“Of course. I won’t say a thing.” The anxious doctor hugged his tablet to his chest and backed up against the wall as we passed. He nodded deeply out of fearful respect.
Mr. Gordon returned the nod and replied with a sincere, “Thank you.”
When we reached the fork in the hallway, I stopped, looking down each side. Both were empty, much like I’d remembered from the last time. I was about to go left, when Logan stopped me.
“No, this way,” he said, gesturing with his thumb for us to continue down the right hallway.
“I feel like it’s this way,” I said.
“I distinctly remember it being this way,” Logan said, sounding infinitely more confident in his decision. “I’ve been here more than once.”
I was about to insist my direction was correct to protect my pride, but stopped with a thought of Desiree—and then of Anna locked in her cell in the asylum looming somewhere above us. I knew my memory of my time here was far from perfect.
“I trust you,” I finally said and we continued right, down an identical white hallway.
I fell back and let Logan take the lead and soon felt a hand touch my shoulder. I looked over to find Mr. Gordon smiling at me. He didn’t have to say anything and I was glad he didn’t.
We passed a few more hallway intersections until Logan found the semicircle bank of elevators, which told me we were here. I would have found it on my own, but not so easily—and not on the first try.
We entered the middle vessel and began our ascent without the push of a button—not that there were any buttons inside the elevator to push. I remembered Jeremy trying to explain thought recognition programs, or TRPs, on our first elevator ride together in Provex City as we descended from above the clouds.
“This elevator transitions from Meric to Eri to reach SUSY Asylum hidden above Doria,” Logan said.
“What’s left of Doria,” I said.
“And I’m sure no one has ever been able to point the way back to them before,” Matilda said. “I bet Alexandria’s pissed you slipped through her fingers.”
“Especially since she personally caught me on my second escape attempt. She vowed I would not get a third, which had to sting when I succeeded shortly after,” Logan said with a chuckle.
The glass tube elevator shot out from the roof of the building and continued up into the evening sky. The medical complex below us had disappeared and was replaced by lush, open land. I could see scattered clusters of small communities, but they vanished one by one as we climbed higher into the sky. I wanted to see the awe inspiring backdrop of Provex City again, even in its crippled condition, but there was only an unobstructed view of the coastline and the ocean, with its shimmering orange hues from the setting sun.
“How many Lornes should we be expecting?” Matilda said.
“I don’t know,” Logan responded. “I only ever saw Alexandria. She has an impressive team of super-orderlies; they may be guard members to some capacity. They didn’t have tattoos though.”
I shrugged. “That was my experience, too.”
“Did they seem to have any powers?” Mr. Gordon asked.
“Besides being extra dickish? Not that I could tell.”
“I didn’t notice them do anything extraordinary,” Logan concurred and removed a folded piece of yellow paper from his pants pocket. As he unfolded it, I suddenly knew it was from the pad of paper from our cells, from our time in the asylum—and then I knew what it was and why he was even more valuable than just remembering the way here.
“What’s that?” Mr. Gordon asked.
Matilda was already gazing down at the creased paper and the pencil-sketched map drawn upon its surface.
“You didn’t mention this,” Matilda said as she continued to scan the map.
“I said I remembered,” Logan said. “This is why I remember. It’s not complete by any means, but should come in handy. Here’s where we’ll be entering from. Here’s where I was being held.”
I bent in to get a better view. The map looked just as I’d remembered it. I had lost mine at some point between escape and captivity in the asymmetric plane. Maybe Nero took it or maybe it just disintegrated in the river. Logan had made a copy of his own map and hid it for future patients. I was lucky enough to be the one to find it.
“Here’s Alexandria’s office and several of the operating rooms. Desiree may still be in prep…or she may already be in her suite.”
“Suite?” Mr. Gordon asked.
“That’s what Alexandria calls the individual cells,” Logan said. “Now if she’s already in a cell, then she could be anywhere—as well as off the map since it’s not complete.”
