by Dale Mayer
He slowly straightened. “Do you know where this building is?”
She slowly nodded. “It’s not exactly some place you ever forget.”
“Do you have an address?”
She shook her head. “No, but I should be able to find it if we drive around.”
“It’s in your old neighborhood, isn’t it?”
Tears threatened. “Oh yes. It wasn’t far away at all. In fact, I could see my roof top from my window. I always wondered if that had been on purpose. So I could see but not visit my home.”
“Bastard.” Dean stood up and walked to the window. “Did you ever go home?”
“After I moved to the lab I never saw my friends, my brother, or my parents again.” She gave him a teary-eyed look. “I never ever left that place until I escaped, and then when I was returned, I was a permanent resident – forever.”
*
Dean frowned. How did a child live through that betrayal? The very people who should have cared for her, loved her…walked away from her. Like, how did people do that? What was in their genetic marker that allowed them to give away their flesh and blood? There was supposed to be a special bond between parent and child. Not one that could be tossed aside so casually.
What would make supposedly loving parents do something like that?
Unless the bond between them and the child was broken. What would break such a thing? Hate? Disgust? Disappointment? Fear?
And the first three led to the last one. He glanced over at Tia. “When did your abilities start showing up?” he asked casually.
“No idea. I was well into them by the time I was ten as my parents were beside themselves trying to figure out what to do with me. They’d originally run me past every doctor they could get me into, and somewhere along the way they got to the point of realizing I couldn’t be helped, that the doctors didn’t want to see me and if they admitted I was missing the appearance of limbs for an hour or two their own mental health was called into play. Apparently I had that uncanny knack of missing an arm only to have it show up just before the doctor would be called in to see me. Considering the type of looks they might have gotten, I can see how distressing it might have been. Honestly, I think Wilhelm was likely a Godsend for them. It gave them someone who was interested in helping me.”
“Helping you?” Dean asked incredulously. “They believed that?”
“I think they wanted to believe that. It was packaged that way and for the longest time I believed it too.” She gave him a tight grin. “It was easier to believe that than the truth.”
Now that he could believe.
“And when did you find out the truth?”
“Which truth? That my parents had left me behind permanently?” At his nod she shrugged. “Somewhere around the time I realized the phone calls were not being returned. The letters I sent out were never answered.” She stared off at a distant point. “To be fair, I’m not sure those were ever sent out.” She sighed. “Then summer months came but they didn’t come with it.”
He couldn’t imagine the little girl sitting there and waiting for her family to come.
“For the longest time I was afraid they’d had an accident and that they’d all perished. It made it easier to see why I was still there.”
It was hard to swallow. He focused on his own son for a long moment, letting the love fill him. It was unfathomable to think of what she’d been through.
“Then I knew for sure because as I started to fight the system, getting more and more uncooperative, Wilhelm used my family as a weapon against me. How they’d never come for me. I was a freak of nature. No one was ever going to want me.” She threw out a hand. “You know. Think of all the nasty things people say to each other in the hopes of getting them to do what they want.”
“Surely that only made you madder?”
“At the time it made me very quiet. I cooperated again because he was all I had to live by. If I wanted out then it was only going to happen with his permission. He used to offer me day trips as treats and gifts as rewards. Anything for him to be able to do the tests he wanted to do. And when I refused…”
She broke off and rubbed her temple, but he was sure there was a sheen of tears on her face.
“What did he do then?” Anger, slow building but with a force he’d rarely felt, surged up. He waited for her answer, hoping it wasn’t the one that had jumped into his mind.
She shrugged and in a flat voice said, “He did them anyway.”
Yeah, if that bastard was alive, Dean was going to kill him, if he was dead…well he’d find a way to kill him again.
Chapter 25
While waiting for Gillian and Jeremy to board the plane the atmosphere had been deliberately lighthearted and fun. Gillian was anxious to leave, and Jeremy was excited about his first plane ride. Dean appeared to be in control and that was a good thing – she certainly wasn’t.
Outside Tia stopped and stared at the overcast sky for a long moment. “We need to go to the old lab.” This sucked big time.
“We’ll drive past now. See if there is anything left.”
They walked the short distance to the truck and hopped in. The traffic getting out of the airport was heavy. She couldn’t help but wonder at society’s ant-like existence as she watched vehicle after vehicle turn left and right and feed in and out of the airport. Everyone moved in orderly procession at top speed. Everyone had a plan and a direction.
Unlike her.
The truck took a hard right with a raw squeal of tires. She straightened and stared out the window. And found her heart jumping into her throat again. They were driving past her old home. She stared with sadness and grief as they made it all the way past. It looked horrible. Lost. Deserted. Rundown. Kind of like her memories.
“What a sad place,” she murmured.
“Several other families lived in it since you were there last. It was bought from your parents and turned into a rental unit.”
