by R. D. Brady
He shook it. "Rolly."
"Rolly? Seriously?"
"It's really Ronald." He rolled his eyes. "My little sister couldn't pronounce it so she started calling me Rolly. It just sort of stuck."
"Is she here?"
He gave her a surprised look. "No. Why would she be here?"
Lou scrambled for an answer. She wasn't supposed to know anything other than what she'd been told by Pascha. God, barely into this spy stuff and already she was blowing her cover. "Um, I just thought maybe they brought both of you."
"Nah. She's my half-sister. After my Mom died, she went to live with her Dad. I went to live with mine." A shadow of grief flickered across Rolly's face.
"Sorry."
He shrugged. "Just the way it goes. Anyway, do you have any idea where we're heading?"
"I'm guessing here." Lou looked out the window as the van turned onto the rest area ramp. Two men pulled back the sawhorses that blocked the way and replaced them after the van was through. Lou didn't feel anything as they passed. The men must be humans.
The van driver pulled into a spot right next to the bathrooms.
Pascha looked back at everyone in the van. "Everybody out."
Lou glanced at Rolly who shrugged back. Then she followed the rest of the teenagers out of the van. There were eight teenagers in total including her and Rolly.
The driver went to the back of the van and pulled out a big canvas bag. He carried it to Pascha. After dropping it to the ground, he unzipped it and started pulling plastic wrapped parcels out of it.
Pascha took a handful of packages. He glanced at the first one and called out. "Derek Bier."
A beefy guy with dark hair stepped forward. "Um here."
Pascha tossed the bag at him. The driver and Pascha then called out everyone else's name. Lou caught her bag and looked inside. It contained a black tracksuit, a t-shirt, socks, sneakers, a sports bra and underwear.
She glanced at the tags. How'd they get my sizes?
"All right," Pascha called out pulling everyone's attention. "Each of you will head inside, get changed into these clothes, and put your old stuff into the bag. All your old stuff."
"Um why?" one of the guys asked.
Pascha's eyes narrowed at him. Lou held her breath. But finally Pascha smiled. "You are starting a new chapter of your life. You need to do that by leaving your old life behind."
Everyone glanced at one another.
Pascha waved them toward the building. "Go on. You have five minutes."
Lou walked behind Rolly, her mind racing. Maybe she could extract the tracker and place it in her new shoes.
Lou tried to keep from running. She did speed walk a little though and managed to be the first one into the rest room. She grabbed the first stall and quickly changed clothes. Then she sat on the toilet, trying to fish the tracker out of her sneakers.
"Come on, come on," she whispered, but the tracker was buried too deep.
What the hell was she going to do? Without the tracker, Jen wouldn't be able to find her.
Pascha's voice came through the rest room. "Time's up, ladies."
Heart racing, Lou looked down at her old sneaker. What do I do?
CHAPTER 39
The recruits lined up outside the van. The driver appeared from the back of the van with a wand of some sort. He started to walk down the line, waving it over each person.
"Uh, what's this?" Rolly asked.
Pascha stepped forward. "Glad you asked. There's a group that's been trying to thwart our efforts - keep you from fulfilling your true potential. We're just making sure that none of you are in leagues with them."
Lou tried to keep her face impassive, but she could feel her heart hammering through her chest as the driver made his way down the line. Finally, the driver walked up and waved the wand over her. No beeps sounded and she let out a breath. The driver gave her a curious look but she just shrugged.
He moved on to Rolly, who was last in line.
Then the driver went over to the pile of bags. Lou tried to look nonchalant. He ran the wand over each bag.
No beeps sounded.
At the last minute Lou had dumped her shoes in the garbage bin in the bathroom. She didn't even know why she did it, but right now she was glad she did.
The driver stepped away from the pile and nodded at Pascha.
Pascha turned back to them. "Excellent. You all passed. Back in the van."
Lou's legs felt wobbly as she looked around. Jen, where are you?
CHAPTER 40
Jen barreled down the highway. Henry sat in the passenger seat, flinching as Jen barely avoided clipping a Toyota. A sharp intake of breath, though, was all the protest he made.
Henry had met Jen and Maddox at the airport. Jen didn't even pretend she wasn't happy to see him.
They'd been following Lou's tracker but staying back out of range. Jordan was ahead with Yoni and the other fully human agents.
"Anything?" Jen asked.
"Not yet," Henry replied.
Ten minutes ago, they realized Lou's tracker hadn't moved. Jen white knuckled the steering wheel. That meant they had either arrived at their destination or -
Jen shied away from that thought. She wasn't going down that road. Not yet.
Jordan and Yoni were doing recon on the site before they entered.
Jordan's voice rang out through the car. "Jordan for Henry."
Henry grabbed the radio. "Go ahead Jordan."
"You guys can come up. There's no one here."
"What?" Jen exclaimed even as she pressed the gas pedal down farther.
She shot up the rest area ramp and pulled to an abrupt stop. Throwing the car into park, she vaulted out of it.
Jordan jogged up, his face tight. "The trackers still here. But Lou's not. No one is."
