by Amy Cross
"I had one beer," I tell him. "Just one."
"You smell like you took a bath in the stuff," Todd says.
"Nice to see you too," I reply. "So what did I miss?"
Benjamin and Todd share an awkward glance. "Abby has been learning about her father," Benjamin says eventually. "Her view of him has changed quite significantly. She's starting to see him for what he really is, rather than hero-worshiping an impossible ideal."
I stare at him for a moment. "How much did you tell her?"
"I told her the truth," he replies. "Really, I just jogged her memory. She seems to have access to some of Patrick's memories. It's an interesting phenomenon."
"You can't just tell her stuff like that!" I say, turning and heading to the door.
"Let her rest," Benjamin says. "You can talk to her tomorrow."
"She won't be asleep," I tell him. "Not if she's just found out what Patrick did to Sophie."
"She seemed to take it rather well," he replies.
"She's probably in shock," I say, pausing in the doorway. "You might be an expert on a lot of things, Benjamin, but when it comes to teenage girls, maybe you should let me be in charge." I turn to Todd. "What about you? She's your flesh and blood. Don't you want to go and see if she's okay?"
"I can see her from here," he says, indicating a nearby monitor that shows a surveillance image of Abby's bed.
"It was necessary to tell her," Benjamin interrupts. "I needed to see how she'd react. I needed to push her out of her comfort zone."
"You're an ass," I say. "You should have waited for me. I could have broken the news to her properly."
"You weren't here," he says. "You were busy drinking. I hardly think I should take a lecture on responsibility from someone who spent her evening in a bar."
"Well I'm here now," I say, "and I need to -"
"She's moving," Todd says. Benjamin looks over at a computer screen. "She's left her room," Todd continues. "She's heading for the exit. I'll lock the doors -"
"No," Benjamin says, interrupting. "I want to see what she does."
"She'll be outside in thirty seconds," Todd replies. "You can't let her through the door."
"Of course I can," Benjamin says. "I can get her back here at any moment."
Walking over to them, I see a tracer showing up on the screen. "You're tracking her?" I say, shocked at the way they're treating someone who's supposed to be in their care.
"I placed a transmitter on her clothing," Benjamin replies. "I want to see the limits of her capabilities. Trust me, the experiment is going according to plan. Don't interrupt us."
I turn to him. "This is all an experiment to you? She's a teenage girl." I pause for a moment. "Is that why you told her the truth? You just wanted to upset her, to see what she'd do?"
"I'm a scientist," Benjamin replies. "I want to provoke her and see if she exhibits any new abilities."
"And you?" I ask Todd. "Are you happy to let your niece be tested like this?"
"It's for her own good," Todd replies, not taking his eyes off the screen. "We have to know more about Abby. She looks human, but she's not. We can't just sit around and wait for her to develop when she's ready. We have to push her."
I take a deep breath, watching as the tracer shows Abby reaching the exit. "I'm going after her," I say. "She needs to talk to someone." I turn to leave, but Todd reaches out and grabs my arm, holding me back forcefully.
"You can't interfere," Benjamin says. "If necessary, we'll restrain you."
"Bullshit," I reply, but I can't get free of Todd's grip. As I struggle, he gets his arms around me and holds me tight. "Do you really want to turn this into a fight?" I ask him.
"Don't make it harder than it has to be," he replies.
"She's your niece!" I remind him. "She's Sophie's daughter, she's your only family! How can you let this asshole mess around with her emotions just so he can carry out a bunch of tests?"
"This is a unique situation," Todd replies. "It's in Abby's best interests that we learn about her strengths and weaknesses as fast as possible. Everything Benjamin told her is true. In case you've forgotten, Patrick did kill Sophie. Are you really saying we should have lied to her? Do you want to put Abby in a room with Patrick and let him kill her too?"
"He'd never do that!" I insist, still trying to get loose.
"I never thought I'd hear you defend him," Todd says.
"I'm not defending him," I reply. "I understand him, that's all."