“We’ll start at the operating rooms,” Matilda said. “If Alexandria isn’t here then it should be fairly easy, and with everything else going on, I’m sure she’s needed elsewhere.”
“And if she is here?” I asked.
“Then we’ll deal with her,” Matilda said just as the elevator slowed to a stop and the doors slid open.
She didn’t need Logan or me to lead her any longer. Matilda strode out of the elevator like a true Lorne, with a presence that took up the entire hallway, powerful and tall.
I noticed some orderlies in black scrubs, three brooding men, about a hundred paces ahead of us. One nurse was walking away from them, and away from us. And after a moment of lingering conversation, they noticed us—or more importantly—Matilda. Their tough guy exteriors disintegrated as Matilda threw two of them to the floor with a slight wave of her arm. She then disappeared and instantaneously reappeared directly in front of the orderly still standing, cupping his neck in one beautifully powerful hand.
The rest of us hurried down the hallway to catch up to her.
“I—I don’t know who you’re talking about,” the orderly choked out as Matilda continued to squeeze.
“Is Dr. Lorne here?” she asked.
“Y—yes.”
“Perfect.” Matilda shoved the orderly’s head into the concrete wall and let go, allowing his body to crumple to the ground.
She surely didn’t need our help any longer.
Then I heard the alarm begin to sound. The entire asylum was in lockdown, and I remembered all too vividly what that meant. There was some type of selective, yet extremely powerful magnets in the floor, which turned on with the alarm. The metal contraptions installed onto each patient’s right leg would freeze in place the moment the magnets were triggered, whether the patient was moving or not. The image of Anna’s full-leg cast came to mind, making me cringe.
Several more orderlies turned the corner ahead of us, looked at us, noticed we were not on lockdown, looked at the three unconscious orderlies, and decided to turn back.
Matilda stepped over her victims and continued down the hallway. The rest of us followed.
The hallway was lined with metal doors with small rectangular wire-glass windows. I peered in the one closest to me and found a middle-aged man with thinning gray hair standing near the center of the room, trapped from leaving the very spot where he stood. His daediem lay on one bed.
I approached the next door and noticed pulsing light spilling from the window and instantly knew the screens were on, emitting their sensory torture. The lights were so bright, I wouldn’t be able to look in if I wanted to—and I didn’t. I felt nauseous just thinking of being in one of those rooms again. I placed a hand on the wall and felt the noticeable vibration of the bass that was blasting from the speakers within the room. Amidst the noise, I heard the patient screaming, his only defense from being forced to endure the onslaught of sensory overload. Instead of blocking it out, I listened more closely, and as I listened, I heard more—nuances that typically went unnoticed through typical day-to-day focus and perception.
I heard others, a muddle of soft voices floating through the ether.
“Oliver, what are you doing?” Logan asked.
When I momentarily returned to the present, I noticed the rest of the group was far ahead of me, about
to turn down a perpendicular hallway.
“One second,” I said and tried to find my way back to the soft voices.
“Oliver, let’s go!” Matilda shouted.
I successfully blocked her out and returned to wading through the sea of voices—and then I found what I was looking for. I had found Desiree before and had a feeling I could do it again. I didn’t know if what I heard were real words or private thoughts, but I shut down everyone else and focused solely on her sweet voice.
“Oliver!” This time it was Mr. Gordon.
“I found her!” I yelled back and ran up to meet them.
“You what?” Logan asked.
Mr. Gordon beamed like the proud teacher he was.
Matilda’s impatient expression remained hard.
“I know where she is,” I said and continued past them so the group was now following me.
“So where is she?”
“I dunno exactly.”
“But you just said—”
“I’m following her voice,” I said. “It’s taking me to her, but I don’t know where that is.”
I hurried down the current hallway and then turned down another. A few more orderlies and nurses tried to either grab our attention or physically stop us. It did not bode well for anyone who stepped in our way. Matilda swatted them out of the way like bugs.