Yoni stepped out of the rest room area, something in his hands. Jen squinted, trying to see what he held. Then she went still as she recognized the object in Yoni's hand. "Those are Lou's shoes."
Yoni nodded as he stopped in front of her. "Tracker's still in them."
Jen looked up the road, feeling her stomach bottom out. "Oh my God. We lost her."
CHAPTER 41
Jen walked away from the group at the rest stop. She needed a few moments alone. Jordan and Yoni were sending people down the highway. They'd cover as much distance as they could. Henry had birds in the air as well but the van could be anywhere.
Henry had called Danny to pull in any footage from the highway and the surrounding areas. But this rescue had just become a giant search.
Jen's stomach clenched painfully. And if they switched cars, we'll never find them.
She wrapped her arms around herself. I never should have let her go. I should have made her go to Baltimore, even if she hated me for it.
Fear crawled up her throat threatening to choke her. What if Lou got hurt? What if she got killed?
"Jen?"
Jen whirled around as Henry walked up behind her.
He stepped within an arm's reach. "We've notified every law enforcement agency in the area to look out for the van. I've also put a BOLO out on Lou. And Danny's tracking the data as fast as he can."
Jen nodded, knowing that everyone was doing everything they could. And also knowing that it might not be enough.
"We'll find her."
Jen shook her head. "You know the chances of that are getting slimmer by the minute. I never should have let her go. I should have forced her to stay or I should have sent her to the school in Baltimore. This is all my fault."
"It's not your fault. She chose this. I know how hard you tried to keep her from it."
Jen looked away from Henry's knowing eyes. "What if we're too late?"
Henry stepped toward her, wrapping his arms around her. She leaned her head against his chest. Henry's voice was confident. "We won't be."
But Jen didn't share his confidence because there was no room for confidence in her.
Right now, there was only r
oom for mind numbing fear.
CHAPTER 42
Lou and Rolly were once again in the last row of the van. And yet again, silence dominated. As the miles stretched by, though, people began to make small talk. Up front, Pascha tuned into a local radio station and music filled the van.
Rolly leaned down to Lou. "That was kind of weird, right?"
Lou nodded staring out the window looking for a face she recognized in the passing cars. "Yeah. It was."
Rolly looked down at his tracksuit. "This all has a kind of 'welcome to the cult' vibe, doesn't it?"
"Yeah."
Rolly sighed, pulling the jacket a little away from him. "Well, at least it's black. I look good in black."
Lou glanced over at him, his comments eliciting a reluctant chuckle from her. "Well, thank God for that."
Rolly smiled. "So Lou, being we're going to be fellow cult members, why don't you tell me a little about yourself?"
"Uh, like what?"
Rolly shrugged. "I don't know. Is this your first cult experience?"
Lou smiled in spite of the terror she felt. "Why yes. Yes it is."
"Me too. We must not get out enough. Any idea where we're headed?"
Lou shrugged. "Pascha said he picked it. That's all I know. And that he thought we'd all really like it."
Rolly looked to the front of the van. "Hm, I'm going to go out on a limb and say his tastes and my tastes probably don't coincide all that much."
"Yeah. I think you're probably right on that."
Twenty minutes later, their suspicions were confirmed.
"You have got to be kidding," Lou muttered staring at the building that loomed in the distance.
"We're staying there?" Rolly asked.
"God, I hope not."
But the van was heading in an unerring straight line. A three story Gothic inspired mansion appeared in the distance. A giant tower loomed in the center and two wings grew out of the sides. It looked like something out of a horror movie.
They passed a sign and Lou knew her eyes had gotten even bigger. She grabbed Rolly's arm. "Did you see that?"
"What?" Rolly asked.
"The sign. It said Danvers State Insane Asylum."
Rolly's head swiveled toward her, his eyes bright. "Danvers? Seriously?"
Lou nodded.
"Holy crap, that is actually kind of cool."
"Cool?" Lou asked wondering if she had misread Rolly.
"No, I mean it's creepy. But this was the place that inspired H.P. Lovecraft. It actually started out as a cool place, where they were really concerned about patient care. But eventually it became crowded. In fact, it got so crowded that patients sometimes died and weren't discovered for days. And they became the poster children for lobotomies and shock therapy. It closed down back in the early nineties. It hasn't been used since."
Lou felt even more uneasy than she had even a few minutes ago. "And you know this why?"
Rolly regarded her for a minute before speaking. "My mom, she uh, she was institutionalized when I was six. She spent two years inside a hospital like this. They finally figured out the right drug combo and she was released. But she was in and out of hospitals for most of her life. So I did a lot of research on psychology and hospitals and stuff."
"I'm sorry," Lou said.
Rolly shrugged. "We all have our stories, right?"
Lou thought about Charlotte, her mom, and grandmother. Five years and they were all gone. Five years was the time it took to take her from a happy home to the back of a van heading toward a creeped out hospital for some sort of training camp run by psychos.
Lou's voice was soft when she spoke. "Yeah. We do."
They didn't have any more time for conversation though as the van pulled to a stop a few feet from the front door.
"Wow and I thought it was creepy from afar," Rolly muttered.