“It looks like it.” That accounted for the desolate air surrounding it. The lack of love.
“Yeah, and the owners likely recouped their cost many times over without reinvesting back into the property again.” He took the truck around another corner adding, “Typical.”
With a curious sense of detachment she watched her old neighborhood go by. The scraped knee when she’d tripped falling onto that curb. The fire hydrant that used to be completely hidden by weeds and wildflowers was now fully exposed. Not even those found a warm enough environment to survive today.
“It doesn’t look the same,” she murmured. “Yet at the same time, it does.”
“It’s older, more run-down and you are now older with a whole new perspective.”
“True.” The truck pulled up to a gas station and stopped. She glanced over at him. He was staring at her with a questioning look on his face.
“Where to now?”
Oh shit. She’d been so lost in her walk down memory lane she’d forgotten she needed to give him directions. She peered out the window and tried to orient herself to the lab. It hadn’t been walking distance, but it wasn’t that far either. “Go ahead a couple of blocks and take a right.”
It took several more blocks and a few more turns, but eventually she caught sight of the building rising in the sky.
There was a deep silence in the vehicle when he pulled the truck onto the shoulder of the road across from the place. They both stared at the run-down building.
“It looks deserted.”
“All the records indicate that the lab was shut down around the time you left.”
“Hmmm.” She didn’t trust much about that good doctor. If he’d been able to keep his work moving forward from the grave he would have. Dean parked the truck and turned off the engine. And looked at her expectantly.
“What do you want to do?”
“I want to look inside.” Suddenly determined to do just that, even though it was the last thing she wanted to do, she opened the passenger door and jumped out. The door sl
ammed harder and louder than she expected. And echoed in the night.
Shit.
“You okay?” Dean asked, his gaze intent.
She ignored him and stared at the three story monstrosity. Yet for all its size, it had seemed much bigger in her nightmares. There were busted windows and bars on a few others. The gate held a Private Property Keep Out sign that now hung drunkenly off to the side.
The little girl inside whimpered. Don’t go. Don’t go. You’ll never get out.
“There’s still power in the place so someone is paying the bill.”
She froze. “You mean there might be people still there? A functioning lab still in operation?” Her voice rose in shock. She wanted to scream in pain and terror. And she wanted to race inside and knock the shit out of the first person she saw. She needed a target. Someone to pummel for all the years of abuse she’d taken.
At the same time, she wanted to turn around and hide.
Like she always had.
She straightened her shoulders, aware he was doing some search on his cell phone – probably looking for the company who was paying the bills on the property. She strode across the deserted street and through the gate. She breathed slowly and carefully.
She’d made it this far. She could do this.
What did companies do with buildings that had served their time and had their day? Did they bulldoze them to the ground? Sell them off for property value? Someone had to pay the taxes on these places.
As long as this particular lab never was a fully functioning prison again, she’d be fine with it.
With Dean trailing behind she headed to the door. Off to the side she read the small sign. Psyche Laboratories. She didn’t remember that at all.
In her mind, she could see herself entering this building so long ago. Twice. She’d not looked back when she’d escaped the second time. Not until today.
The knob turned under her hand. She frowned. “Shouldn’t this be locked?”
“Not if there’s nothing inside. Think about it, if there is something inside and people want to know what’s inside, they will break a window or break down the door to find out. If you don’t lock anything and they can walk through and see it’s empty then they can’t cause major damage in the process.”
“I suppose.” The open doorway yawned in front of her. She winced. “I never thought I’d see a day where I’d willingly step back inside this place.”
“That just goes to show that you couldn’t imagine such a positive future.” He pushed the door open wider and stepped around her. “Let’s go. We could be home in an hour.”
That brightened her spirits. She wasn’t still a prisoner here. Life had changed for her. She could walk back out again.
She stepped inside then turned and looked back. Deliberately, she walked back out. She turned, a grin on her face and explained to a very confused Dean. “I was just proving to myself I could leave. That I wasn’t going to be locked up again.”
Understanding lit his face. “No worries there. I’d never let that happen to you.”
She studied his face, and for the first time in a long time she realized – she was alone no longer.
*
Such a simple movement. She’d entered and left to prove she could. He was only just realizing how much pain and fear she’d had to overcome to be here. That she’d entered on her own was fantastic. Now to make a quick search to prove to her that the place truly was empty, that there’d be no answers to find here and then they could go home. He had pizza on his mind. Maybe a couple of beers and her.
Maybe, just maybe, he’d manage to get her back into his bed.
This time for a whole different reason.
But first he had to get her through this. And if there was information to find, they needed to find it. Jones was doing his level best to dig up the information on this property, but the corporation that held the title, a biomedical company, hadn’t used it for years. They were holding onto the property until the area regained some of the value it lost when the economy crunched. It had recovered slightly but not enough to make it worthwhile to sell. The property was derelict and the building deserted.
