Archetype (4 page)

I
run every day. I run with sore muscles and aches in my knees I fear will never go away. I will live with this pain because during this time I can focus on something that is not a nightmare or Her voice in my head. She must like to run, too, because She never talks to me during these sessions.

Declan sees how much I love this exercise and brings me special shoes and more clothes to wear. He says they are made specifically for runners. I like this new label.

I am a runner.

Patient.

Wife.

Runner.

 • • • 

Foster stood and reached out for my hand. “Time to go, Major.”

 • • • 

I pace down the row of books in Dr. Travista’s office, my fingertips skimming over the soft black covers with gold embossed letters. The titles are in English but may as well be in Swahili for all the sense they make to me. Arthur Travista really is a genius if he can read all these books.

The books lining his shelves are sandwiched with bookends: large chess pieces, gargoyles, or mini replications of
The Thinker
to start. Almost hidden between one-half of a pewter globe set and bronze scrolls sits a digital frame. Scrolling through are images of a young brunette woman. She is not exceptionally beautiful but is undeniably pretty enough to turn more than a few heads. Her only imperfection, if you could call it one, is the dark mole on her right cheek. I pause to study her visage during my visits but have yet to gather the nerve to ask about her.

Until now. “Is this girl your daughter?” I ask, but I do not see a resemblance. The age difference fits, though.

When I face Dr. Travista, he is looking at his clasped hands in his lap. “No.”

There is a finality to his answer, but I have contained my curiosity long enough to not hold back now. “Wife, then?”

He looks up and a brief smile glances across his face but does not touch his eyes. “Once upon a time, she might have been.”

“What is her name?” He clearly still cares for her despite his somber mood.

“Her name was Jodi.”

“Was?”

“She’s gone now. Has been for more than twenty years.”

“Oh, I am sorry. I should not have pried.”

He waves me off. “It’s been a long time, Emma. Let’s get back to you, shall we? How do you feel?”

“I am well.”

He leans into one side of his chair, a hand tapping a quick rhythm over his knee. “Exercise seems to agree with you. You’re very relaxed these days.”

I shrug and return to the books with names that I can only guess refer to researching the body and all its parts. He has a particular interest in the brain and memory and, according to the bindings, has authored a few himself. “I like running.”

Dr. Travista is silent a long time, but I can almost feel him watching me. Always observing me. Always waiting to see what I will do next. I believe he is waiting for me to elaborate. He will be waiting a long time.

Finally, he says, “Do you like to read, Emma?”

I turn to catch him making notes in his computer tablet. This question has surprised me because I do not know the answer and I should. “I do not know.”

He barely glances my way, still typing in his notes. “Is there anything you would like to read?”

“I do not know,” I say again and then turn fully to face him. “Why do I not know this? Should I not know what I like to read? If I read at all?”

Dr. Travista removes his glasses and nibbles on the end. “In time, maybe. You had a serious accident. All of this will take time.”

“What kind of accident?” I ask.

“That answer, too, will come in time.”

I clench my teeth and breathe slowly in, then out of my nose. “Will it never be the time of my choosing?”

“In time,” he repeats and taps something else into the tablet.

I turn away to hide my annoyance. When I trust my voice not to quiver, I say, “You choose.”

“Choose what?”

I stare blindly at gold letters and soft black covers. “The book. We will find out what I like.”

No classics,
She says.

“A classic,” I say.

Because you’d rather sleep than read?
She says in a dry tone.
Don’t be so difficult.

“Never mind,” I say grudgingly. “No classics.”

“No classics,” Dr. Travista repeats. “Any other instructions?”

I wait for Her to tell me, but She is silent. “No.”

“Then I shall have a few options sent to your room.”

I walk to the window now, and cold seeps through the panes. A light layer of snow coats the parking lot. No footprints mar the perfection, so the fall must be recent. “It snowed,” I say.

“Yes. A couple of hours ago. Do you remember snow?”

I press my fingertips to the cold glass. My breath fogs the surface, obscuring my vision. My answer sits behind a sudden lump in my throat.
Oh yes.
I remember.

 • • • 

I shivered in the courtyard, my feet buried in snow. My slippers did nothing to protect them from the icy feel, and my toes had long ago gone numb.

Victor Porch, the captain of the guard, paced in front of us, his dark eyes narrowed and his hands clasped behind his back. Unlike the large group of girls he looked at, he wore a fur-lined coat and boots.

“One of you,” he started, his voice startling me with its thunderous nature, “has decided that our rules are not to her liking.”

