Loving Wilder

by Leigh Tudor

  “What are you doing?” she whispered loudly, her eyes bouncing between watching him and the staircase.

  He twisted his body toward her, a difficult feat as his legs were still tied with ropes and his arms zip-tied behind his back.

  “Trying to figure out where we are.”

  “What are you looking at?” she asked, attempting to scoot his direction, but gave up.

  “I’m not sure. Maybe a storage room where they pitch stuff.”

  Cara moved her legs to the side and attempted to stand with no luck. Her body ached, and the ropes had cut off the circulation in her legs.

  Noting her efforts, Nate hopped across the room, bent his knees, and wriggled his bound hands in front of her. She tried to stand, but she couldn’t grab hold of his hands with hers bound behind her.

  “I can’t do it,” she said, breathing heavily. “My legs are asleep.”

  “You need to try. It’s important to keep our blood circulating so we can move quickly if we have to.”

  She didn’t want to think about when that would be or why, so instead, she tried again to move her legs and, this time, she was able to tuck them under her and stand on her knees. His fingers caught her upper arm for added leverage and with his help, she was able to come to a stand. Although a wobbly one.

  Her body swayed back and forth, and it felt like pins and needles penetrated the surface of her skin.

  Nate hop-turned to face her. “I don’t know how much time we have before Sam returns, so we need to move quickly. Follow me to the storage room and let me know if you see anything that might help determine where we are and how to get out of here.”

  She nodded, wiggled her toes, and made a small hop and then another until she was standing in front of the doorway with Nate beside her.

  “What am I looking for?”

  “I don’t know. I guess we’ll figure it out when we see it.”

  Inside the barely lit room she spotted a number of items better suited for the local dump rather than stored for future use. A dented and scratched metal desk, printers that were no longer operational let alone manufactured within the current decade, and a couple ancient hospital gurneys reminding her more of large metal trays with wheels attached. Her eyes landed on something thrown to the corner of the room beneath heavily quilted blankets that looked to be home to the rat that had been helping itself to her food.

  “Omigod, Nate,” she said excitedly, “that’s my piano!”

  Her eyes narrowed as they adjusted to the dim light. “It’s my old Bösendorfer. It’s the first piano I learned to play.” She hopped closer and bent her knees, so she could get a better look. “It looks like someone took a sledgehammer to it and threw the pieces in here. Why would they do that?”

  Nate hopped beside her. “Better question, where would we be that would have pieces of your first piano in the basement?”

  Cara thought about that. With Dr. Vielle here, it could only be one place. “We’re at the Center.”

  “Yep,” he said with a steady head nod.

  “Why would they bring us here? You would think it would be too risky.”

  “Maybe they don’t plan for us to be here long,” Nate said, hopping to the left of the storage room to a workbench with cabinets lined above.

  “What are you doing?” she hissed.

  “Trying to find something that will cut through these zip ties.”

  “Sam could be back any minute.”

  “Which is why I’m moving quickly,” he said as if she were slow.

  She hopped behind him, scanning the workbench but also needing answers. “How did you even get here?” Cara tried to make sense of recent events. “One minute, Landon gets shot, and the next, I wake up in a van with you, Landon, and Samantha tied up next to me.”

  “I followed you to Raley.”

  “What? Why?”

  “I went to the party to check on you. Make sure you were okay. When I saw you leave with Landon, we followed you.”

  “We?”

  “Me and Mercy.”

  Oh, no. “Mercy was with you?” Well, that was just great. If she ever got out of here alive, she’d be in a ton of trouble. “Where is she?”

  “Not sure. Before I got jabbed, she was pistol-whipped by some guy the size of a fir tree. But she’s okay. She was breathing when I checked on her.”

  “But how can you be sure she’s okay? How do you know that they didn’t… hurt her after we left?”

  “I just know,” he responded, hopping and perusing.

  Cara stared straight ahead, and then her eyes began to water. She would trade a lifetime of imposed restrictions and less than idle threats from her sister to know that Mercy was alive and well.

  Nate quickly noted her impending waterworks.

  “Hey,” he said in a comforting tone, “I’m telling you, she’s fine. Sam would’ve mentioned her if he had dropped her off with Landon and Samantha. And she’s not down here with us. I’m sure they left her. She’s on her way.”

  “Okay,” she sniffled.

  “Now help me find something that will cut through zip ties.”

  “Wait a minute,” Cara said, as memories started to come together and gel. “Did you shoot someone in the neck, or was I hallucinating?”

  “Yeah, that was me. But I forgot to watch my back. Rookie mistake.”

  “You were trying to protect me,” she said, processing while remembering everything that had happened prior to ending up here. “Hey,” she said, capturing his attention. “Thank you.”

  “You’re welcome,” he said, continuing his search as if suddenly embarrassed.

  “You really think Mercy’s okay?”

  “I do. I give her the next three to four hours to get us out of here.”

  “How… how can you be so sure of that?”

  He turned to her with a sardonic look on his face. “Because I’m personally aware of her mad ninja skills and because she’s a veritable genius. Like me.”