Desiree’s voice was growing louder and louder in my head, but I couldn’t make out what she was saying, the words weren’t making sense. She led me into an occupied operating room, where I came to a grinding halt, along with the rest of the group behind me. And then her voice floated back into the vast ether and disappeared.
Visceral memories returned to me from my time in one of these rooms. Five stainless steel tables designed like crosses were arranged in a circle, each supported by one central cylindrical leg. Three of the tables were occupied with paralyzed patients stripped down to their underwear, each being attended to by four doctors.
All those who could—which meant only the doctors—turned their collective attention toward me when I burst through the double swinging doors. At first, they didn’t know what to make of us since we seemed to be freely roaming the asylum during lockdown. Their expressions quickly changed from surprise to extreme concern when they all realized at once that we were likely the reason for the lockdown.
A twenty-something male patient already had the metal cage attached to his leg. A younger female patient with tied-back brown hair was in the process of having the four needles from the contraction inserted into her gauze-wrapped leg. For the third patient, an older woman, the cage still laid on the metal cart beside her operating table.
After a slight hesitation, one doctor put a finger to her ear and said, “We have a situation. Come—”
The doctor’s head slammed into the nearest metal cart, causing all the neatly positioned surgical instruments to go flying in all directions. On the top of the cart and streaking down the side, instruments were replaced with droplets of bright blood.
The rest of the doctors backed up from their respective tables, congregating at the far side of the room.
“No more calls,” Matilda warned.
I walked up to the teenage girl on the table. The needles now fully punctured her leg. Her wide eyes screamed at me, full of fear, though her jaw was relaxed around the plastic mouth piece. She was hauntingly beautiful lying there in her bra and panties, harnessed to the table. And she was not Desiree.
I slammed both fists down on the metal table, inches away from the girl’s paralyzed body. “WHERE IS SHE?!” I yelled at the doctors huddled in the far corner of the room.
“You said you could hear her,” Logan said.
“I could,” I said through gritted teeth. “But I lost her.”
Matilda maneuvered around the tables and carts, grabbed a fistful of hair from the fallen doctor, and dragged her limp body to the other doctors.
“We don’t know who you’re talking about,” one of the doctors spoke up.
“There was another teenage girl, much like the one you have here. Fifteen years old. Petite. Dark wavy hair. Green eyes. She would have arrived in the past few hours. Any of this ringing a bell?” Matilda asked.
All of the doctors shook their heads.
“This is ridiculous!” I yelled.
“Oliver, it’s okay. We’ll find her,” Mr. Gordon said.
I gazed down upon the petrified girl on the table again and then at the two others. “We can’t leave them like this,” I said. “How about Mr. Gordon and Logan help them and Matilda and I continue the search for Desiree. We have to be close. She sounded so close. Maybe she’s on the other side of this wall.”
“Fine idea,” Matilda said, swiped her arm across the cluster of doctors and said, “Sleep,” and they all collapsed upon one another, spilling into a human pile on the floor.
“No!” Logan protested.
“Help these people,” Matilda insisted. “Then catch up.”
Thrilled that Matilda actually agreed with one of my ideas, I laid my hand on the girl’s arm (even though she couldn’t feel it) and gave her a reassuring smile that she was being left in good hands.
I ran for the closest wall and jumped through. I landed in another operating room, but this one dark and empty. Matilda appeared right behind me.
The siren was beginning to give me a headache, making it much more difficult to find Desiree’s voice again.
“No sense stopping now,” Matilda said.
I didn’t even wait to reply before bolting for the far wall and jumped into the next room—which turned out to be a similar operating room, but this one with one leather bound reclining chair bolted to the ground from a single cylindrical leg. A bright lamp on a long retractable arm was positioned directly over the chair shining down on...Desiree. She was fully clothed, not strapped down, and didn’t have a metal cage with large needles puncturing either of her legs. And on the far side of the chair stood a woman I knew all too well.
