Captivated (Talented Saga #3.5) (7 page)

It took two hands to hoist my hurt
leg over the edge of the bed, a feat made harder by my swollen –
likely broken – fingers. The physical torture had pretty much ended
several days ago, but I would be sporting the affects for days, if
not weeks, to come. Director McDonough had finally realized that
beating Talia’s whereabouts out of me wasn’t going to happen. That
didn’t stop him from kicking my bad knee or grinding his elbow into
my injured fingers or even smacking me across the face when he
thought I was being a smartass. While it was actually happening, I
barely registered the physical pain anymore. From the moment the
guards pulled me from my cell to the moment they shut me back in, I
plastered on the best smug smile that I could muster. Sure, I knew
it irritated McDonough that was why I did it. With few ways to
rebel at my disposal, annoying the big bad Director gave me a small
amount of satisfaction. If I ever got out of here, or saw my
reflection, I might regret my obstinate actions, but for now it was
all that sustained me.

No, that wasn’t entirely true. She
sustained me; thoughts of Talia were what kept me going. The
knowledge that she was safe, that my family was safe, that Alex was
safe, was what made all of this worth it.

While McDonough no longer used me
as a punching bag for hours on end, the torture continued. The
tactics were different now, though. Every day guards escorted me
from my cell to meet with Dr. Wythe, a small man with a
high-pitched, child-like voice. Then, a woman in a white lab coat
came in – a morbid excuse of a doctor – and injected me
with…something.

Dr. Wythe would sit across from me
at a plastic table, and wait for the drugs to take effect. It never
took long, minutes at most. Once the chemical haze set in, Dr.
Wythe slid a notebook full of blank pages in front of me, along
with a crayon. The first day he’d given me a pencil, but he’d
learned his lesson after I used it to stab him in the hand.
McDonough usually joined us at this point, and they would alternate
asking me questions about Talia.

The questions were oddly worded.
One would ask, “Where do you see Natalia now?” and then the other
would chime in with, “What are her surroundings like?” They never
simply asked, “Where is she?” But even stranger than that, was that
when they asked, my mind immediately conjured images of her in
unfamiliar settings.

During our first session, I’d seen
her sitting at the kitchen table in a house I didn’t recognize.
Frederick and Alex were with her, and all three were eating
chicken. The urge to draw the scene seized me, and I sat on my
hands to prevent that from happening. I wasn’t sure how I knew that
drawing the scene was a bad idea, but the fact that Dr. Wythe and
the Director provided me with a pad of paper to do just that was
enough proof that I shouldn’t.

“She’s in a house with a blonde
man and a little boy,” Dr. Wythe had informed the Director when I
failed to answer their questions. That was when I realized that the
doctor was like Talia, a very strong telepath. The drugs made my
brain fuzzy and me compliant, but I was strong willed and had
enough wherewithal to block my mind after that.

The first session like this had
lasted until I passed out. I couldn’t recall being brought back to
my cell that day, sometime later I’d woken up back in the dingy
confines alone and exhausted.

Each subsequent session went much
like the first, except I hung on to consciousness a little bit
longer each time. While I was with Dr. Wythe and the Director, I
thought of everything besides Talia. The chance that my mind would
inadvertently give away her location was too great a risk. I ran
through state names and capitols, important dates like Festivis and
my brothers’ birthdays. When I was desperate, I resorted to
counting the freckles on the doctor’s face.

But once I was alone again, I
thought of nothing but Talia. I replayed our first meeting at her
tryouts for the Hunters. Thinking about how confident she was, how
fierce and determined to beat me she was, brought a smile to my
face even now. That was when I first knew she was special, when I
decided that one day she would be mine. She would never admit it,
but she knew it too.

