“You’ve exceeded all my expectations, and I’ve done nothing but push you harder,” he continued. “Before we start today I want to make sure you know how impressed I am, not only by your skills, but also your ability to handle such a chaotic situation.”
Dru waited for a response, but Daith sat, silent. Had Dr. Ludd told Dru what they had talked about? How else could he have known what she’d been thinking?
Thoughts whirled through her head. She had so many things she wanted to say, wanted to ask. But the question that spilled from her lips took her by surprise. “Why is everyone afraid of me?”
Dru blinked, but didn’t respond.
Daith continued. “I mean, it’s not like they run screaming in the other direction when they see me, but most of the crew avoid me or make up excuses not to talk to me. Is there something about me I don’t know? Something to make them scared?”
Dru paused. “I want to pretend I have no idea what you mean, but that’s absurd. The wariness of the crew stems from these unique abilities of yours. There is a risk if your abilities surface without you controlling them. Even though we’ve been working on them, your control is still minimal, and I’m afraid some of the crew worry you could be dangerous.”
Daith thought about it and understood. She could be compared to a live bomb—never knowing when it might go off.
Her shoulders dropped. “Why didn’t you tell me in the first place?”
Dru paused again, but somehow he seemed strange. He stopped moving, even breathing, for a moment before he answered. “I worried about pushing you too hard. Without your memories, I wasn’t sure how you would respond to the tests.”
Doubt crept back in, tensing her muscles. “But we haven’t worked on getting my memories back. I mean, I haven’t remembered anything new. All of our sessions seem to revolve around these abilities.”
“You did say you wanted to work on them.”
“I know I did, but I also want to remember who I am.”
He placed a hand on her knee. It felt dense and cold through her pant leg. None of the warm energy she’d felt before. “And you will,” he reassured, “in time. I really do think this route is the best to take to maximize your potential and restore your memories.”
Daith felt confused. She believed Dru, but she felt hurt by the fact he still kept her in the dark. “Thank you for telling me,” she said, “but please stop holding things back. Being a blank slate, I can’t trust myself. I need to feel like I can trust you.”
This time several moments passed before he found his voice again. “I understand. And I agree. Trust is important and hopefully will come more easily for both of us after today.” He removed his hand. “For now, if you’re rested and ready, I’d like to start on today’s session.”
“Sure.” Daith wasn’t exactly happy with the way the conversation had ended, but she supposed his explanation was a start. And at least he’d seemed willing to be open with her.
“Good. We’re going to start with . . .” Dru stopped talking and became completely still. Not frozen this time, he still breathed and blinked, but he stopped moving. The color in his face bled away. He grabbed his chest. Gasping, Dru fell backward onto the soft grass.
Daith crawled over to him. “Dru! Are you okay?”
He clawed at his shirt, blinking rapidly. “It’s my heart,” he gasped.
Daith’s body felt numb. “I’ll call medical.”
“No.” Dru grabbed her hand. “No time. You can fix it. You can save me.”
“I-I can’t.” She tried to get up, to call Dr. Ludd, but Dru held her in a tight grip, her skin dimpling under his cold fingertips.
“I won’t make it. You can do it.” Dru’s eyes rolled back into his head. Convulsions rippled through his body.
Trembling, Daith knelt next to him. She took a shaky breath, closed her eyes, and concentrated on Dru’s chest. Pictures of his pain-filled face flashed through her mind, but she forced them away. She needed to focus.
Daith imagined the inside of Dru’s chest, filled with organs, fluids, and tissues. Heat built inside her, growing, eager to be released. She placed her hands on his chest, letting the energy flow through her, using her mind to connect with Dru’s body.
A huge, black hole. An empty body. There was nothing inside.
What? She opened her eyes. Dru had stopped stirring. His mouth hung open. White sockets met her gaze.
What had happened? Had she done something wrong?
Daith shook the limp body. “Dru!”
He didn’t move, didn’t respond.
Horror filled her. “No you can’t be dead.” She shook him again. She needed him. No one else could show her who she really was.
“Someone…” she called out, her voice cracking. “Someone, please, help me.”
The door to the simulation room opened.
Dru entered.
Daith gaped at him. How could he be standing there?
“Very interesting,” he said, typing something on his datapad.
He’s alive?
Dru told the computer to end the program. The meadow and stream vanished, along with the Dru who had been lying dead at her feet. White walls and emptiness surrounded her.
“You’re not…but you were…this was all fake?” she asked, gesturing.
The real Dru nodded. “I knew you had the ability to reconstruct animate tissue, but I had to show you can’t save everyone. Hence the simulation. With nothing real for your mind to connect to, simulated Dru would die no matter what you did.”
Daith could see Dru talking, but she couldn’t hear his words. He stood there, calm, chatting as if nothing had happened—like she hadn’t had to watch him die in front of her. Her head pounded with fury.
“This was all a test? A way to teach me a lesson?” Her anger intensified at the bored expression on his face.
“I needed to prove a point.”
