The Forbidden Trilogy (21 page)

Once in the bathroom, I put her keys and badge in her
pocket, and "told" her to forget that I did, and that she was feeling
better and should explain to the doctor.

We walked out of the bathroom together. The doctor stood
with his arms folded, a frown on his face.

"I'm sorry, doctor. I think it was something I ate for
lunch. I'm feeling much better now."

And she looked better, though still a bit pale.

"You can never leave the patients unattended like
this." He looked at me with renewed suspicion, and turned back to her.
"It puts everyone at risk."

"Where is your IV?" he asked me.

I'd forgotten all about it. "I had to take it off to
get help. I tried ringing the bell, but no one came, and I was worried."

I sat on my bed as Susie reattached the IV.

"Everything is fine, Doctor," she said. "I'm
sorry she bothered you with this. It was just a bad food reaction."

I'd probably gotten her in trouble, but I had a hard time
feeling too bad about it. To avoid suspicion, I linked to the guard, told him
to get back to his station and get the cameras up.

Mind control had become second nature to me. So much for
ethics. No wonder Susie hated me so much. I might hate me too, one day.

***

The doctor and Susie left the room. I sighed and fell back
on the bed. Not
my
bed. Once upon a time, Rent-A-Kid had been home to
me—dysfunctional as hell, but still home. Dreams of New York had gotten me
through the rough patches. Now I had only myself, someone who'd let everyone
take advantage of her for eighteen years. What good was I to my baby?

'You have me,'
the comforting voice in my head
whispered.

Yes, Drake and I were in this together. We hadn't met in
person, yet I felt as if we'd been friends since childhood, just waiting to see
each other again after a short time apart. When you're linked to someone in
such an intimate way, it's impossible not to develop that strong bond. Or kill
each other! Add to that a baby and... we couldn't turn back.

'Nurse Susie is here to change my IV.'

We both stopped breathing, waiting to see if she noticed the
switch—the make-or-break moment in our plan. At least, the first such hurdle
we'd have to clear.

How would we get out? Where were we? Where would we go? Who
would help us? Who would believe us? Too many questions. No matter. I wasn't
going to die here, unless it was while fighting for our freedom.

'She's done. She didn't seem to notice anything
different.'

"Do you notice anything different?"
Was it too
early to hope?

'Not in my powers, but this doesn't burn me inside like
the drugs did. It feels cooling and cleansing. My mouth doesn't feel stuffed
with cotton balls anymore.'

I closed my eyes, took a deep breath, and held it for a few
seconds before releasing it in a slow sigh.

"So now we wait."

I'd never expected to play hero, and didn't really want the
role. Several other paranormals would have been better at this than me. Not for
the first time, I wished for another path, a normal life in New York. My wishes
were made on dead stars, it appeared.

I stretched my body and raised my arms to the sun during my
daily exercise routine. My reinvigorated appetite had made my body stronger.
Still, my pasty skin and flaccid muscles did not approve of me. I did my best
with the time and body I had.

Three days had passed since we'd made the switch. Drake
still didn't have his powers back, and I couldn't fathom another possible way
to escape. We would both need access to our full powers. Already it seemed an
impossible feat.

I finished stretching and went into a
push-up/sit-up/strength-training routine, pushing myself not to give up.
Superhuman body parts might not have been part of my special powers, but I
would use what I did have to maximum effect.

"Drake, how do you think they find us?"
I
sweated through my t-shirt in the hot sun.

'I don't know. I've been trying to figure that out
myself. They didn't find me for a long time, which seems odd. Maybe because I
moved so often.'

"You were a secret ninja!"
I joked. Not
very funny.
"What if they have a seer, someone who finds us with a
third eye kind of thing? How do we escape someone who can do that?"

'I don't know.'

"I've been thinking. We both use mental powers to
manipulate the mind. What if we could figure out a way to join our powers,
strengthen our ability to control those frequencies, and link with whoever
tries to find us? Link with them and mislead them?"

