their main living space.
Quincy had been ecstatic about the bunker too, just not for the same reasons. She had ideas about finding the others with RNB and bringing them here to recover, which was what she and Dave had started calling their sessions. Recovery.
Logan had to admit, having the bunker would open up plenty of living space for more people. It wouldn’t be hard to put up temporary walls. It was even plumbed in one corner if they needed to add those types of facilities. Quincy had thought it might once have served as a locker room for whatever business had been above them before.
Quincy. Logan was really, really annoyed with Quincy.
He had thought she was content to stay with them. Okay, maybe not content, per se, but willing enough to live here, work with Dave in his clinic, and stay safe. Dinner last night had shot that theory all to hell.
He knew he had promised she could help them find the others. He was still determined to do that, too. Somehow though, having Quincy here, safe and sound, had taken some of the fire out of his burning need to do something. She had to be safe. She had to be the priority.
And now she tells him she’s been digging into the others, the ones they assume had been abducted. Learning Italian because Claire Montgomery was fluent, filling up her mind with data she didn’t need to have. Did she not understand what that meant for her? Or what they thought it meant, anyway?
Logan stalked over to where the bag had rolled to a stop. He had hung it three times now, and three times it had come down. If he couldn’t hang a heavy bag right, was there anything he could do?
He kicked it. It was stupid, and Logan wasn’t normally given to displays of frustration, but he kicked it. Hard. And then dropped to the ground, clutching his foot. It was hard, and he wasn’t wearing shoes, and now he was more than annoyed. He was in pain.
He sometimes wished he could let loose a string of curse words like his Army buddies used to do. They always used to tease him about his good manners, especially Jones, but Logan wasn’t that kind of a guy. He was a gentleman and even though his mother had been an inconsistent presence in his life, she’d still taught him that much.
The thought of Jones brought a smile to Logan’s face and he laid back on the dirty floor, stretching his arms and legs to their full lengths and enjoying the feel of the cold, hard concrete under his back. Sometimes, it just felt nice to stretch out.
He ran his hands through the sawdust flakes left over from the wall coming down. He had suggested Quincy run a broom over it. She had suggested he eat said broom. The sawdust had remained.
Lying there in the sawdust, Logan closed his eyes and took a deep breath. And then another one. The pain in his foot was subsiding, as was the frustration in his heart. If he was being honest, he’d felt this way since dinner the night before. Realizing that Quincy was starting to dig on her own because he had been unwilling to hear her out had been tough. She was right, though. He had told her she could help the others like her. He hadn’t realized how big a part that offer had played in her decision to come to Colorado, but it was something he shouldn’t have overlooked.
He was just so worried. He knew she thought she was playing it cool, but he had noticed the odd lapses in memory that she couldn’t completely hide, try though she might. She didn’t remember the name of the town she’d been staying in when they met. She remembered it was in Arkansas, but the actual town eluded her. She didn’t remember how they met. If it wasn’t medically induced, he’d feel personally offended by that. He had worked so hard to set up a meet cute that wouldn’t put her off. He wouldn’t have thought the taco truck was forgettable.
She didn’t remember the Boatrights. That was the tough one. Mabel and Mackie Boatright owned Quincy’s favorite coffee shop in Sheraton. Logan had trailed her long enough to know she popped in almost every day. They were an older couple, no kids of their own, and they had attached themselves to Quincy like holes in swiss. Quincy almost always exited the place with a coffee in one hand and a plastic container of leftovers in the other.
For someone who prided herself on keeping her distance and not getting attached, the retired couple had wormed their way into her heart and made Quincy feel something. For her to not remember them now was painful to see.
He couldn’t just do nothing. He had vowed to try to stay out of her sessions with Dave. He had tried. It wasn’t working. This thing with her memory was too important to ignore. Maybe if Quincy wouldn’t listen to him, she’d listen to Dave.
Logan shoved himself off the floor and dusted the shavings from his hands. He needed a shower and he needed to talk to Dave. And he wouldn’t mind a burger, either.
Chapter 31
Claire
Dr. Cans strolled up to the table where their little group sat hunched together and Claire gave an icy smile.
“Doctor.”
“Good evening Claire. Amy, Miguel, Andre,” she said, smiling at each in turn. “I’m glad to see you all enjoying each others’ company.”
“Ah yes. Four peas in a pod,” Claire replied coolly.
Dr. Cans returned her cool smile with a slightly sardonic one of her own. “I’ll not keep you,” she said. “I’m just here to see Luann.”
“Luann?” Amy looked at the others. “Who’s Luann?”
Dr. Cans cocked her head, looking at Amy quizzically.
“Luann,” she repeated, like it should be obvious. When they all continued to stare blankly back at her, “The woman who feeds you.” She gestured over her shoulder. “Luann. From Chile. Makes the most amazing empanadas?” she prompted.
Still nothing. Claire glanced over her shoulder towards the kitchen. It w
as off-limits to the prisoners and the people who worked there were on their side. Why would she know any of them?
Dr. Cans looked as incredulous as her perfectly composed face could. “You’ve been here for a year? Two? And you don’t know who’s in charge of your meals?” She patted Miguel on the shoulder and shook her head. “That seems like an oversight to me. Don’t you think, Claire?” she asked, shooting a disappointed look in her direction before turning towards the kitchen.
Claire was almost offended. Why was the doctor’s last comment directed at her? Why should it be? Was Claire her fellow prisoners’ keeper? And why on earth should they bother to know the people keeping them captive? Luann might only work in the kitchen, but she was still a cog in the machine, as it were. She was actively serving the company that had kidnapped them. Why would Claire or the others give her any more of their time or attention?
Claire watched as Dr. Cans moved towards the cafeteria-style entrance to the kitchen. She leaned a perfectly tailored hip against the counter and waited to be acknowledged.
“What was that about?” Andre asked, clearly as mystified as she was.
“Luann makes empanadas? She’s never made us empanadas!” Amy said indignantly, and Claire smiled despite herself. Amy’s response was predictable, and it soothed Claire’s frazzled thoughts.
“I think she has, actually,” Miguel said. “They’re just different than the empanadas you might get from an American restaurant.”
“What?” Amy asked, confused by the segue.
“My parents were from Puerto Rico,” Miguel said. “And I’m just saying, you don’t make them here like they do back home.”
Claire rested her hand lightly on Amy’s knee, catching her attention and interrupting the retort Claire could feel rising in Amy’s chest.
“He’s right, dear,” she said mildly. “Americans have a way of westernizing cultural dishes to fit our own palates. I’ve seen it during my trips.” Claire stopped, thinking momentarily of her tours through Europe and South America. Sampling wine and bleu d’Auvergne in Bordeaux, naan bread in Mumbai, arroz con camarones in Buenos Aires, and dark chocolate and pralines throughout Belgium. She closed her eyes and let the memories wash through her mind, missing the southern Argentinean winds and the Italian sunshine in Sorrento.
Burning Bridges (Shattered Highways Book 2) Page 19
