Listen (Muted Trilogy Book 2) (6 page)

She missed them, wondered how they were holding up and whether they had tried to find her. How many more Fridays would she have to spend in here, stuck in this cell, before she could join them again?

Jemma continued eating through her lack of appetite. She couldn’t keep her mind sharp through the monotony if she didn’t at least make her best attempt at ingesting enough food.

She put down the paper, no longer able to focus, and choked down the rest of her breakfast, emptying the bowl just before that day’s guard opened the door to allow her the morning’s bathroom break.

SIX

Quality

Josh seemed particularly exuberant that morning, grinning at Jemma as he drew her blood.

“I have a good feeling about today,” he typed after he finished handling the medical supplies. He winked at her.

Jemma stared. She’d found that was usually the fastest way to dim his misplaced enthusiasm. Today, he only chuckled silently, his shoulders moving up and down. “Don’t look at me like that. Here, I managed to get you something.” He handed her the old cell phone she’d used to speak on her first day, or at least, a phone that looked just like it. “You get to keep it this time, as long as you behave.” His grin was lopsided, and his green eyes sparkled.

She had been a good dog again.

Jemma took the phone from him, quickly skimming through the menu and verifying she still had access only to the typing program.

“You’ll be able to charge it in here during lunches.” Josh was practically bouncing as he typed. “I may even be able to get a game unlocked for you later.” He watched her, clearly waiting for a response.

“Thanks,” typed Jemma, blinking at the female voice. Though the quality wasn’t any better than the voices the scientists used, she hadn’t heard even a synthesized female voice in weeks.

“Okay,” typed Josh, “today, you’re going to try to send me a message telepathically, then type to let me know what you tried to say. It’s sort of the reverse of how you do it with Dr. Harris, I know, but we’re trying something a little different.”

Jemma nodded and waited for him to hold her arm, his hands stereotypically cold. She did as he’d asked and attempted to send a message, following it up with typing when it didn’t work. “Couldn’t you test telepathy more easily if you weren’t blocking it?” She decided to try to use his good mood for her potential gain.

His mouth pulled down to one side. “Yes. It’s safer this way, though.” Any lingering doubt that they weren’t doing something to actively hinder her abilities vanished.

“Safer for us or for you?” The monitor registered her attempt before her phone spoke, and Josh looked between the machine and Jemma before responding.

“Both, actually. Let’s move to a safer topic, please, since I can’t say more.” He paused, grinning and pointing toward the activity on the monitor. “But see what we can do when we cooperate?”

Jemma nodded, resisting the impulse to roll her eyes, then sought something to say that wasn’t on the topic she wanted to explore further.

“What prompted the cell phone? It does make things easier,” she tried finally.

Josh’s leg jiggled. “We thought it might help. New subject, please. What’s your favorite color?”

This time, Jemma did roll her eyes, but Josh grinned at the expression. Jemma had to think for a moment in order to answer. “Brown,” she typed, ignoring the brief mental image of Jack’s brown eyes and hair, focusing instead on the color she’d often associated with books.

“I like orange,” Josh supplied without prompting. “If you could turn into any animal, which would you pick?”

The questions continued back and forth for nearly an hour, Josh asking things Jemma tended to associate with children or teens, or maybe people on a first date. Some answers were easy, some she hid from him, and some she made up because she honestly hadn’t thought about them. At least during the questions, he wasn’t treating her like a pet. Not quite.

“That was a good deal more entertaining than your reciting memorized sentences,” he typed when they’d finished. Josh turned and rummaged in his little supply box. He handed her a granola bar, which was chocolate today, then turned back to his keypad. “There’s one more surprise for you, so our session will be a bit short. Eat up, and we’ll finish soon.”

“What is it?” typed Jemma.

He shook his head, mimed zipping his lips shut, and started typing on his tablet. Jemma chewed slowly, working through the possibilities for a surprise. The phone wasn’t a bad one, she had to admit. She knew what she hoped for, but release for herself and Jack seemed unlikely.

When the door opened, Josh looked up, a pleased expression on his face, and he gestured for Jemma to follow the guard who waited outside.

***

Jemma was led first to the bathroom. It wasn’t unusual for her to be allowed a visit before lunch, but it was still fairly early in the day. She walked in and shut the door behind her before she noticed the pile of clothes on the back of the toilet.

They were hers, not the scrubs she’d been wearing for weeks now, but the clothes she’d come in with: comfortable jeans, a button-up blouse, and sensible shoes, a pair of white sneakers that served her well at work. They’d all been cleaned.

She changed into the clothes slowly. First they gave her a phone to make communication easier, and now they were giving her back her clothes. It seemed good, it really did, but it didn’t seem like release, and Jemma didn’t feel particularly trusting when it came to the people who held her captive for study.

She was piecing information together while she was here, but slowly, too slowly. The sudden change in her comforts, that was a piece that just didn’t quite fit.

Jemma ran her hands over her blouse, smoothing it into place. She hitched her jeans a bit higher from where they’d fallen. The fabric felt harsh compared to the scrubs that she could forget she was even wearing. She slipped the cell phone into her pocket and looked in the mirror. Her face was thin, not quite to the point of looking unhealthy, but still thinner than Jemma’s internal image of herself. The skin under her hazel eyes was darker than usual, the way it looked when she’d stayed up too late reading. Her hair had gotten a little longer, not enough that she’d have noticed if she took the time to look each day. She looked worn out.

When she left the bathroom, the guard was still waiting for her, and he gestured down the hall, farther from her room. She hadn’t been this direction, not this far, and alarm bells went off again in her mind. There were numerous doors this way, but Jemma didn’t see any windows, anything to make the hallway stand out as anything more specific than the continuation of the same corridor. The guard stopped at the first door that had a label:
Cafeteria
.

