The Forbidden Trilogy (19 page)

"He won't be bothering us again."

My heart shattered and my lungs stopped working. I coughed
out a sob. The fingers around my mind tightened, and my grief burned into pure
rage. He had destroyed my life, my dreams, and Mr. K. I would make him pay...
for everything.

A stillness settled on my mind, and I stopped fighting his
influence. Instead, I observed every detail of the experience, and then I
noticed—he was clumsy, unskilled. He couldn't dig deeper, couldn't unearth my
secrets. He may have had access to my powers, but he lacked my training and
skill. I could use that against him, somehow.

Too much had happened, too many new revelations. I needed
time alone to consider, to talk it through with Drake. And I needed access to
my own body.

"Can you at least get these restraints off me? It's not
like I'm a threat in my current state."

He pushed his body against my hospital bed, blocking any
view I had of the door and trapping me in his scent—a cloying blend of
too-sweet body odor and too-musky cologne. "That could be arranged. Just
remember, Sam, you have no power here. I control you and everyone at this
hospital. Don't resist me and don't fight me, are we clear?"

I smiled sweetly. "Crystal."

Like a snake, his skin slithered against mine as he undid
the latches on my restraints. I rubbed my raw wrists and ankles, and stretched
my sore, cramped body.

"Nurse Susie will be in shortly to show you to your
room and explain the rules. Feel free to make yourself at home. We want you to
enjoy your stay here, however long it might be." He turned and left.

I tested the limits of my battered body. When I stood, all
the blood rushed from my head, leaving my feet feeling heavy and awkward, and
my head pounding.

I gripped the railing of my hospital bed and pulled aside my
gown to examine myself. Red and purple bruises had created a new map on my pale
skin. My stomach curved out in a barely noticeable bump. I wrapped my gown
around me before anyone else could see—just in time to avoid the prying eyes of
Nurse Susie as she pushed open the door.

The shift of attention offset my balance, and I reached for
the nurse's arm to steady myself. She started to shy away, but apparently
remembering her job, put her hand on my waist to steady me. She helped me sit
in the wheelchair and hold onto my IV pole, and we made our way down the hall.

Bare, boring beige walls led to my new room, which had a
twin bed with a blue comforter that looked clean enough. A modest closet, a private—but
basic—bathroom, dresser, desk, and a small nightstand by the bed made it seem
less like a prison. Any apartment I could have found in the Big Apple would
probably have been smaller. The remote next to my bed controlled a television
hooked to the wall, beyond my reach. A small barred window overlooking the
woods reminded me that I was still in prison. Once again, I wished for Luke's
superpower of walking through walls.

"Your personal items have already been put away. I'll
bring your meals at 7:30 AM, 12:30 PM and 5:30 PM. If you need anything else,
just ring that bell by your bed, and someone will respond immediately."
She said this as if to suggest that ringing the bell would be frowned on.

"Am I allowed to go outside, walk around or work out
anywhere?"

She eyed me and placed her hands on her hips. "You'll
get one hour of outdoor time every day after lunch. There's a gated courtyard
where you can take a walk."

"Wow, this is just like I always imagined prison would
be."

"I suggest you learn to appreciate what you have here.
Not all are so lucky."

I thought of Drake, strapped down and drugged. When was the
last time he got to exercise or move around? Better off than him, but lucky?
Not so much.

The nurse left me alone in my room, with only the monotony of
my new life to occupy my mind.

Thank God I still had my connection to Drake, but first I
needed to get cleaned up. They'd stripped me of my bloody, torn dress, but I
still smelled of airplane debris and death.

I pulled my IV across the room to my bathroom and used up
what little strength remained to wash myself. Dirty water swirled into the
drain, and I kept rinsing and washing until that water ran clear. If only I
could cleanse my insides so easily.

Sapped to near exhaustion, I searched the closet for clothes—something
familiar and comfortable—and found some sweatpants and a t-shirt. I took the IV
bag down and pulled it through the sleeve in my shirt, allowing me to dress. I
was tempted to tear the damn thing out, but my loving nurse probably wouldn't like
that very much.

Once tucked into bed, and before sleep could overtake me, I
reached out to Drake.
"I think I have a plan."

I tried to infuse my mental voice with more authority and
confidence than I actually possessed.
"We need to get your powers back.
So I'm thinking I need to find a way to switch the medicine they have you on,
so we can get the drugs out of your system. When your strength returns and you
can manipulate people with your mind again, we can work together to get out of
here."

'That was my thought, too. Next time the nurse comes to
replace the fluid, I'll look at the bag more closely and tell you what it's
called. You can poke around in her mind to see where they keep it.'

"Sounds good. I'll just have to figure out how to
get out of here to make the switch. I'm hoping they won't keep a pregnant girl
locked up all the time. I need to walk around and stuff, to keep the baby
healthy. Don't I?"

'I guess so. One of my foster moms had some complications
while pregnant. She was forced into bed rest for months. That's when I had to
go to another home. It was too much for them. So I don't know.'

No way did I want bed rest for months!
"Great,
thanks for the pep talk."

'Hey, just trying to be helpful. We might want to have a
Plan B in place.'

"We're going to have to be careful. Dr. Pana can use
my powers against me. He was also able to use Kyle's fire powers. I'm guessing
Dr. Pana can tap into any paranormal's powers and use them. How can we possibly
fight against that?"

'He's got to have some weaknesses, some way to gain the
upper hand.'

"He's unskilled. It's like he's a kid playing with
toys he doesn't understand. I don't know if that makes him easier to beat or
more dangerous, like a kid with a loaded gun. If only I had your ability to
control minds!"

'That would be awesome. Wait, I wonder... have you ever
tried to use another person's power?'

"No, why would I?"
The idea intrigued me,
but I had no reason to believe it was even possible.