  “And me.”

  He twisted his mouth to the side.

  “What? I’m a genius.”

  “I know. Mercy told me.”

  “She told you…?”

  He nodded.

  “How much?”

  He shrugged. “A lot. She told me how you were a musical prodigy and played concerts all over the world and made a lot of money. And about how famous you are.”

  “Were,” she corrected.

  He hesitated before adding, “And the surgeries.”

  Her eyebrows rose at that bit of information and then lowered. She wasn’t sure how she felt about him knowing something she had kept a secret for so long. A secret she wasn’t permitted to share with anyone. No exceptions. And although she knew Mercy must’ve had a good reason for telling him, it would have been nice to be the one to share her story.

  Because it was her story.

  Nate seemed to lose patience. “But I’m not sure how knowing how to play Bach is going to get us out of here.”

  Why, that little…

  “I happen to have an IQ of 142.”

  “Okay, get us out of her then, Miss IQ of 142.”

  “I’m a genius in a different way. My genius lies in my musicality.”

  He chuckled and she wanted to hit him, despite being a firm believer in nonviolent options for conflict resolution.

  Although recent events were making her question that particular stance.

  “I admit,” Nate said, hopping farther along the bench, “you are a musical prodigy. However, studies have shown that your genius is limited to music. There’s no evidence of superior intelligence or exceptional working memory in prodigies compared to your average musician.”

  Oh, now she was getting piss… peeved.

  “Are you saying that someone who is hailed as a musical virtuoso isn’t necessarily smart?”

  “I’m saying that studies have shown this.”

  “There’s a flaw in those studies.”

  He reared his head back. �
�Excuse me?”

  The nerve.

  “None of those prodigies in any of those studies had their brains hacked into like mine and Mercy’s.”

  “Are you bragging about having your brain tampered with by a whack job of a neurosurgeon?”

  “Of course not. Just stating facts. The studies you referenced don’t apply. You’re not comparing apples to apples.”

  Nate stared at her as if she were mentally challenged. “You mean, naturally derived musical genius as opposed to musical genius that was man-made through underground, black-market brain manipulation?”

  “Hey, I’m not defending the mechanism for how I became a genius, just the results. Besides, yours is no more of a naturally derived genius than mine,” she forged on. “Were you not hit in the head with a baseball? And then woke up one morning and BAM, you could recite the calculation for derivatives?”

  He squinted his eyes. “What do you know about derivatives?’

  “Why, you need me to tutor you?”

  She was frustrated, but that was better than being scared out of her mind. But regardless of Nate’s obvious attempts to distract her from the current situation, fear was beginning to take hold.

  “And guess what, we’re in the basement at the Center that I don’t think even Mercy knows about. And it doesn’t take a genius to figure out that we’re SOL.”

  She caught his smirk. “And don’t you dare start spouting crap about how I’m catastrophizing.”

  “Oh gee, why would I do that?” He smirked, facing away from the bench and fumbling with something behind him.

  Cara hopped next to him, feeling utterly helpless without the use of her hands. Not to mention the sting of the zip ties cutting into her skin and blood dripping from the tips of her fingers.

  “What do you think they did with Landon and Samantha?” she asked.

  Nate leaned against the workbench, his thin body looking all the more frail with his hands tied behind him. He seemed to be rubbing his hands against something.

  “Sam and I had a talk while you were getting your beauty sleep. Although whatever injection Vielle gave him made much of what he said delusional nonsense, what I did get out of his ramblings was that he didn’t kill them. Apparently, he ran out of time and panicked. He was supposed to dump them in a lake, but instead he dumped them near a lake and then came back.”

  Cara scowled. “Are you kidding me? Now you tell me? Think maybe that would’ve been important information to impart, like, the minute I woke up?”

  “No, because it wasn’t information relevant to our escaping,” he said, his voice beginning to rise. “But only a genius would think like that.”

  Intuitively, she knew his attempts to maintain a certain level of harmless banter was his way of helping her cope with a very scary situation. And it was working. Therefore, she was happy to oblige.

  “When I get out of here, I’m going to tell everyone at school that you make out with your pillow.”

  “I like to refer to it as target practice.”

  “And that you read romance novels.”

  “I want to be fully informed as to what women find attractive in a man for when the time is right. Romance novels tend to be the best resource for that type of information.”

  “Eww, you’re too young to be thinking about that stuff.”

  “Are you kidding me right now? All boys my age do is think about that stuff.” He paused. “Or at least kissing.”

  Nate continued with his gyrations and Cara began to wonder if she should look away and allow him some privacy. He continued, undeterred. “And trust me, I have years of deep resounding respect for women compared to the knuckle-dragging Homo erectus I’m forced to go to school with. And I’m talking about the guys in my advanced high school classes. And don’t even get me started on college guys.”

  “What about Landon?” she asked, half afraid of the answer.

  “Landon’s good people,” he confirmed. “He respects you.”

  “If that’s the case, why did you feel like you had to go to the party?”

  “Not because of Landon,” he said. “He’s solid.”

  “Then why go?”