The idea had been building in my mind for a while.

'That's a brilliant idea, Sam. And it just might work. We
should try it here, see if we can link to people farther away. Maybe we can
start with your friends. You couldn't link to them alone, but maybe together we
could. That will give us a sense of our power and range.'

"I'm not going to start controlling my
friends."
I felt bad enough doing it to anyone. I was not about to
start adding people I loved to this.

'Of course not. We'll only practice that skill if they
let us, and only with things they approve. Agreed? Whichever twin we practice
on, the other can tell us if it worked.'

Would this harm them? I didn't know. Let them make the
choice on their own. We had to know what we could do.

"Okay, but if they're uncomfortable with it, that's
it. No pressure!"

'Should we try now?'

My guard stood by the hospital door, not really watching me,
but obviously there because of me. Impossibly high electric fences surrounded
the area. What did he think I would do out here by myself? Sprout wings and fly
away?

I sat on the bench by the empty basketball court... an
ironic venue given they only allowed us out here alone.

I rested my elbows on my knees. To anyone observing, I would
look as if I were cooling down from my work out.

"Ok, I'm ready."

It's not as though we had an instruction manual for this, so
we both just linked and imagined our minds as one. The sensation frightened me.
My mind and thoughts expanded to include his, and I felt his do the same. It
wasn't like the one-way link I normally made, nor was it like the mind-talk
link we had going.

We immersed ourselves in each other—mentally naked,
vulnerable, scared. After a lifetime of hiding who I really was from almost
everyone, to stand before anyone completely raw made me jittery. So be it. We
had to save ourselves.

I waited for the judgment, the pulling away, the fear.

Instead, I found a kindred spirit. He too expected judgment
and feared the loss of our intimacy when I saw his true self.

But I'd dreamed his memories for so long that the little boy
he had been transposed over the man he had become—and I saw all of his true and
complete self.

His anger and violence, the dark shadows that haunted his
soul, made sense in the context of the life he'd been given. I embraced it all
and offered him sanctuary inside my heart.

In return, I found my own solace in his.

How I wished we could stay in that moment, relishing the
magic of each other, but we needed to see if we could connect to Luke and Lucy.

He followed my lead, since I knew what mental vibrations to
look for. It wasn't so much like traveling over a geographic area as turning to
the right channel on the television.

When the link switched on, it flared strong and sudden.

Lucy screamed in my head, and we almost dropped the link.
Luke's thoughts drifted next to hers, which surprised me. I'd never linked with
so many people at once—like a party in my head. I suddenly had an image of
Being
John Malkovich
.

"Shhh, calm down. It's me, Sam. Drake is here too.
We're testing our combined powers."

'Oh my God, Sam, I've been worried sick about you!'
I
could hear the tears in her voice.

"Are you okay?"

'We're fine,'
Luke said.
'It's been hard without
you here, and all the staff is getting weird. We haven't managed to send
pictures to Drake's friend. They're cracking down on security since you left.
Even assignments have been cut back.'

'I wonder what's going on,'
Drake said.

"Oh my God, you guys, Rebeka is here. And very
pregnant. She looked miserable."
I'd tried to link with her several
times, but couldn't find her. I worried something terrible had happened.

Lucy sounded sad.
'That's awful. She was sweet. Her
para-power should have been kindness instead of seeing through walls.'

"Yeah, it broke my heart to see her. Oh... and it
gets better. I'm starting to show. We're going to have to escape soon, before
they realize I know everything."

My head pounded as if a team of construction workers had
moved in. How long could I maintain this link? My muscles spasmed, and sweat
flowed from my head in small rivers.

We explained quickly. Much to my friends' credit, or
insanity, they readily agreed to be guinea pigs for us.