'Maybe you couldn't do it with most powers, but what
about other mental powers? Your mind-reading is similar to what I can do. You
gather information from their minds, and I manipulate information. Either way,
we're accessing a person's thoughts. I bet you could do it if you tried. Maybe
that's why we have this mental connection, because our powers are so much
alike. And maybe... maybe that's why they paired us up, because they want kids
with our combined power.'

That made sense, although the thought of them genetically
planning our babies, with some nefarious, long-term plot, made me ill. No time
to think of that now. Could I learn to control minds like Drake? I'd never
tried it, but... how to start?

'Next time the nurse comes in make sure you're linked to
me, and see if you can get her to do one small thing mentally.'

"Okay, but how?"

'Well, how do you read minds?'

I'd never really thought about it before. I'd always known
how to do it. The hard part had been learning to control it.
"I form a
link with them, like a colored chord that goes from my mind to theirs—kind of like
plugging in a telephone. Once it's connected, the information flows through it.
If I have to, I can go into their mind and extract more thoughts, not just the
ones they're having in the moment, but previous thoughts. That's a lot harder,
because it's not a neat filing system where I can just look up what I want.
It's a mix of images, sounds and smells, all layered on itself. That's where
the good doctor fails. From what I could tell, he can glean immediate and pressing
thoughts from someone when tapped into my power, but he can't dig deeper."

'It's not that different then.'
He sounded more
excited than he had before. Maybe we did indeed have a chance at succeeding.
'When
you're in their mind to read it, instead of just receiving the flow, send
information back. Implant it there like it's their own thought. We did
something very similar when Luke and Lucy were under the influence of those
drugs. Only, instead of pushing against a fog, you'll be pushing a specific thought
or command, but the energy and focus are the same.'

I remembered that feeling while in Luke and Lucy's mind, but
the thought of my best friends filled me with a profound loneliness. I would
probably never see them again, which seemed—unfathomable. Inconceivable.

'Sam, stay focused. We'll get out of here and then we'll
help them. I promise.'

I had to believe him. So I would bide my time and wait for a
chance to practice mind control.

***

My opportunity came that night when the nurse brought me
dinner.

The sound of the door opening woke me from a nap I didn't
realize I had taken. She placed a tray of food on the table next to my bed. I
eyed the funky looking meatloaf and Jell-O mold suspiciously, but knew I'd have
to eat it if I wanted to keep up my strength. Besides, if they wanted to feed
me drugs, they had a straight line to my veins. They wouldn't have to rely on
my food.

Before the nurse could leave, I decided to practice the mind
control thing. Who knew when I would get another chance?

"Drake, are you ready?"

'Yes.'

First I reached into her mind.

'She thinks she's so much better than everyone because
she has powers... just a freak... can't believe I felt sorry for her... can't
believe they want to breed more like her... disgusting....'

I focused my will and planted a thought.

"You need to wash your hands... you should do that
right now...."

For a moment, I thought I'd succeeded, that her will would
bend to mine, and a heady rush of power filled me. But then her will rose up
and pushed me out with a violent force. My head exploded in pain and I cried
out.

"What's the matter now?" She sounded bored, not
angry or suspicious. How could she not notice? She must not have sensitivity to
anything.

"Just a headache. Migraine."

"I can authorize a pain medication if you'd like."

As tempting as that was, I wanted to stay alert.

"No, I'll be okay. Thanks."

She shrugged and left the room, and I slumped back into my
bed, sad and defeated.

"Drake, why didn't it work? It should have worked. I
could feel it. I was so close."

'Don't give up, Sam. You just need more practice. It took
me time to master this, and you're pushing it pretty fast. Try again once you
recover. Next time, instead of talking to the person, reframe the thought as
something they would think to themselves, like 'I need to wash my hands.'

That made sense. The compulsion needed to feel like it
generated from within the person being controlled. I considered future commands
and practiced them in my head while waiting for the next opportunity.

***

Instant success did seem unlikely, but that didn't make the
failures sting less. Still, I didn't give up.

I used the same command over and over, and each time the
headache lessened—marginally, but enough to offer hope.

By dinner the next night, everything clicked into place. As
per usual, I compelled her to wash her hands, and then waited for the onslaught
of the headache.

Only it never came.

Her will bent to mine, and it stayed bent.

"Excuse me, I need to use your bathroom to wash my
hands." She walked to the bathroom, washed her hands, and then left my
room with a slightly baffled look on her face. The lock clicked shut as she
went back to wherever she spent her time when she wasn't sitting in judgment of
me.

I'd done it! She couldn't have had that impulse to wash her
hands in my bathroom at the exact moment I implanted the thought.

Drake's voice filled my mind.
'I knew you could do it.
Now you just need to practice more, in small ways. They'll remember what they
did, unless you also tell them to forget after they do it. You need to get good
at that, because the things you'll want her to do later will raise huge red
flags if she remembers.'

"No kidding. I doubt she'll think it was normal to
let me out of my room so I can swap your drugs. But, if I can control her mind,
why not just have her swap the drugs, wouldn't that be easier?"

'Logistically it would be, but you would need to
micromanage her mind and control each step of the process. If you slipped even
once, you would fail. Getting someone to go against their own will, especially
if it also violates their ethics, requires a tremendous amount of sustained
power. It would be easier to lock her in a bathroom and compel her to forget,
though there are obviously more risks to you if you have to leave the room and
make the switch yourself. Speaking of that, I have the drug information you
need.'

I grabbed a pen and paper and took notes, all the while
wondering what would happen if she didn't forget as commanded, or if I got
caught in the halls. We'd have to avoid Dr. Pana, or I'd be screwed.

***

It had been two and a half days, and I hadn't seen anyone
but the nurse and Dr. Pana. That changed during my afternoon exercise hour.