My body went rigid. They knew what I did. How did they know?

“What is our number one rule?”

The group around me answered in unison. “Do not leave the compound.”

I sighed in relief. Not me. Definitely not me. I fingered the indigo petals in my smock pocket and decided I would bury the flower tonight before they did catch me. What number was the rule for stealing? Four? Five? Regardless, a bloody whipping and a week of solitary confinement.

“That’s right,” Captain Porch said. “And we haven’t had any violators of this rule in years. So many, in fact, you probably don’t understand the severity of punishment that goes along with this crime.”

Crime? Was he serious? He spoke as if this was the ultimate in crimes against humanity. My gut clenched for the hapless girl; her punishment would no doubt be painful. But I understood wanting to escape. The fact that I stood in snow to my ankles was only one reason.

Toni spoke of escape almost daily and planned to make it out before her time came. Before she was chosen. I admired her courage to speak openly about things the others were too frightened to consider. One day I would find the same courage in myself.

“You’re about to witness this punishment firsthand.” Gray teeth flashed from behind a vicious smile. “Your only assignment is to tell the tale, girls.”

He motioned to another guard, who opened the side door to one of the windowless detention rooms. In seconds, he dragged Toni out by her auburn waves, clutching so tightly to the crown of her head that she walked on her tiptoes. To her credit, she didn’t so much as whimper through her clenched teeth as she tripped along the path he dragged her on.

I gasped behind both hands. She hadn’t been at breakfast, and I had assumed she was only skipping the meal she skipped frequently because she preferred sleeping in to the bland food.

Toni’s entire body shivered in the cold. Her skin had turned a sick shade of blue. They’d been freezing her to death in there, I realized.

The guard threw her to her knees in front of Captain Porch. The soft snow flew away from her in a cloud. Slowly, she rose on shaking legs. She gritted her jaw and lifted her chin in a show of defiance. It must have taken all the strength she had to fight the urge to curl up into a warm ball, begging for his mercy.

“You understand what you have done wrong?” he asked loudly.

“Yes.” She didn’t hesitate.

“Then you understand what is in store for you?”

Toni met my eyes then, and I wish I could have read her mind. What must she be feeling? Did that determined gaze camouflage fear?

“I understand and accept it gladly,” she said and returned her fierce gaze to the captain. “Go on. Get it over with. I’m freezing.”

 • • • 

My legs weaken under me and I brace myself on the windowsill. Tears flood my eyes but they do not fall. Not yet. Behind me, Dr. Travista is standing. He is saying something I cannot hear.

I hear only Her.

Don’t you dare speak of it,
She says.
You are strong because of her. She wants you to fight.

But I do not want to fight, and I do not want to look at the snow, so I close my eyes. But this is worse because now I see Captain Porch reach for his handgun and press it to Toni’s head.

I open my eyes.

Now all I see is her blood in the snow.

And I am angry.

C
alm down.

No,
I think.
What are you doing to me? You manipulate my dreams, and now you use them in my waking hours to taunt me.

Not dreams.

I clutch the sides of my head and clench my teeth.
Shut up! They are dreams. Toni and Wade and Foster and Noah and Sonya . . . they are not real.
You
are not real.

“Emma?” Dr. Travista grips my wrists and pulls them away from my head. “What’s the matter? Talk to me.”

“Nothing,” I say, but we both know this is a lie. I scramble for another response but can hardly think clearly through the pounding of my own heartbeat in my ears. “Headache.”

Dr. Travista feels my head, takes my pulse. “Let’s go run some tests.”

I yank my trembling hands free. “It is only a headache.”

The doctor edges around his massive decorative desk and presses a button. “I won’t hurt you, Emma. You know that.”

The tears I have been fighting fall freely now. I know what is coming and would rather tell the truth than deal with what he intends to do. “I do not want tests. Please. No more tests. I am lying. I do not have a headache.”

It is the truth he believes is a lie. I know this by the way he tilts his head in a mocking gesture.

They only believe what they want to believe,
She says.

Get out of my head!

You have to calm down. You’re making this worse on yourself.

My fingers grip tight to my hair and I drop to my knees.
Leave me alone!

I wish I could,
She says, and I almost believe She is as sad as She sounds.
But that would mean giving up. Unfortunately for you, I don’t give up.

Well, neither do I.

That’s all I want to hear.

 • • • 

I wake up under a large white bulb. Several, actually. They form concentric circles under a single aluminum lamp hood. Dust particles float in the air. Dr. Travista’s gray eyes watch me from behind a blank expression.