We experimented, making Lucy jump up and down, Luke sit in
the corner, and Lucy stand and sit over and over. We had to sync our thoughts
and focus really hard to make it happen. We had a lot of misses at first, but
we figured it out through trial and error, and our successes became more
consistent.

"Thank you for letting us do this,"
I said.
"What does it feel like?"

'It's like your body and mind split,'
Lucy said,
'and
somewhere inside, you know you're not in control, but then it doesn't matter.
Those times you told me to forget, I have no memory of anything.'

"You are the best friends. I miss you so much. We
will escape, and we will find a way to get you guys out. I swear. I wish we
were all together, in our apartment in New York, debating what to do on a
Saturday afternoon. Not living this nightmare."

'Hang in there, Sam. We'll all make it through,'
Luke
said.
'And Drake, you'd better take care of her and that baby, or I will
find you and make your life hell.'

I missed Luke. I missed both of them so much it nearly
crushed me.

Much to Drake's credit, he accepted my friend's threat in
good humor, promising to do anything it took to keep us safe.

I hung on to the link longer than I should have, not wanting
to say goodbye to my friends. When my nose started bleeding and my head hurt so
bad I nearly passed out, I forced myself to break the link. Tears rolled down
my cheeks and onto the hot gravel at my feet.

At times, when I thought about what we were up against, I
feared our task would be impossible. Then I felt my baby swimming in me,
reminding me with a gentle mental tug that hopelessness was not an option.

Now we knew we could control willing subjects from a great
distance. Our test had been successful, the knowledge gained useful. The
headaches, not so much.

When my hour was up, I slogged back to my room, showered
quickly, and slept for most of the afternoon.

***

I didn't make it two days before my only wardrobe choices
came with elastic bands, as my belly swelled too much to suffer through buttons
and zippers. Not as if I had to dress nice for anyone, stuck in a room alone
all day. My "dates" with Drake didn't exactly require a dress code.

"What do we do when we get out of here?"

'What do you mean? Like how do we take down this whole
organization?'

"That, yes. And us. I have no home, no life outside
these walls. No one even knows I exist. I have no ID, no last name even. How
will I survive out there?"

I didn't really expect an answer, but it helped to talk to
about it all. The terror of failing burned like a wildfire in my chest. The
fear of success sat like a brick in my stomach. I didn't want to become a ghost
in the world. A nobody.

Who was I without proof of life? No birth records or
identifications. No passports or parents. I didn't even exist outside of
Rent-A-Kid, and neither would my baby. To get a job, make money, pay taxes—all
these things required paperwork I didn't have. I'd seen enough of the world out
on assignments to know there was only one place for people so far off the grid.
They became the nameless, faceless masses on the streets.

'Sam, you won't be alone. I won't leave you on the
streets to starve. You have me and I have friends. We'll find a way to
survive.'

His comforting words played like a lullaby in my mind.

I tossed and turned with restless dreams that night.
Nightmares, really—images blurred together, evoking a sense of fear and
failure. I woke up in a sweat, tangled in my sheet, with my hair matted to my
face and neck.

'Sam, can you hear me?'

"Yes. Is something wrong?"
My clock said
2:30 AM. No wonder I felt like crap.

'I have my powers back. The drugs are out of my system!'

All sleepiness vanished. I sat up in bed, and we talked
about our next step. We'd been planning and talking about this forever, it
seemed. But still, this step was crucial. We had no idea of the repercussions
if we failed.

We decided to get some rest and plan our escape for the next
night. We needed all the advantages we could get. We'd have the night guard
disable the cameras and open our doors. Then we'd meet up, "borrow"
the guard's car, and escape.

Simple enough, right? Sure.

***

I woke up vomiting, with fire burning through my gut. My
stomach had doubled in size, and the pain threatened to tear me apart.

Nurse Susie rushed me to another part of the hospital on a
gurney. Dr. Pana met her halfway down the hall, as I moved in and out of
consciousness. Drake worried somewhere deep in the back of my mind, but I
couldn't respond.