Mortar was chipped in between the bricks and weeds ravaged the front. The windows that could be seen were either boarded up or broken. Lou glanced out the van window and up, expecting bats to come flying out of the windows. Seconds later, a few did.
All of the occupants in the van were stunned into silence.
Pascha turned around, his smile huge. "Great, right?"
No one said anything but Pascha didn't seem to mind or notice. "Wait until you see the inside. It's even better."
Everyone exited the van. Lou was the second to last to get out. She stepped out and stared up at the building, wrapping her arms around herself.
Rolly stopped next to her, whispering. "Um, I think I might have made a mistake."
Lou looked up at him. "Yeah. Me too."
CHAPTER 43
Amazingly, the inside of the hospital was worse than the outside. At least outside, the sunlight helped it be not quite as despairing. Inside, with most of the windows covered, it was beyond depressing - it was sinister.
Pascha quickly hustled them through the first floor. Lou glanced into what had been a parlor at one time, with dark moldings and a giant fireplace. She could imagine it back in its day, looking strangely elegant.
Pascha, though, didn't take time to give them a tour. He moved them quickly down the halls. Lou caught glimpses of rooms as she passed. It was eerie. Like everyone had just picked up and left one day. There was still some furniture left behind - even a few pieces of clothing and papers scattered about.
And there were lots of guards - some human, some not. Lou swallowed. Getting out of here was not going to be easy. She thought of Jen. Getting in here wasn't going to be easy either.
Pascha led them straight to the east wing on the third floor. And the only reason Lou knew it was the east wing was due to the decrepit sign announcing it.
The windows weren't covered which allowed them to see more. Although after seeing the peeling plaster, rooms with old beds and remnants of hospital equipment, Lou wasn't sure that was a good thing. This must have been where the more difficult patients were kept.
Lou expected an old patient to drift down the hall toward them, sans eyes and a soul. No wonder Lovecraft had been inspired by the place. And that was during its heyday. If he visited today, his horror stories would be even more terrifying.
She glanced around as a wind blew through the hall. A chill stole over her. Or maybe he does still visit - along with some friends.
They passed through a set of double doors and to their right was a Plexiglas window. On the other side was a chair with straps.
"Hello, Clarice," Rolly whispered down to her.
Lou rolled her eyes, but still felt goose bumps break out across her skin.
Pascha paused at an open doorway and waved them all in. "Ah, here we are."
As Lou stepped through she realized this room must have been a ward at one point, due to its size. Old beds were lined along the cracked walls. There were already about ten kids there in the back of the room. They were wearing the same tracksuits and seemed to have already claimed their spots.
Pascha waved them forward. "Go ahead. Choose a bed."
The new kids spread out slowly. Lou and Rolly picked two beds near the door.
Rolly smacked his bed and a layer of dust rose in the air. "Wow. They really went all out in accommodations," he muttered.
"Yeah," Lou said. "I was promised something a little more luxurious."
The other teens who'd ridden with them looked equally unimpressed.
One of the girls tossed her blonde hair over her shoulder. "I am not staying in this dump."
Everyone went silent.
Pascha titled his head. "Did someone have a comment to make?"
The girl stepped forward. "I did. I'm not staying here. This place is gross."
Pascha walked over to her.
Lou choked down the warning in her throat. She could tell the girl didn't have any abilities, at least not yet.
Pascha smiled. Before anyone could breathe, he wrapped his arms around her neck and twisted.
The crack resounded through the room.
; He let her go. She dropped to the floor - her eyes open, staring accusingly at them all.
Lou gasped and she felt Rolly stiffen beside her.
Pascha just smiled, his eyes cold. "Now, let me make clear the rules. You are here to prove that you are worthy. She-" He nodded toward the body on the floor, "was not. If you'd like to survive, make sure that you are."
CHAPTER 44
Henry drove down the highway looking for some sign of the van. He kept his eyes peeled to the road but every once in a while he couldn't help but glance at Jen. She looked so pale. He knew if anything happened to Lou it would kill her.
His phone beeped and he glanced to where it was attached to the dashboard. Danny.
He hit the speaker. "Danny? Do you have anything?"
Jen sat up straight in the chair next to him, but then seemed to deflate at Danny's first words.
"I'm still looking for the van. But I do have an ID on the guy who Lou met up with."
Jen leaned forward. "Who is he?"
"His name is Pascha Bukin," a female voice said.
"Laney?" Jen asked.
"Yes. You guys should have told me what you were planning."
Henry glanced over at Jen. "We wanted to give you a little break from all this. It's been a tough year."
"Yeah. But you still should have told me. Jake's already on the way to you. If not for Kati and Max, I'd be there too. But enough about that, the guy who recruited Lou has a rather horrific back story."
"How'd you find him?" Jen asked.
"Danny ran his face through facial rec and then I ran his name through the FBI database. And surprise, surprise, our guy has a record."
"What's he done?" Henry asked.
"Lots - a string of juvenile arrests but most of the charges were dropped. Witnesses had an unhappy habit of disappearing. And although he was suspected in a number of adult crimes, no one has ever been able to get the charges to stick."