He pulled a keyboard from the pocket next to his gun, using the device to type something Jemma wasn’t able to hear. He held his hand up to his ear as if holding in an earpiece, then nodded and opened the door to let her in.

The cafeteria was relatively small, with four tables that looked like they belonged in a school lunchroom. Instead of a manned counter for food, there were a few vending machines and a refrigerated display case with sandwiches.

Jemma took all this in only absently, though, as she focused on the man who was gesturing at another guard, his back to her. He turned, stilling when he saw her.

Jack.

She wasn’t sure who moved first, didn’t remember the distance between them closing. She leaned into his embrace, Jack’s arms wrapping around her tightly, his heart thumping against her chest. She could feel one of the guards trying to get her attention, tapping on her shoulder, but she paid him no mind, and Jack made no move to pull away.

“I’ve missed you,” she sent, holding her breath at her easy admission and at the fact that she’d actually been able to Talk, the echo surprisingly reassuring.

“Same.” His mental tone was firm, hints of relief, affection, and worry laced through it. To hear another real, human voice was wonderful. For it to be Jack’s, specifically—

The sudden robotic voice was jarring. “You will cease all physical contact or return to separate rooms.”

Jemma pulled back, reluctantly, sending a determined surge of all the emotion she felt before finally relinquishing contact and dropping her arms to her sides. Jack watched her, his eyes scanning her face and returning to hers.

He was wearing a t-shirt and jeans, and he looked as tired as she did. He was clean-shaven, his face a little red where she’d seen the beginnings of a beard two weeks ago, like maybe they hadn’t let him shave until today.

“You okay?” she tried to send. There was no echo, but it felt as if it almost went through, like trying to look through a window covered in translucent contact paper. She felt her eyebrows pull down, then jumped when one of the guards, hers, typed on the keyboard again.

“You will be allowed to eat lunch together every day that you cooperate,” the robotic voice informed her. “You will get a sandwich and a drink and sit across from each other, not next to each other, where you may use your phones to communicate for today, if you wish. If we see any contact, lunch is over immediately. Understood?”

Jemma nodded, seeing Jack’s mouth twitch before she walked over to where they could get their food. The machines didn’t appear to take money, which was good since Jemma hadn’t exactly been given her wallet. The display for the sandwiches offered five choices.

Choice. It was a sandwich and a drink, but it was the first real choice Jemma had been given in weeks. She looked over her options, aware of Jack next to her, and finally selected a turkey and Monterey Jack sandwich and a sweet tea. When they sat down, Jemma saw he’d gotten the roast beef to go with his tea.

“It’s a middle-school dance with no touching allowed,” typed Jack after retrieving a phone that looked identical to Jemma’s.

Jemma let out an amused breath and got out her own phone. “I don’t remember the chaperones being armed.” The guards stood, watching them, one posted at each end of the table.

Jack shook his head. “Ignore them.”

She opened her lunch, trying to follow his advice. She blocked out the guards, the fact that they had to talk in mechanical voices, the fact that she’d be leaving here to go back to her tiny little cell. The sandwich was dry, but it was hers, and she’d chosen it, and she was here eating with Jack.

She put her sandwich in her left hand and the phone in her right so she could type and eat, not sure how long they’d have together, then looked over at Jack. He was grinning at her, having just finished doing the same thing.

“It’s weird, not being able to hear you Talk,” she typed.

Jack nodded. “I tried. It just wouldn’t go through.” He glanced at one of the guards, then back at her, considering. How much should they say in front of the guards? If it had almost gone through for him, too, he probably shouldn’t say it in front of the guards. If they could find a way to make it work, it would serve them best if they could keep the fact hidden.

“I wish we could turn these down and read instead,” typed Jemma, remembering how they’d communicated in the library before they knew they could Talk. “Across the table like this, with it deleting after it reads each word, it’s forcing us to keep the sound on.”

Jack’s mouth pulled up to one side as he chewed. “I’m sure that’s intentional. Can’t have us planning a revolt.”

The guards didn’t seem to react to that. They probably knew it wasn’t really possible anyway, at least not yet. Jemma was still determined they would find a way to communicate, to escape.

The urge to reach across the table to take Jack’s hand was surprisingly strong. Jemma wasn’t sure whether it was the fact that it wasn’t allowed, the fact that she knew she’d be able to Talk to him if they could touch, or just the fact that it was Jack. Not wanting to cut their meal short, Jemma ignored the impulse and typed instead. “Have they been treating you all right?”

He nodded. “Mostly. I’m finally back down to one guard. They didn’t like that I tried to steal a gun, but I’ve behaved since. Word of advice: don’t bother trying it.” He watched her, making sure she knew the advice was in earnest rather than just a joke. Her mouth pulled down into a frown, and she shook her head. “What about you?” he continued.

“I haven’t tried to steal a gun. I’m not sure how to react to the fact that you did. I’m doing all right. They give me a newspaper every morning to keep me sane.”

Jack’s eyebrows raised. “You must be behaving better than I am.” Jemma frowned again, and Jack continued typing. “Maybe you just have more lenient doctors.”

“I’ve been calling them scientists,” typed Jemma, steering away from the thought that she’d been playing the good pet, after all.

“Seems kinda like they’re both, doesn’t it?”

The food was gone quickly, and Jemma felt full for the first time since they’d arrived in the facility. A guard tapped his boot on the floor to get their attention, then tapped his wrist with one finger.

Their time was almost up.

“We should be able to do this again tomorrow, it sounds like. That’ll make the days a lot more bearable.” Jack was watching her while he typed.