"She's outside," Benjamin says, staring at the screen. "I want to let her go a little further before we go and bring her back. I want her to feel that she's really escaped, so I can see what she does." He pauses for a moment. "I also want to see how she reacts when we bring her back. Emotional distress could heighten her abilities and bring out powers she doesn't know she has."
"And then what?" I ask.
"Then my team will fetch her, and we'll see how strong she is."
"You're so sure you can control her, aren't you?" I say, shocked by Benjamin's confidence.
"We caught Patrick, didn't we?" He replies, smiling. "If we can bring down an adult, I'm sure we can bag an infant of the species."
"That's all they are to you, isn't it?" I say. "Specimens to be used in your experiments."
"You're too emotional," he says. "I'm hoping that she'll show a little aggression, that's all. Frankly, I've been disappointed in her so far. She's been acting like a human. She's been showing only the weakness she inherited from her mother. I want to see her other side."
"Being human isn't a weakness," I say, realizing I need to get Abby away from these people.
"I need to see more of her father in her eyes," he continues. "I need to know that she has that same rage. This could be the most important discovery of our lifetime. If she's what I think she is, she could be of enormous use to the world. We could create an army of creatures just like Abby, all of them under our direct control. We'd be unstoppable."
"How much longer?" Todd asks, watching the screen as it shows Abby moving further and further away. "She's heading for the town."
"I didn't expect that," Benjamin replies. He studies the data for a moment. "Fascinating. I thought she'd go into the wilderness. I was sure she'd want to get away from humans, not go closer to them."
"Maybe you don't know her as well as you thought you did," I tell him.
He turns to me, and for a moment I see a hint of anger in his eyes. "She won't get far," he says eventually. "There's no danger of her actually escaping. My team can go and pick her up when I give the order. But it's good for her to think she can escape. I want her to still have some fight in her. I want her to be angry when we drag her back."
"So you can carry out more experiments?" I ask.
"I'm not the only curious one," he says. "She has questions about herself. Wouldn't you want to know the truth about your own body if you were in her position?"
"There are other ways to learn that kind of thing," I tell him.
"Benjamin!" Todd says, with a hint of urgency in his voice. "She's moving fast. Faster than normal. We need to bring her back now!"
Benjamin turns to the screen. "Amazing," he says. "She's developing more quickly that I dared to hope." He pauses for a moment. "I was right to push her like this. Okay, it's time to go and bring her back."
I watch as Benjamin and Todd hurry through to the corridor. Following them, I find that the other technicians are gathering around the exit. They're carrying large spear-guns, as if they're going hunting. The spears are a couple of feet long, and at least an inch wide. "You can't use those things on her," I say, shocked at the thought that they're going to hunt Abby down like she's some kind of wild animal.
"Hopefully we won't have to," Benjamin says as he puts on some body armor. For an older guy, he's surprisingly athletic. "But if we have trouble stopping her," he says, turning to me, "we'll have to use whatever means necessary." He takes a gun from the rack. "There's no need to worry, though. If she's strong enough
to need this kind of treatment, she's strong enough to heal her wounds. Just like her father." He turns to one of the technicians. "Stay here and monitor the prisoner. The rest of you, come with me."
As the lone technician returns to the main room, Benjamin leads the others out into the forest. They're carrying hand-held scanners that show them Abby's location. The sight of these half dozen men in uniforms, carrying weapons and with their heads covered by bulky masks, is terrifying. "I'm coming with you!" I call after them, determined to make sure that they don't hurt Abby when they find her.
"You're staying here," Todd says, glancing back at me.
"You can't do this to your own family," I tell him. He doesn't reply, and it's clear that he's avoiding making eye contact with me. "She's your niece!" I remind him.
"She's a monster," Benjamin says, interrupting. "Just like Patrick. She has a few human qualities, but she's fundamentally a monster."
I turn to Todd. "Do you believe that?"
"She is what she is," he replies. "It doesn't matter what I think. We have to assume that she's the same as Patrick."
"If you hurt her..." I start to say, but suddenly a loud siren starts blaring from back inside the base.
