Chapter 15
CHAPTER 15
L ainey
When Lainey woke again, she wasn’t in Daddy’s lumpy bed with the sun streaming through the windows. This time, she woke on a hard cot in a room painted solid white with no windows in sight. She lifted a trembling hand to brush the hair from her eyes and something shiny caught her eye. A thick silver bracelet circled her right wrist. She tugged at it, but it didn’t budge, and she couldn’t see a latch of any kind.
“Good morning, sleepyhead!” A cheery voice came though a speaker she couldn’t see. “We thought you were going to be out the rest of the night.”
“Where am I?” Looking around, she searched for a camera, but all she could see was white.
“You’re at The Farm, my dear. We’re going to do some tests. Doesn’t that sound like fun?”
“Let me out of here!”
“Of course,” the cheerful voice said. The wall to her left slid open soundlessly, revealing a long, white hallway.
It screamed “trap,” but what choice did she have? She took off running down the hallway. There were no doors, just walls of white. Fighting back the rising panic, she ran until she came to a dead end. The wall to her right slid open, exposing a pitch-black room. With no other options that she could see, she ducked into the dark room.
As soon as she entered, the room was flooded with light and the wall behind her closed again with a quiet snick. Whirling around, she looked desperately for another way out.
This room was much larger than the cell she’d woken in, but still solid white. Tilting her head back, she found windows circling the top of the room. Positioned behind the glass were several people in long, white coats.
“Welcome to Observation Room One,” the same cheerful voice from her room said. “In this room, we’ll be testing your reactions to various stimuli. Look to your right, please.”
Trembling, Lainey turned her head. Relief washed over her at the sight of her parents standing there, arms wide open. “Mom? Dad?”
The room grew brighter and she tilted her head again, squinting at the bright light shining from the high ceiling. It was far brighter than any light she’d ever seen. Almost as bright as the sun.
“It’s a simulation, dear,” the voice informed her, as if it could hear her thoughts. “The atmosphere in this room will react just as if you were standing outside. Continue.”
Tearing her eyes away from the fake sun, she blinked rapidly to clear the dots from her vision and looked back at her parents. Still smiling, still holding their arms open, waiting for an embrace. It’s just a simulation. With that realization, the fake sky above her clouded and a soft rain began to fall. The image of her parents blinked away, and they were replaced by a smirking Donovan.
“Hey, sunshine.”
Her heart nearly shattered. She was never going to see him again. Not the real him. She would never feel his arms around her again, or his lips on hers. Even knowing she’d never feel his heavy hand blistering her bottom again made her ache for him.
The clouds in the fake sky turned black. Wind whipped around her, spinning the clouds above her into a funnel. Remembering her lessons with Daddy, she focused every bit of rage and heartache into the tornado. It spun around her, faster and faster, until she heard the spiderweb tinkling of glass splintering.
The alarms began to sound, and the room filled with panicked shouts. The winds lifted her until she was eye to eye with the white-coated people on the observation deck. Most of them ran for cover, but a few stood in place, writing furiously on their clipboards even as the winds pulled at their coats.
Without warning, the winds died, and she fell to the floor of the white room again. There was a sickening crunch and pain radiated through her right leg. The bracelet on her wrist flashed red.
“You’re even more impressive than we’d imagined!” the cheerful voice sounded nearly giddy. “Let’s get you to the hospital wing and get that leg looked at, shall we?”
The wall to her left slid open again, and two burly guards walked in. Just because they’d switched off their fake sky didn’t mean she couldn’t fight. She reached for the lightning, but she couldn’t feel it any longer.
“What did you do to me?” she screamed as the guards hauled her up.
“Naughty girl,” the cheerful voice said with a soft tsk. “Did you think we wouldn’t take precautions against your powers, my dear? Take her to the hospital wing, gentlemen. We need to get that leg looked at.”
At his instruction, one of the guards scooped her up and carried her from the room.
“Let me go!” Lainey screamed and smacked her fists against the guard’s chest. It was like punching a brick wall. “Please! Somebody! Help me!”
“Nobody can hear you down here, girl. So just save your strength.” The guards shared a knowing, chill-inducing look between them. “You’re going to need it.”
Donovan
Donovan pushed the speed limit as much as he dared, praying the entire way to any god who might be listening that he reached her in time. Ms. Edith had been unusually quiet the entire ride, save for when she was giving him directions.
“Take a left at the next road. Slow down or you’ll miss it.”
Grinding his teeth against an irrational wave of anger, Donovan did as he was told and slowed the car. At the next road, he turned the wheel left.
More goddamned farmland. “Ms. Edith, are you sure this is right? All I see is a bunch of nothing.”
She snorted softly. “It’s not called ‘The Farm’ for nothing, Donny. It’s literally a farm.”
Of course, it was. “How the hell do you know all this, anyway?”
“This is where the church sends the people whose powers put them in trouble with the law or cost them their families. I come out here once a month to talk to them and help put them at ease about the rehabilitation program. That’s what I always thought, anyway.”
It made sense, in a way. The church was practicing what he’d always known: The best way to keep anyone from guessing your secrets, was to pretend like you didn’t have any. The regular members would get suspicious if all these people just disappeared to The Farm and were never seen again. By bringing select people out here to mentor or what-the-fuck-ever they wanted to call it, word of the good works being done at The Farm would spread like wildfire through the church. Which had an added bonus of encouraging the rank and file to try and bring people into the fold, like Ms. Edith had tried to do with Lainey.
“How did you get involved with the church?” It probably didn’t matter at this point, but there was no such thing as too much information in a situation like this.
“I saw a flier for their weekly meetings and figured it couldn’t hurt. Everyone was so nice. And it was nice to be around people who weren’t afraid to show off their powers. It gets old, living in fear,” she finished quietly.
