Chapter Twenty-Nine
Yun
Everything about the medical room put me on edge. It was different from my trauma, so it didn’t set off a panic attack in the same way, but I didn’t care for it.
I felt out of control, forced into something I didn’t want, and lying to Kenyon before I’d left hadn’t made me any more comfortable.
The outfit I wore made it all worse—a cloth hospital gown.
At least it was cloth rather than paper, but it still screamed the same thing—I was at their mercy.
“Do you not care for the outfit?” Mr. Yorn asked, tone almost bored.
“I’m just not sure why it’s needed.”
“I find that quick access to anything that requires testing makes things go easier.”
That made no sense to me, not given the sort of testing I suspected he would need. I frowned, my mouth getting the better of me. “It’s not about that, is it?”
“What else would it be?”
“You’re making it clear that you’re in charge, that there is a power imbalance.”
He paused, looking right at me for a rare moment, like I’d done a trick he hadn’t expected.
“You’re smarter than I would have thought, given your records.
You’re right—things work best when everyone understands their position in any relationship.
In this case, I am in charge. And you?” He paused, staring at me for me to answer.
“I’m not,” I said.
His smile brightened. “That’s right. Usually it takes much longer for a subject to understand that.
I can’t do everything here I do at Obsidian because it isn’t set up the same.
There, I usually have subjects entirely nude at first, and for some, they remain that way for a very long time.
It helps reinforce the power structure.”
“And you just need that reinforced.”
“Well, of course.” He rolled something toward the exam table where I sat, the item some sort of computer on top with drawers beneath it.
“Do you realize what I do there? I handle espers, generally, the most unusual, unique, and often dangerous cases that there are. These are individuals who could kill without a second thought, who have abilities so far outside of the range of even typical S-Rank espers. These are the ones who are too volatile to be released, who need such supervision and training. Many of them never get to leave because the world simply isn’t ready to know they exist.”
“Maybe they wouldn’t be like that if you treated them like people.”
“But they aren’t people. Some learn to pretend, to play the part of a person, but they aren’t.
You truly don’t understand. Some of the cases I’ve worked with have included an esper who can turn anyone they touch to dust. Their first victim?
Their own mother, when their powers manifested at ten years old.
There is an esper there who had a hunger so deep they consumed no less than twenty people before we caught them, who will attempt to eat anything living the moment they have the chance.
There was a mentalist who seemed born an esper—one of the few ever recorded—the most powerful mentalist ever tested, able to take over the mind and compel the actions of hundreds of people at once. ”
The way he said that had me frowning.
He nodded. “Yes, Shear. He came to us as a child, detached from all the people around him, seemingly empty minus power. I taught him how to harness that power, how to use it, how to at least pretend to be human enough that others would accept him.”
“He’s never controlled that many people.”
“I had most of his life to work with him, to put in safeguards, and yearly checkups to ensure they worked. He is like a rabid dog with a muzzle—still able to work, but not able to bite the hand that feeds him. He is, in many ways, my most impressive work. No one would have thought he could ever be released from Obsidian, yet he has been.”
I thought about what had happened during his test, when he’d done the seemingly impossible, when I’d somehow settled him down.
What did that mean? Did he truly have his powers dimmed by Mr. Yorn, and did he even know?
I thought about the things he’d said, the way Mr. Yorn talked about his subjects, and the thought of Shear as a child enduring that hurt.
It helped me to understand him better, or at least to know why I couldn’t understand him.
“Won’t he sense this?” I asked.
Mr. Yorn gestured toward a ring that ran around the top of the room, one that glowed a faint purple.
“That will block his powers. I have spent years conditioning him not to question that sort of block, which means should he check for you, he will find himself encouraged to leave you be. He won’t even feel it is strange.
I could strangle you here, and he wouldn’t feel so much as a blip in his mind over it. ”
If someone had said that while smiling, it would have frightened me. The way in which Mr. Yorn said it, with no inflection, no reaction, as though he truly didn’t care one way or another…it terrified me. How could a person be that cold? How could they care so little about others?
Then again, maybe that was the difference. Mr. Yorn didn’t see me as a person. Did he see civilians that way? Perhaps he viewed espers and guides as tools—nothing else.
That did nothing to reassure me, so I folded my hands on my lap and remained silent.
I’d learned over the months that I’d spent with him that sometimes going along was better. Giving in, staying quiet, it could save me a lot of pain when something was inevitable.