“Oh, Oliver,” Alexandria said, feigning surprise. “We’re just finishing up here. Hello there, Matilda.”
“Let her go,” I demanded.
Desiree craned her neck to look over at me, but she didn’t say anything. Her hands were folded in her lap and she adjusted the position of her extended legs. At least she wasn’t paralyzed.
“How do you feel, honey?” Alexandria asked Desiree.
“A little woozy,” she answered.
“Totally normal. Give it a few more minutes and you’ll be fine.” Alexandria turned her attention from Desiree to me. “My work here is done. She is free to go. Though I don’t think she’ll feel comfortable going home with you.” A broad smile spread across her face, which quickly made me feel a little woozy myself. Alexandria patted Desiree on one knee and came out from behind the chair.
“Is my mom here yet?” Desiree asked Alexandria.
“I’m sure she’s on her way. And as soon as she arrives, you can be officially discharged.”
“What are you looking at?” Desiree asked sourly—directed at me.
“What? Desiree, I—”
“How do you know my name?” She sat up, letting her feet fall sideways off the chair, allowing them to hang a few inches off the floor. “Why are these people in my room?”
Alexandria’s smile beamed even brighter. “They’re patients, my dear—patients who should not be wandering around the hospital unsupervised, especially during a drill. Oliver, Matilda, allow me to help you back to your rooms so the orderlies can account for everyone.”
“Desiree! It’s me—Oliver,” I cried.
Not an inkling of recognition registered on her face.
“What’s she done to you?”
Kafka (3)
“You handled yourself well up there,” Kafka said to Eli while they sat in the back of the limousine, driving through southern Los Angeles. Daylight was fading fast and it seemed like everyone in the city was determined to get home before darkness took over. The limo was
forced to stop at every light, sometimes sitting through two or three red lights before reaching the intersection.
“I wish I could have done more,” Eli said. “I wish I could have helped Cias—stopped Oliver—something... more.”
“Cias had been with me a long time, but he failed his final test. He sealed his own fate. I will not hold you responsible for his actions, or lack thereof. Nicholae is a powerful adversary; there is no doubt about that. You did what you could and I commend you. You continue to prove your loyalty. And I reward loyalty—well. If you continue to prove yourself, you shall see how well,” Kafka said. He laid a hand on the thigh of the statuesque woman seated beside him—Oliver’s mother, Helen. “Your girlfriend will not be harmed—at least not by us.”
“Ex,” Eli clarified.
“Of course.”
Kafka’s wolf and the kidnapped gang leader from the day before, whom Eli learned was named Jesus, were also in the limo with them. Eli had now spent some time with the animal, and it seemed perfectly nice and loyal, but he remained uncomfortable having it around in such close quarters.
Jesus was seated between Helen and the wolf. His physical body was also under Kafka’s control, silent and motionless like Helen.
The limo pulled to the curb where there was a large enough space, a few blocks away from where they had parked yesterday.
“Now we’ll see if your boys upheld their side of the bargain,” Kafka said. “Guard our guests, Abram. We’ll return shortly. Are you ready, Eli? It’s just you and me this time.”
Kafka invited Eli to exit the limousine first. The serene bubble burst the second Eli opened the door, allowing the cacophony of city noise into their mobile sanctuary. The smell of the neighborhood hadn’t improved, reeking of old discarded food, gasoline, and piss.
Kafka adjusted his long coat and examined the block from where they stood. The buildings and traffic lit up the sidewalk with severe florescent hues while the sky above had become an infinite void of any light besides the occasional traffic helicopter.
A guy with the crotch of his pants hanging nearly to his knees and a grossly oversized T-shirt threw a large plastic soda cup at the windshield of the limo. The lid popped off upon impact, splashing its contents all over the front of the luxury car. He and his friend laughed hysterically, the antagonist offering a provoking shrug to Kafka as they continued down the sidewalk.
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