  He sighed in frustration but Cara needed to know. “Because where there’s underage drinking, there are bad decisions. The two go hand in hand. I didn’t want either of you to fall prey to some asshole’s altered decision-making process. Something tragic could have happened.”

  “So you were there looking out for both of us?”

  “Correct. Wow, you really are a genius.”

  She smiled, not allowing his snark to affect her. “Well… that’s… kind of sweet.”

  “And voilà!” he said, holding up the zip tie that had been wrapped around his wrist and showing her the wood chisel he’d wedged between two wooden slats, sticking out from the workbench behind him.

  Cara smiled wide, turning her back to him so he could pull her toward the bench and free her as well.

  Once that was accomplished, they both started to work on the ropes around their ankles.

  Mercy wormed her way through the hydraulic drawer and dropped onto the floor of the attendant’s room, creating quite the clattering sound as her foot brought along with it a container of pens, a stapler, and a number of other basic desktop items.

  She curled into herself at the disconcerting racket and then popped up, pressing against the wall behind the door as she waited for the last item to stop clanging. Doing her best to remain calm in case someone heard the disturbance and decided to investigate, she sucked in a breath.

  And waited some more.

  Loren was always telling her that she lacked patience. And logic.

  And a consistent nighttime skincare regimen.

  Holding her breath, she finally exhaled as it appeared no one had heard her tactical blunder.

  Opening the door and peering out, she realized the security guard station in the main entrance wasn’t even manned.

  Nice.

  Hopefully, they were still working with a skeleton crew of three men. Two, not counting Dr. Vielle, who possessed the fighting skills of a prom queen.

  She also noted that only every two to three of the can lights were lit due to the power coming from the outside generator as opposed to the electrical utility grid from across town.

  Making her way to the first door, she pressed ENTER, not even bothering to plug NATE onto the keypad given the power restrictions. And, as expected, the door clicked open a few inches, but not all the way as the generator didn’t pull enough power output capacity to open the doors.

  She grabbed the edge of the door with both hands and pulled, opening it manually and giving herself just enough room to wedge her body through the tight cavity.

  On instinct, she navigated the corridors, stopping first at the offices where she found Loren months ago, set up in her own office, dressed in Donna Karan and posing as an ally to Jasper Bancroft.

  The area though was not only deserted, but had also been looted. All of the cabinets were left open with the contents spilling everywhere. And reminiscent of Landon’s truck, the looters only taking those things that would bring them the most payback.

  Backtracking to where she began, she then found the doorway that would lead her to the surgical section of the compound where Dr. Vielle’s offices and surgical rooms were housed.

  Again, if she had thought the Center uninhabited the last time she was running amuck through the corridors, that had been nothing compared to now. Not with the barely lit hallways, offices with desks devoid of personal items, and papers strewn everywhere.

  She overheard voices and moved farther down the hallway, recognizing Dr. Vile’s squeamish falsetto voice. But it sounded as if he were speaking with a child.

  “Sam, the boss lady will be here soon. I need the baseline functional MRIs of the children prior to her arrival, and we have little time to prepare.”

  Suddenly, his tone changed, indicating he was now talking to someone with brain cells and oppos
able thumbs.

  “Billy Joe, help Sam bring the boy to me. He’ll go first.”

  Sam did as he was told, and she slipped into another room just as he went skirting by.

  Then Billy spoke. “I’m not altogether pleased with you ordering me around as if I’m one of your low-paid, drugged-up lackies. I want to remind you that I am an esteemed colleague of Amado’s. My purpose for being here is only to ensure that the transfer of the children doesn’t get botched a second time, given the investment involved. So, to be clear, I’m not here to do your shit work. Or to go fetch the brats. I’m here to put a bullet in your temple if this transaction doesn’t meet Amado’s and my expectations. Have I made myself fucking clear?”

  Dr. Vile issued an insipid reply, like the mealy sycophant that he was. “Of course. I didn’t mean any slight. You must understand I’ve been working entirely on my own under impossible conditions and without my usual team. I’m only looking to save valuable time by having Sam gather the children while I prepare the room.”

  “We don’t need another medical image of their brains. We need the kids turned over to us, as soon as Amado arrives.”

  Mercy pushed farther into the room, remaining hidden in the shadows as he sauntered by.

  Once Billy Joe had made it past the double doors, she stepped out. She flattened herself against the wall and peered inside the room where Dr. Vielle was prepping for what appeared to be one of his ill-advised procedures.

  Seeing that room made her stomach turn as it was the reoccurring backdrop to some of her worst nightmares—both as a child and as an adult.

  She had never divulged the more gruesome details of what had happened to her in this room to Loren. It was just too difficult to talk about. And if there was one characteristic she had adopted from her sister; it was her ability to compartmentalize the more damaging memories of her childhood.

  But today, smelling the antiseptic in this space, and hearing the clicking sounds of surgical tools inadvertently touching one another as they were being carefully placed on the tray next to the gurney, pulled her under.

  Findling, Utah

  Halstead Lab and Research Center

  Seven Years Ago