Daith’s vision tunneled. She felt the warmth creep through her body, but this time she didn’t try to control it. She didn’t care. “All those things you, or the fake you, or whoever said were all lies. You don’t care about me. You don’t care I had to watch you die.”
The heat increased, powerful inside her. Her rage wanted to come out. To explode. Daith let it. She was so angry she paid no attention to her energy burst. She didn’t even realize he hurt until he screamed.
Dru’s hands pressed against his throat. His veins bulged as his face purpled.
Daith stopped. The warmth subsided.
“I’m sorry! I didn’t mean to,” she pleaded, but she knew it wasn’t true. She had wanted him to feel pain, the way she had felt moments ago.
Dru shook, his breathing erratic. “Did you enjoy it? Making me feel pain?”
Daith couldn’t say anything. Tears streaked her face.
Suddenly Dru’s face softened and he put a hand to Daith’s face, wiping away the salty tracks. The feel of his warm fingertips made her cheeks tingle. “I’m sorry about this. It was the only way.” He hesitated and brushed his fingers above her lips. They came away dark with blood. “I think you should go see Doctor Ludd.”
Daith nodded, pressing her sleeve to her face. She barely remembered leaving—her mind filled with tumbled emotions and she hurried from the room, her blood-saturated sleeve dripping onto the floor.
When she reached the medical wing, Dr. Ludd ordered her to go more slowly in her sessions.
“Like it’s my fault,” she snapped at him.
Dr. Ludd patted her with his flipper. He made her drink the bitter medicine to stop the nosebleed and told her to sleep for a couple of standard hours.
She stumbled through the empty corridors to her room. Once inside, she crashed onto her bed, dizzy from the session and blood loss. She fell asleep instantly, legs hanging over the side, face smashed between the bed and the wall.
Chapter 24
The air passed in and out of his lungs. Dru rubbed his chest with relief. He had to admit he’d been afraid she wouldn’t
stop suffocating him.
He took a few moments to collect himself before he turned to leave the simulation room. He couldn’t believe how strong Daith’s anger made her. On his way to his quarters to update his data—and decide exactly what to say to Daith so she would trust him again—he found his path blocked by a crewmember.
“Excuse me…?” Dru trailed off, unsure of the man’s name.
“Lieutenant Commander Cenjo,” the olive-skinned man replied.
“Right.” Dru searched his memory. “Combat training, correct?”
“Yes, doc.”
Dru paused, an awkward smile touching the corners of his mouth. The officer hadn’t moved. “Uh, is there something I can help you with?”
“Actually there is.” Cenjo took a step closer. “You can watch how hard you are running Miss Tocc.”
“Excuse me?” he repeated.
Cenjo’s dark eyes narrowed. “You heard me. She just flew by here, face and shirt smeared with blood. Whatever you’re doing to her needs to stop.”
Dru squared his jaw. “No offense, but you have no idea what you’re talking about.” He tried to brush past the Lieutenant Commander, but Cenjo blocked his path, planting his muscular body firmly in front of him.
“I may not know how to treat a patient like her, but I do train the crew and I know you are pushing her too hard. She’s an incredible woman with amazing gifts like her father, and we all know what happened to him.” His voice, though low and steady, tinged with intensity. “He was like family to us, so she is, too. She is your responsibility, Doctor, and if I find out you’ve been neglecting her health to feed your own timetable, you’ll have to answer to me.” Cenjo knocked against Dru’s shoulder before he strode down the corridor.
*
Daith’s time-reader beeped. She peeled her face away from the wall. With a slow roll, she quieted the noise, and rose from the bed. In the washroom, she sighed at her reflection—a large pink mark stretched across her face.
While patting the splotch with cold water and trying to smooth the wrinkles from her crumpled clothes, the chimes rang. She blinked the last of the sleep from her eyes and went to open the door.
Dru stood there, his face gaunt and pale. “Hi.”
Anger boiled up inside her, but she kept it at bay. “Yes?” she asked, her voice icy.
“How are you?”
“Fine,” she lied.
“Oh, um, good.” He shifted uncomfortably. “I checked with Doctor Ludd. He told me he treated you for the nosebleed—”
“I’m finding it hard not to punch you in the face,” she interrupted. “What do you want?”
Dru’s cheeks flushed crimson. “I came to explain.”
Silence enveloped them. A crewmember slunk around Dru in the corridor, her hair tendrils rising toward them to overhear their conversation.
“Come in,” Daith said, waving him in. She glared at the crewmember who skittered away.
“I know you’re angry,” Dru said, “but there is a reason for what I did.”
She crossed her arms. “I’m sure there is.”
“You aren’t the first patient I’ve worked with that has had telepathic or empathic abilities. Most of the time I worked with those who never received training or thought they could learn how to control their abilities on their own. The results were usually disastrous.
“Some went insane, others are in prison for unspeakable crimes, and there are a few who couldn’t deal with the pain they’d felt or caused. They took their own lives.” Dru made a move to sit on the bed, but Daith’s glower made him pull back.