"Back in!" Benjamin shouts, and they all hurry back through the door. I follow them as they run to the main room, where we find a dead technician on the floor. He's been ripped open, with his blood smeared across the room from one corner to the next. Looking down, I realize that I'm standing in what appears to be the intestines of the dead man. "Check the prisoner!" Benjamin shouts.
With the others seemingly frozen in shock, I run over to the next door and reach in, switching on the light. As the bulb flickers, I look up at Patrick.
He's gone.
The handcuffs are empty, having seemingly been torn open, while the huge metal spike has been twisted and bent away. All that's left of Patrick is a patch of blood on the wall, and a set of bloody footprints leading across the room and through the door. It's as if some hugely powerful creature has simply swatted everything aside.
"That's not possible!" Benjamin says as he joins me in the doorway. The siren is still sounding. "Abigail must have come back and freed him."
"She's miles away," Todd replies as he pushes past us and goes to inspect the large spike. "Look at how it was bent. Patrick did this. He freed himself."
"He was too weak!" Benjamin says. "He couldn't possibly have done something like this!"
"Maybe he wanted to protect Abby from you," I say.
"He was unconscious," Benjamin insists, but I can hear the panic in his voice. His assumptions are falling apart. "Anyway, he was too weak. He's dying. He doesn't have the strength to do this. That equipment is impossible to bend!" He walks to the dome and examines the base of the spike. "He shouldn't have been able to get free," he says, still not willing to believe that he was wrong. Even faced with the evidence of his mistake, he's trying to come up with some other explanation.
"Maybe he loves her," I point out.
Benjamin turns to me. "What?" he asks, almost spitting the word out with contempt.
"Maybe he loves his daughter," I continue. "Maybe he won't let anything stand in his way if he thinks she's in danger." Suddenly the siren shuts off, leaving us standing in silence. "Maybe he loves her too much to let you hurt her. Maybe that's where the extra strength came from."
"He's not capable of love," Benjamin says.
"Then how do you explain what happened?" I ask.
He pauses for a moment. "We have to get Abigail back," he says, turning to Todd. "Patrick can't be moving too fast, not while he's dying. We have to get to Abigail first. Once we have her, Patrick will come to us."
From over my shoulder, I hear a distant shrieking sound. I turn and look at the technicians, but they just stare back at me as if they have no idea where the noise is coming from. "What the hell is that?" I ask, looking across the room. Realizing that it's coming from the far corner, I hurry over and see a box on one of the desks. The shrieking sound is coming from directly inside. Cautiously, I reach over and remove the lid. As Benjamin comes up behind me, I stare in horror at the five or six dead chicks, each of them bleeding from wounds all over their bodies. A puddle of blood has begun to form at the bottom of the box.
"What is this?" I ask, turning to Benjamin.
He stares at them. "They turned on each other," he says, as if he can't quite believe it. He reaches in and checks each chick. "They're all dead," he says finally. "They killed a quisling earlier, but they weren't supposed to turn on one another." He pauses for a moment. "I suppose it must have given them a taste for blood. I never expected..." He seems lost in thought for a moment, and then he turns to Todd. "We have to get Abigail back here," he says, sounding worried. "We have to get her back right now!"
Abigail
Today.
The journey takes me three days and three nights, during which I don't dare to stop and rest. I don't eat, I don't drink, I don't sleep, I don't even look back over my shoulder; I barely even think. I just keep running and running, determined to get as far away from Dedston as possible, determined to forget everything that's happened to me recently. At any moment, I expect to have Benjamin and the others catch up to me, determined to haul me back to their underground facility. Eventually, however, I realize that maybe I can outrun them. After all, I don't seem to be getting tired; it's as if I can run and run, as the fear pushes my body to keep going. I don't have a map, or any way to guide myself, but somehow I know exactly where I'm going and eventually, early on the morning of the fourth day, I find myself standing on a familiar roadside, with a familiar town spread out before me.
Callerton, New Mexico. I'm home.
