Chapter 8
CHAPTER EIGHT
This time, it was Olivia who screamed. She sat up with a jerk and started to push herself off the bed, afraid that she was going to throw up on the covers. Somehow, she brought the nausea under control.
Eyes closed, she collapsed back against the pillows as sobs began to wrack her. Terrifying and disgusting moments from the scene with Smith played over and over in her mind. That man must not possess any shred of morality—or he never could have done those horrible things to another human being.
Travis reached for her and wrapped her in his embrace. “I’m sorry,” he whispered. “I’m so sorry. I’m sorry you had to see that.” He made an angry sound. “To see my shame.”
Her hands tightened on him, and somehow she managed to get words out between sobs. “Oh Lord, Travis. It’s not your shame. He forced it on you.”
“But I shouldn’t have taken you there.”
“Not your fault. I practically ordered you to do it.” Several minutes passed before she could add, “None of it was your fault. And you did what I asked.” As she spoke, she struggled to regain her composure.
The new normal, because she didn’t think her life going forward would be what anybody considered normal.
It seemed that the children from that clinic had become an obsession for Smith. That, and his utter lack of morality were a terrible combination.
As her mind switched back to a previous snippet of conversation, a bolt of insight shot through her, and she knew Travis felt it.
The children from the clinic.
“What is it? What’s wrong?” he asked, catching the weight she put on the words.
“Not...wrong...something amazing.”
He made a derisive sound. “Oh yeah?”
She stroked his arm, going back to something she hadn’t grasped the import of earlier. “He was talking about your mother having fertility treatments at the Solomon Clinic. About all sorts of far-out stuff that happened when two children from the clinic got together.”
Travis nodded.
“Remember when I started to interrupt you when you were talking about your mom’s fertility treatments.”.
“I’d forgotten...but yeah.”
“Well, I think...” She gulped. “I think that’s us.
My mother had fertility treatments, too.
She used to throw that at me when she was ranting about me being defective or something.
She’d gone to a lot of trouble to have me.
She’d even brought me back there a couple of times for testing.
And look what an unsatisfactory offspring I was.
I didn’t have any friends. I was probably on the spectrum.
Or worse, like maybe I was going to turn out to be schizophrenic when I got a little older. ”
Travis swore. “Oh, nice. And I thought my dad was bad. He did have a reason to hate me. I mean, I killed the woman he loved. And he was left with a screaming brat he had to take care of.”
“Who would think about their child that way?”
“A man who felt cheated by the way his life had turned out.”
Olivia shook her head. “Yeah, we’re a real pair.
A total disappointment to our parents. But think about the implications.
” She felt her excitement growing. “I’ll bet you any amount of money that our moms went to the same clinic.
And now we have an opportunity to catch the guy who strapped you to a table and went at you with an electric drill. ”
Travis made a dismissive sound. “But I don’t know who he is. I don’t know where to find him. The only things I know are that he’s not Mr. Smith—and he has a fixation on the children from the Solomon Clinic.”
Olivia wasn’t about to accept the negative assessment.
“He thought he was so smart, but he outsmarted himself.” It was impossible to tamp down her surge of optimism.
“With the powers we’re going to develop, I know we can find him.
And when we do, we’re going to be a lot better equipped to deal with him than we are now. ”
“What do you mean? How?”
She gave a mirthless laugh. “He told us how. He told us about the skills that bonded couples might possess. We’re going to see which ones we have and develop them. He ticked off a bunch of paranormal abilities. We already have some of them.”
“Like what?”
“To start with—like your being out there somewhere in the darkness and finding me.” And then there are the little sparks we created. And the light bulb shattering. We did those things. He gave you a bunch of stuff to try. And maybe there are some he doesn’t even know about and can’t imagine.”
“Not just sparks and light bulbs. We can talk mind to mind.”
She could tell by the way he said it that he was getting excited about the possibilities.
“But think about the bigger implication. I mean...you were out in the darkness somewhere, and you found me. Somehow we stopped you from...crossing over or whatever it’s called.”
She felt his chest heave. “Yeah, somehow out in the darkness—I had a vision of you.”
They were both silent for several moments, taking it in.
She turned in his arms, and he held her to him. She felt him trembling, or was that her? Against all odds, they’d accomplished a miracle.
She found his mouth with hers, and they kissed, both marveling that they were together—despite what Smith had done to him.
She was breathing hard when they broke apart. She wanted to take this further, but how far could it go?
Perhaps she was afraid to find out, because she damped down the sexual impulse. They would have time to explore that, but now, they had business to attend to.
His hand tightened on hers. “He gave us a road map. He told me too much because he was sure the only way I was getting out of that room was dead. Even when he tried to fake a connection with that woman he conjured up, he probably knew he couldn’t pull it off.”
She gave him a triumphant look. “But we’re the real deal—with a bunch of possibilities just waiting to be harnessed.” She went on, a new sense of power welling inside her. “When two children from the clinic get together, they...” She stopped and turned one palm up.
“They become more than they ever could have been as individuals,” he finished for her. “I mean, my being here is proof of that.”
“Yes.”
Her thoughts switched back to Mr. Smith. “The bastard. He must be a psychopath. But why the hell is he so interested in the children from the clinic?”
“Think about it. If we have powers like that, we’re like a walking weapon. For good or evil.”
“He talked about couples who died when he threw them together.”
“But the way he put it, I got the impression that there are other couples who got together and developed their powers like that detective he mentioned and the woman who was the fiancée of a drug dealer. Didn’t he say they got away from him?”
Travis nodded slowly. “You’re saying there are other people like us?”
She laughed. “We’ll not exactly like us. I think we have something nobody else has.”