Dean knew that.
But convincing Tia was a whole different story.
Chapter 26
She walked slowly down the hallway, wondering at the reception room that sat securely behind walls with just a glass window that opened and closed to allow communication between both parties. She didn’t remember that part. She didn’t remember the institutional white, the long stretch of uncompromising entrance. Doorways that played off from side to side. But she did remember that bank of scary elevators. She knew they went both up and down. God help her. She’d taken them in both directions many times.
“I suppose the offices would have the most promise?” Dean asked.
“Maybe. We certainly need to check.” But inside she knew it wasn’t where they’d find the stuff she was looking for. She couldn’t take her mind off the elevator. Even in the semi-darkness it had enough power to gleam in the weird light. A beacon.
Painfully she ripped her gaze away to watch what Dean was doing. He’d gone into each room and systematically searched the offices as he came to them. Six doors down he popped back out again and said, “Everything is empty.”
She nodded and walked to the elevator. She stared at it. It had frequented her nightmares for a long time. Even though it was old and likely broken it still had power over her subconscious.
“This is a big old thing,” Dean remarked, pounding his hand lightly on the metal front. The noise gave a dull throb that echoed downward. “Is there a downstairs to this place?”
“Several,” she said painfully. “First I want to go upstairs.” She turned to the stairs and started climbing, wondering at her impulse to see her old room. The window she’d stared out of for years, hoping, wishing for a better life.
She kept climbing, Dean silent at her side.
At the third floor, she opened the door and walked out. She studied the long hallway and realized it was still the same dingy color as before. There weren’t as many doors here. She turned left and headed to the third one down. She stood in front of the door, slightly ajar and took a deep breath. She pushed it open.
Beside her, Dean gasped.
Her old bed still sat there. Steel frame that she’d been tied to when she’d misbehaved. The window with the bars that had been attached when she’d threatened to jump out and end her life – and his research.
The lack of personal effects because she wasn’t allowed anything to remind her of the family she no longer had.
She shook her head, releasing the memories and forced herself to look around with a detached mindset.
“I wonder if anyone else stayed in this room after I left.”
“Does it still look the same?” he asked, a banked rage in his voice.
She nodded. “Exactly the same.”
“Then likely not.”
“Good.” She did a quick search, including the closet, found it empty and turned back to the hallway.
“Do you want to check the other rooms up here,” he asked quickly. She spared a glance his way, realizing he was being patient and strong at her side. Letting her do what she needed to do when she needed to do it.
She appreciated that about him. “Thank you, but no. This floor was empty for most of the time I was here.”
He started. “Why?”
“Who knows? They certainly had the space. Maybe it was punishment for me. More isolation.” She shrugged. “At the end, Wilhelm wasn’t the most rational.”
“Jesus.”
Back at the stairwell, she took one last look down the hall then walked down the steps forever. At the main floor she kept going. There were two more floors below. She went down to the first one and opened the door – or tried to. It was locked.
“Oh, this is promising.” He stepped in front of her and did something with his hand. Before she could figure out what it was the door op
ened. Surprised, she walked through and stopped. To the right were the treatment rooms, but in front of her was the glass wall to the observation room.
“What went on here,” Dean asked in a hard voice. He reached out and rapped the glass wall. “Not glass.”
“Supposed to be something unbreakable.” She shrugged, her gaze lost in the room she’d spent days in. But he wasn’t there anymore. She could leave now. Dean had helped set her free – at least in her mind. She turned to Wilhelm’s office. The first door on the right – where he could see her in the observation room.
Bastard.
*
Dean stared at the layout. This most auspicious room with its walls of glass had likely belonged to Wilhelm. The asshole could sit there all day and watch those imprisoned in the observation room. In one way that was likely a good thing. It was an observation room. However, in another way – it was really creepy.
“How often were you in here?” he asked, absently noting the bathroom with only part walls offering the barest of privacy. He couldn’t imagine how that lack had affected a traumatized young girl.
“Sometimes daily, sometimes only monthly. Depended who else he had to pick on at that time,” she said, her voice hard, cold. “When he was bored, I was his favorite pet.”
She turned and walked to his office door and pushed it open. “There could be stuff in here, but if not he had a warehouse downstairs where he kept the old stuff.”
The room, he could see from over her head was a little less empty than upstairs. There was a scarred desk in the center and an office chair turned on its side. A couple of papers lay crumpled on the floor with footsteps crushing them flat. It had been deserted a long time ago. The only windows were to the hallway. No filing cabinet and no closet. It was dismal.
“Next,” he said. “Where else do you want to look?”
But she’d wandered over to the desk, straightening up the chair. An odd look on her face. She sat down in the chair and pulled it to Wilhelm’s desk. There she stared out at whatever he’d stared at all the time she’d been here.