“How do you feel?” he asks.

I hate this question. “Where am I? How did I get here?”

“I had to sedate you,” he says. “How do you feel?”

The lights make my eyes water and I squint. I try to use one of my arms for cover but they do not lift. When I look down, I find I am bound to the table by Velcro straps. Instinctively, I jerk and the bindings burn and pinch my wrists.

“What are you doing?” I ask, panicked.

“I’ll remove them when I think you’re no longer a danger to yourself.”

I gape at him. “I am no danger to myself.”

Dr. Travista lifts a tablet from the table and enters a few commands. When he turns it on me, my reflection blinks back. My skin is pale and my eyes are wide and darting. On either side of my face, long red gouges mar my skin.

I gasp. “I did that?”

“Yes,” he says simply.

“But why?”

“You tell me.” He leans on the table and narrows his eyes. “It’s time to come clean, Emma; otherwise, I can’t help you.”

I do not need his help.

The thought is automatic, and I do not understand it. But I know from experience that it does not matter. I cannot tell him what is wrong. Even if I wanted to, I cannot. I will never forget the suppression of air in my lungs. How my throat locked. I do not want to feel that again.

Dr. Travista sighs and nods once to someone nearby. I am suddenly surrounded by his nurses. Randall twists my arm and forces a needle into the crook of my elbow.

I jerk in surprise. “What are you doing?”

“What I must,” Dr. Travista says evenly.

Another nurse pastes electrodes to my chest and head. He does not look me in the eyes. None of them do.

“Put the stirrups up,” Dr. Travista orders someone. He snaps a rubber glove over one hand. “May as well run a few extra tests while I’m at it.”

No,
I think, but my tongue is too heavy to voice the word aloud. I do not want this to happen.

Cool hands lift my heavy legs as the
clink
of metal locks into place. I am asleep before the cold metal stirrups fully rest against my bare calves.

 • • • 

“Just relax,” the strange doctor said.

I squeezed my eyes shut and tried pretending I lay somewhere else. That I didn’t lay propped open by stirrups, my legs spread for a strange, gangly man. I’d feared turning sixteen for this very reason.

The gynecologist appointment.

The regular bimonthly visits that would continue until we turned eighteen. From what I’d heard, they didn’t stop even then.

The doctor worked and talked as if poking around in my womb was normal. My answers and responses were as simple as I could make them.

Toni would tell me, don’t give anything away. Keep your answers short so you don’t tell them something you don’t mean to. Keep as close to the truth as you can. They can spot a flat-out lie a mile away. Evade, evade, evade.

I didn’t need her instructional reminders today, though. My jittery nerves kept me from elaborating anything. But it helped to remember her voice. I’ve tried to remember it every day for the last two years. I can’t forget what she taught me.

 • • • 

I wake in my room. I notice right away the bruised and achy feeling in my lower belly. My throat is dry and I cough.

“There you are.”

Declan rises from a chair in the corner and lays a book down on the table. He does not look at me as he fills a cup with water. His beautiful lips are set in a frown.

I sit up and accept the glass he offers me. “What happened?”

He sits on the edge of my bed and appears to focus on his clasped hands. “You’ve had a setback. Arthur says we’ve been allowing you to do too much and it’s causing stress to your body.”

My spine snaps to attention and heat floods my chest. It takes everything I have not to react irrationally by lashing out with accusations and arguments to the contrary. And in the end, I still cannot halt the strained words that finally slip past my throat. “I do not do too much. I am not allowed.”

If my reaction surprises him, he does not show it when he meets my gaze unflinchingly. “We’re restricting your activities for a while.”

“What? No!”

He nods once. “I’m sorry, but your health means more than anything else.”

Scorching hot tears threaten, and a roll of heat moves up my chest and into my face. Declan’s eyes widen when I throw my sheet off my lower body and stand opposite him. I barely notice the coolness of the floor under my bare feet.

Declan rises slowly and his eyes, usually soft and kind, narrow and harden. His thinned lips say what he does not:
Be careful where you go next.

But I do not care. “You cannot do this to me,” I say and do not recognize my own voice. It is low and wells up from the deep recesses of my chest.

“I can and I will,” he says, his tone even and deep.

I am unaccustomed to him speaking to me this way and should be scared, but I am too furious about the loss of what little freedom I have been able to gain.

Hide your anger,
She says.
Play on his sympathies.