He couldn’t hold that against her. Hell, if it hadn’t been for the information Rico had given him, he might have let Lainey go to one of those meetings at some point. Though he’d have been happy being a bit of a loner, he understood how others might need to connect.
“What’s your power, if you don’t mind me asking?”
With a small, satisfied smile, Ms. Edith tapped her temple. “I know things.”
Donovan glanced over and raised an eyebrow. “You can read minds?”
“No. No visions, either. Not really. I just… know things. I knew you were a Variant the moment I met you. Same with Lainey. Things just sort of,” she gestured vaguely, “pop into my mind.”
“You sure you’re not just your garden-variety psychic?”
Ms. Edith chuckled. “I’m sure. We’re almost there. There’s a sign up ahead. Turn right and let me do the talking.”
Instinct screamed at him to just barrel in, guns blazing. But Edith was his in, and they had a better chance of getting Lainey out safely if they slipped in and out as quietly as possible. He stopped at the heavy iron gate blocking the drive and rolled down the window.
The man who approached the car looked friendly enough, if it hadn’t been for the slight bulge under his jacket giving away the location of his weapon. A genuine smile lit his face when he leaned in and spotted Ms. Edith in the passenger seat. “Ms. Edith! What brings you out our way? We don’t have anything on the books for you today.”
“Ben!” Ms. Edith’s smile was genuine. “How are Sheila and those beautiful babies of yours?”
The man’s own pleasant smile widened into a grin. “They’re great. Sheila’s a champ. The twins are keeping us on our toes, but we’re loving every minute of it.”
“I’m sure. Ben, this is my nephew, Donny.” She smacked Donovan on the arm. “Say hi to Ben, Donny.”
“Hey.”
If Ben heard the barely restrained anger in Donovan’s voice, it didn’t show. “Hey, Donny. Nice to meet you.”
Leaning across Donovan, Ms. Edith dropped her voice to a conspiratorial whisper. “Ben, Donny here really wants to see our rehabilitation program. He has a boy at work who could really benefit. I know it’s unusual, but could we pretty please take a look around?”
Ben’s pleasant smile faltered. “I’m sorry, Ms. Edith. Planned visits only.”
“Can’t we make an exception? Just this once?”
“Sorry, Ms. Edith. Those are the rules.”
Donovan’s knuckles turned white on the steering wheel, but Ms. Edith just leaned over him and held a hand out to the kid. “Oh, well. It was good to see you again, Ben.”
The kid slipped his hand into Ms. Edith’s – and immediately slumped against the car, passed out cold.
Donovan jumped in his seat. “What the fuck!”
“Well don’t just sit there, Donny. Drag him up to that little box up there and see if you can’t get this gate open.”
He stared at her a moment before shoving the door open. Hooking his arms under the kid’s armpits, he hauled the dead weight up to the control box.
“‘I just know things’, my ass,” he mumbled to himself. “What the hell else does she have up her sleeve?”
The controls for the gate were easy enough. He flipped the switch for ‘pen,’ then pressed Ben’s hand to the glowing screen for what he assumed was a fingerprint scan. The iron gates slowly slid open and he jogged back to the car.
“How long is he going to be out?” he asked as they drove through the opening.
Ms. Edith shrugged. “Half hour or so.”
“Anything else in your bag of tricks?”
Tossing her head back, she cackled. “If I told you, I’d have to kill you.”
He was pretty sure she was joking. But considering she’d just knocked out a full-grown man with nothing but a touch to the hand, he wasn’t sure he wanted to find out. “Noted. Where are we going?”
“Well, how the hell should I know? I thought this was a rehabilitation center, not a test lab.”
Tapping his fingers on the steering wheel, he considered his options. “Any buildings you’ve never been in?”
Ms. Edith snorted. “Plenty. We pretty much only went to the rec center and the cafeteria the few times I’ve been here.”
His sarcastic response was cut off by a chorus of shouts. Checking the rear-view mirror, he spotted a dozen guards running after the car.
“Fuck. We’ve been made.”
“Turn right.” Edith pointed to a turn up ahead.
Accelerating, he spun the wheel, then slammed on the brakes, stopping just a few inches short of the boy standing in the middle of the road.
“Out of the way, kid!”
But the boy didn’t move. His gaze flicked to the commotion behind them, then back to the car. A slow smile spread across the boy’s face, sending chills down Donovan’s spine. The boy took two steps closer to the car, raised his fists, and slammed them down on the hood. The front of the car crumpled under the boy’s fists. He smashed the hood a second time and the engine died.
“Edith, run!”
The doors to the car were jerked open before he’d even finished the command. They were dragged from the car, with Ms. Edith kicking and screaming for all she was worth. Donovan elbowed a guard in the gut, grabbed a rifle from a second guard and had just leveled it at a third when he heard the soft snick of weapons engaging all around him. He looked around, expecting to see a dozen guns pointed at him. But every single weapon was trained on Ms. Edith.
A tall, thin man emerged from the fray, a small smile playing on his lips. “Hello, Mr. Carter. A pleasure to finally meet you.”
Donovan ignored the cold trickle of panic down his spine. “Who the hell are you?”
“Me?” The man’s eyebrows winged up in feigned surprise. “I’m nobody important. Just a humble servant to a greater cause.”
Donovan snorted. “Greater cause? Kidnapping innocent people and torturing them to death is a greater cause?”
“Science, Mr. Carter. Science is the greater cause.”
“Yeah, well, fuck your greater cause. Let Edith go.”
The man tilted his head to the side. His lips curved in a smile that froze the blood in Donovan’s veins. “No. I don’t think I will.”
There was a sharp prick in the side of his neck, and his vision began to waver. The last thing he heard before the world went black was Ms. Edith’s scream.