I can't actually go back to my old house, of course. Benjamin and his men are undoubtedly there already, grilling Evan and Ruth for information about my whereabouts. I imagine Benjamin is pretty pissed off right now, especially since I discovered the little transmitter he attached to my shoe: I discarded it by sticking it to the side of a cow in a field I passed, and I can only imagine Benjamin's face when he raced to the field, thinking he'd finally found me, only to be confronted by a Friesian. Still, all jokes aside, he'll keep trying to find me, which means it's foolish of me to come back to Callerton. I'm walking into a hornet's nest, but I can't stay away. I'm alone in the world. Alone, even though I can't shake the feeling that I'm being watched.
Fortunately, I feel as if I'm getting stronger every day. My body is definitely changing. I'm becoming... something else. I guess I'll have to wait and see how things go. Right now, I'm just scared. Really, really scared. I feel as if I'm divided into two halves: there's the human side, which I got from my mother; and there's the darker side, which comes from Patrick. What if I become like Patrick? What if the vampire side takes over and I become some kind of cold-hearted killer?
I don't dare to venture into Callerton. It's a fairly small town, and there are plenty of people who'd recognize me. Besides, I'm worried about how I look. I feel like I'm changing so fast, maybe I'm starting to look different. Wandering through the forest, I eventually find the river. I kneel down and look at my reflection. I half expect to see some kind of monster staring back, so I'm relieved when I see that it's just me, and I don't look any different at all. All the changes are inside, then. Still, I can't go back to my old life. If people see me around, eventually word will get back to Evan and Ruth, and then to Benjamin. Maybe I shouldn't have come back here after all. Maybe I should just go somewhere completely new.
As for Patrick, I don't want to ever see him again. Benjamin was right about one thing: it's clear that Patrick's incapable of love. How else do you explain the fact that he killed my mother? He used her, and once he'd got what he wanted, he got rid of her. No creature could do such a horrific thing if it had even the slightest capability of feeling love. He must be some kind of monster, filled with anger and hatred, devoid of sympathy for the lives of others. I don't want to be around him. I don't want to help him. I don't
even care if he spends the rest of his life pinned up to that wall, to be prodded and poked by Benjamin. They're welcome to each other: the prisoner and his tormentor. As far as I'm concerned, they can stay like that forever, just so long as they leave me out of their macabre, hideous dance.
As I wonder through the forest, I feel a growing sense of peace. Eventually, though, something feels wrong and I realize I'm experiencing another of those strange images, although this time it's different and more peaceful. In front of me, I see a girl standing and staring at a statue. As I get closer, I see that the statue looks like Patrick, and the girl looks like me. It must be my mother, Sophie. I walk up behind her, wondering whether there's any way I can make contact with her. Slowly, I reach out a hand to touch her shoulder. She turns to me and -
My thoughts are suddenly disturbed by the sound of footsteps nearby, and the image fades away to leave me standing in the forest just outside Callerton. I turn, shocked at the thought that someone might find me out here. Hiding behind a mud-bank, I listen as someone walks past me just a few meters away.
"Fuck you, then," says a female voice nearby. There's a pause; it sounds as if she's talking to someone on the phone. "Next time you want to hang out with someone, don't call me." As I listen, I realize I recognize that voice. It's Donna, the girl who used to make my life a living hell. Those days feel as if they're a lifetime away, even though it's barely been a week since I left Callerton. Peering around the edge of the mud-bank, I see her walking angrily between the trees. It's weird, but she always used to be the center of attention, with people desperate to hang out with her. Now, though, she seems to be all alone. As I watch her walking away, I know that I should just ignore her. But the truth is, the anger is rising in me once again and I feel as if it's time someone taught this bitch a lesson. Carefully, and silently, I start following her. I don't even know what I'm planning to do, but I'm determined to make sure she learns once and for all never to mess with Abby Hart.
Stepping forward, I feel my foot push against a twig. There's a snapping sound, and Donna turns to see me. There's a look of shock in her eyes.