I straighten and close my eyes. Drop my shoulders. Take a calming breath. “I had a headache,” I say softly, then look at him, letting tears glaze over my vision. “And Dr. Travista overreacted. He scared me. How else was I supposed to respond? I was afraid he was going to hurt me. And I was right, because he did.” I rest a hand over my throbbing abdomen. “He hurt me and you trust him?”

“Some of his tests are necessary,” he says, and his expression softens. His gaze drops to my stomach and he swallows deeply.

I have made my way through his defenses.

I round the end of the bed. “I did not drink enough water after my run and I got a small headache. I told him and he started acting strangely. I was scared and only wanted to get away from him. Did his tests show anything was actually wrong with me?”

He looks hesitant to answer. “We are still waiting on some test results.”

I take his hand. “Declan, please. You have to believe me.”

He sits on the bed and pulls me down beside him. His hand caresses my cheek and he sighs. “I want to believe you.”

Kiss him.

I do not hesitate and kiss him. In his surprise, he is slow to return it but quick to make up for it. His soft lips taste of the fresh water he must have drunk while waiting for me to awaken. While his kiss is malleable, the stubble of his day-old beard burns my skin.

His lips guide mine open and my tongue darts out to meet his, igniting a fluid heat between my legs. This explorative kiss must release something new in him, too, because his hands graze my cheekbones on their way to the sides of my head, where he grips me tighter, deepening the kiss.

The heat of anger swiftly turns into something different, and I know instinctively that this is the heat of lust. Warmth swirls in my belly and snakes up my core, flaming out into my limbs to give them new life, new courage. While part of me is nervous about what I am doing, another part of me is willing to do whatever it takes and does not mind this course of action.

I maneuver up and straddle his lap, never allowing my lips to leave his. His fingers gouge deep, penetrating grooves into the small of my back, and I arch closer to him, feeling the swift beating of his heart against mine. His heat is my heat. His air is my air.

I grind my hips down over his obvious erection. This new sensation jolts me, and my breath hitches on a sharp inhalation. Our widened gazes meet in surprise and lust. It nearly shocks me into retreat. We are swiftly reaching the point of no return, and I wonder how far I am willing to take this.

Whatever it takes,
She whispers.

With trembling fingers, I find the knot in his tie. His gaze holds mine as I yank it free with surprising ease and slip it over his head. My fingers have found their nerve again by the time I undo the first button of his shirt.

His slender fingers run a hot trail over the throbbing pulse in my neck and up to my swollen lips, his gaze following hungrily after. His hands tighten like a vise around my head again, and he slants his mouth over mine. All gentle pretenses are gone. He is lost in his lust and I am not far behind.

My fingers grip the bottom of his shirt and pull. He yanks the rest of it free of his pants, shifting awkwardly under me to do so. I push the fabric over his shoulders, allowing my hands to slide over his skin. His shoulders are round and creased in muscle that he has hidden well until this moment. Each indentation shifts under my hands as he wrestles to pull himself free of the shirt.

I am disappointed to find another layer of clothing in the form of a tank top, but this does not stop me. I guide him to lie on his back and oscillate my hips against him. He groans, and this pleases me. I want to elicit more of these sounds from him.

His hands maneuver under my top and are hot against my skin. I have no memory of his touch on me like this, and it makes my breath catch. He smiles against my mouth and strokes his hands farther up. They stop and his thumbs trace over the bottom of my rib cage, so close to my breasts, and it is agony to my body.

I bite his lower lip in retaliation.

Smiling, his eyes glisten as he holds back his kiss in return.

I reach for something he cannot keep from me. My hand closes over his erection and his eyes widen. His jaw falls open and holds. His chest lays unmoving under me and he forgets to deny me his mouth.

“I am not as fragile as he would have you believe,” I whisper over his lips, and I do not know where the words come from. I had not meant to say anything. I only meant to see this through to completion because I am bottled heat with no release.

In an instant, I am on my back and he shoves off the bed, his chest heaving. He reaches for his shirt and I prop up on my elbows, dazed. He cannot look me in the eyes and his lips draw down in a frown.

“What is the matter?” I ask, though I can guess.

He buttons his shirt and says, “I will speak to Arthur.”

He turns and I scramble off the bed. “Where are you going? I thought—I thought we . . .” I trail off, more willing to perform the act than speak it aloud.

His gaze meets mine for the first time, and there is no gleam of happiness. Only a hard edge. “You made your point. I won’t force you to do something you have no desire to actually perform.”

Declan is out of the room before I can respond.

The door slides closed and She says,
Well done, Emma. Very well done.