“I approached Trey a few days ago,” Dru continued, “with another report on your progress. We were both worried about your advancement, even with me there to help guide you, and that you might not be prepared for all the consequences.
“I thought up a test, involving a scenario you couldn’t win, no matter what. I had to know if you could handle real loss. And betrayal.”
“Mission accomplished,” she seethed.
Dru swallowed, hard. “So I started acting cold, dismissive. Anything to provoke you, put you off guard. Once you felt angry enough at the way you were treated, I turned your emotions against you, apologizing, returning to my old self. A cheap trick, I know, and I feel terrible, but you had to feel not only loss, but betrayal. Like everything I’d said had been a lie. You needed to be angry enough to hurt me. And the more you cared about the person, the stronger the reaction.” Dru’s voice quieted. “That’s why I chose myself.”
Still furious, Daith willed herself not to blush.
He continued at her silence. “I couldn’t really put myself in danger, because I had full faith you would save me. The only thing you couldn’t save was a simulation.”
“Oh. Well, now it’s all better,” she said sarcastically. The warmth inside her returned. She’d felt like such a fool. “I thought you died,” she said. Her sight became blurred from moisture. “I had to watch you die. Don’t you understand? You’re my only chance…the only way…and you were gone.”
He reached out, tentative, and when she didn’t pull away, he put his hand on her elbow. Energy surged between them, but he didn’t break the connection. “I know. I’m so sorry.”
“You’re sorry. I thought I’d let you die and you’re sorry.”
Dru removed his hand. “It was the quickest way to unsettle you, make you upset enough to lose control. You needed to know, first-hand, how powerful you are. And how dangerous.”
She wanted to still be upset about being lied to, but she remembered how quickly she’d hurt him, how she had wanted to hurt him. Without her last-moment restraint, she would have killed him.
Daith’s shoulders slumped and her arms dropped to her sides. “I really hate to say this, but I think you may have been right.” She rubbed her face, feigning fatigue, but actually wiped away tears.
“I think we’ve both pushed ourselves to our limit today. How do you feel about taking the rest of the night off?”
“You’re asking me?”
“Of course. I only ordered you around to get you angry at me.”
She paused. “Dru?”
“Yes?”
“This is the end of the tests dealing with emotional upheavals, right?”
“Right. No more tests like that.”
“Good. Because I’m still mad at you.” Her words were harsh, but her tone soft.
Dru placed his hands on her shoulders, his touch immediately calming her.
“I promise you, I only care about your wellbeing. I told you we would do this together and we will.”
Chapter 25
While Daith made her way to meet Dru for their next session, she wondered what sort of scenario he’d have planned. She was surprised to find the simulation room empty. After she waited fifteen standard minutes—listening to nothing but the buzz of the ship recycling air—she turned to leave when she noticed a datapad near the door.
The screen hummed to life. Blue words appeared across the screen.
“Welcome to the ‘Hunt For Dru’ game.
The datapad contains a clue to lead you to a different area of the ship, which contains another datapad and the next clue.
Each clue will become increasingly difficult.
I advise you to bring the datapad along for a reference.
I was told by the evil Doctor Henchman (a.k.a. Dr. Ludd)
you received a tour of the ship.
I hope for Dru’s sake you paid attention.
You have one standard hour.
I have Dru trapped in my evil lair and it’s up to you to save him.
Ha Ha Ha.
Good luck.”
Daith laughed out loud and read the first clue.
“Your first clue is:
Hiding here where things aren’t real
Can be a little unnerving
Go to the place where crew members eat
And someone is always serving”
Daith smiled. She knew the answ
er right away. Trotting up one floor to the mess hall, she headed toward the serving counter and searched for the datapad. One of the small three-legged creatures approached her and squeaked, the next clue balanced delicately on its top. She thanked it, although she still wasn’t sure if it had ears, and turned on the datapad.
“Congratulations on solving the first clue.
Can you find Dru in time or will he remain in my evil clutches for all eternity?
“Clue #2:
I feel empty, although once I was full
I wish I held more
Shall Dru remain captive by the creatures up high?
Who knows what they have in store?”
Daith reread the clue. Her first thought centered around the cargo holds, because they were so empty, but she noticed Dru was being held captive and “up high” could mean the upper deck, so she reasoned the clue referred to the prison cells on the fifth floor.
Daith raced upstairs. She bolted past Dr. Ludd’s office and came to the prison door, the datapad propped up against the wall. Quickly, she snatched up the next clue.
“You’re doing well, better than I thought, so things will be tougher. The one hint I’ll give is you have three clues left, although by now you should already have won.
“Clue #3:
Bring your sweet self closer
You’ve almost figured it out
Otherwise Dru is gone
The beginnings will help you out”
Daith stared at the clue. She had no idea what the words meant. “The beginnings?” she muttered.
Maybe ‘the beginnings’ meant her room—the first place she remembered on the ship. Or maybe it referred to the meeting room where she’d initially met Dru?
Daith’s eyesight blurred. She sat there, the words on the datapad slightly out of focus, when the answer jumped out at her.
Eomix Galaxy Books: Illusion Page 16