Mr. Yorn went about the work quicker than I would have expected. Most doctors and higher-ups did little of the actual work, in my experience, and tended to perform them with clumsy motions.
Each of Mr. Yorn’s movements said he did this often, that he treated his patients hands-on, himself.
No, not patients. Subjects.
First he took vitals, drew blood samples for testing, then had me perform a short guiding test with a cube. It was all similar to what I’d done when I’d first arrived at the base.
It made me wonder if perhaps I’d misjudged this, if I’d worried myself over nothing. I’d done this sort of thing countless times before.
Then Mr. Yorn turned toward me, cruel excitement carved into his stark features.
He didn’t give a damn about me—one way or the other—but it seemed the potential breakthrough was enough to thrill him.
“Now we start the true testing. What we just did was simply to set a baseline, to compare results directly to other guides. From here on out, we see what you can do—and can survive—that no other guide is capable of.”
And those words did not bode well for me…
* * * *
Kaidan
I stared down at the woman I considered my closest friend in horror. It wasn’t her physical state that shocked me, though I suspected that had been worse before. I sensed the energy of a healer, telling me that she had been in a condition that had required one to step in already.
Instead, it was her mental state. She warred between laughter and crying, her words slurred and her sentences meandering with little coherence. Clearly, she’d been given medication of some sort, though I didn’t understand why.
She’d been brought to me by guards who had left her with little to no explanation beyond telling me to keep it quiet, to not contact her squad.
Not that I planned to do that. I didn’t trust them with her regularly, let alone with her in this condition.
I had her head in my lap, her body stretched out on the couch in my trailer, and she opened her eyes to stare up at me in confusion.
“You back with me?” I kept my tone light, hoping for her to react without panic.
She blinked slowly, but the way her gaze darted around said she couldn’t quite follow. “I was at Medical…” Her voice trailed off, eyes widening, understanding filling them.
For a moment, I hated being the one to force her to recall, wanted to remove that all from her mind. The girl had suffered too much already—she didn’t need whatever this was.
She bolted upright, stumbling away from me and blindly toward the bathroom. Her gait was unsteady and she tripped more than once, but the narrow space of the trailer meant she furniture-surfed using the kitchen counter. She found the bathroom and hunched over the toilet when I followed.
She dry heaved, nothing coming up, so I reached out and held her hair back. By the time she sat on her heels, sweat covered her face, her skin was flushed and her eyes glassy from both the drugs and the exertion.
I helped her rinse her mouth, then escorted her back to the couch, this time giving her room.
“You can’t tell them.”
That surprised me. I’d known those fucking espers of hers had something to do with this, but it seemed they truly didn’t know anything.
“Why not? And can you tell me what this is, exactly?”
I watched in real time those guards of hers slam shut.
I’d witnessed it countless times before, but this time it occur so clearly, in slow motion, since whatever drugs they’d given her slowed her reactions.
Where that would have normally been the end of the conversation, it seemed the drugs also loosened the grip she had upon her tongue, because she spoke softly afterward. “Mr. Yorn…”
“I told you to stay away from anything to do with Obsidian.” Just the name of the man who ran that place chilled me, made me want to lock the door and gather her closer. I’d heard whispers about him, and none had been good.
“He said he’d kill them if I didn’t agree.”
And just like that, I hated them all the more. They might not have done this to her, but they were still the cause. Before she’d fallen for men who didn’t deserve her, she’d have had nothing to use against her. Now she had a weakness, and they’d given that to Yorn.
It took me back to my conversation with Ingram, to telling him that she would end up destroying herself for those she cared about, that they would ruin her, and here was the proof.
And as much as I hated to admit it, I knew this wasn’t something I could deal with on my own. I forced myself to speak, no matter how little I liked the option. “If you told them, they might be able to help.”
Would they, though? Sure, they’d threaten me, but would they stand up to the power of Obsidian for her? I wasn’t sure, but I knew I didn’t want to see this again.
She shook her head, tears forming in the corners of her eyes. “He’ll get them killed if I do. It’s fine. I just have to do some testing, and he’ll lose interest, and it’ll be fine. Promise me, Kaidan, for everything we’ve done together, for our friendship, swear to me you won’t tell them.”
I sighed, but it wasn’t her plea that got me to answer. It was the desperation in her voice. “Okay,” I agreed.
This testing might just kill her, but I knew that losing those men was something she could never make it back from.