One of my favorite memories was
the first time we kissed. Her lips were so soft, her hair silky
between my fingers. No kiss with any other girl could hold a candle
to that one with Talia. Of course, being a guy, my absolute
favorite memory was the first time we slept together. She was so
nervous at first, but like with everything Talia did, she didn’t
hold back. The images of her were so vivid in my mind, causing
warmth to spread through my entire body and ward off the chill in
the cell. I pretended I was back at the Hamilton, holding her,
winding her long curls around my fingers while she pressed her
small body against me.

The chemical cocktail they
injected me with every day had lingering effects, though. And
sometimes the images of Talia weren’t memories at all. They were
more like visions, similar to the ones I had during my first
session with Dr. Wythe. The images felt real, so real in fact that
I could pick out every detail down to the color of the coaster
sitting next to the bed or the scene outside the window she was
sitting near. But I knew they were fabrications.

Only two days before – or was it
three? – I’d imagined Talia standing next to a blue couch, staring
at her reflection in a bay window. She started pacing, agitated and
fidgety. Then, she transformed into a small black wolf. Not long
after the wolf vision, I’d imagined her flying, literally flying
through the air, over homes, forests, and even the ocean. But the
one that solidified the fact these images were fabrications of my
delusional mind was the one I had this morning before the session
with Dr. Wythe.

Talia was sitting in the sand,
hugging her knees to her chest. Wind whipped strands of her hair
across her face while the ocean’s spray misted her skin. She was
watching the sun set on the horizon, a beautiful orange orb slowly
sinking into dark blue water. The scene was beautiful, romantic
even, but Talia was crying. Her purple eyes were ringed with red,
tears poured down her cheeks, and she let them roll down her chin
and fall onto her chest. The sight of her so upset made my chest
ache. I wanted to go to her, put my arms around her, make the pain
stop.

“Tal? You down there?” a female
voice called, barely audible over the crashing waves.

Talia wiped her face, smearing
tears and sand across her cheeks, but didn’t respond. She didn’t
turn her head as a tall, thin redhead emerged from a winding path
in the bluffs behind her. Shock at seeing a dead girl made the
vision waiver, and I had to concentrate to hold on to it. Seeing
Talia sad and crying, even if it were all in my head, was better
than nothing. I wanted to be on that beach with her so bad it
hurt.

“There you are,” Penny said,
walking over to where Talia sat close to the water’s edge. “Dinner
is ready. We don’t have to eat with everyone else if you’d rather
not.”

“I’m not hungry, Penny,” Talia mumbled.

Penny sighed and sank down next to
Talia. She wrapped one thin arm around Talia’s shoulders and hugged
her. Talia leaned into her, resting her head on Penny’s shoulder as
her small body shook with sobs.

“We’re going to get him back,
Tal,” Penny told her. “Uncle Ian thinks our chances of retrieval
are high. We have sources inside Tramblewood. They say he is
holding up well, considering the circumstances.”

This caused Talia to cry harder.
“W-w-w-what if we are too late?” she stammered through her sobs.
“What if Mac kills him?”

Penny didn’t offer Talia
platitudes or false assurances about the fate of person she was
crying over, which was strange. The Penny I’d known, the bubbly
girl who talked a mile a minute, wore outrageous makeup, and
succeeded in bringing Talia out of her shell, that girl would have
told Talia she was worried for nothing. Then again, the Penny I’d
known was dead. This Penny was a figment of my imagination, so I
supposed she was acting the way I wanted a friend of Talia’s to
act.

Unfortunately, I never did find
out who they were talking about or why Talia was so upset. Two
guards barged into my cell and marched me to my daily meeting with
Dr. Wythe and the Director.

Now that I was alone again, I
concentrated on the beach, trying to conjure the image of Talia in
her cutoff shorts and too big sweater sitting in the sand. But when
I saw the beach in my mind’s eye, only sand and ocean were there –
no Talia. Even Penny, or Penny’s ghost or whatever, was nowhere in
sight. I concentrated harder, the way I’d seen Talia do countless
times before when she was trying to control someone’s mind. I
figured what I was attempting was sort of like mind manipulation; I
was trying to control my own mind, invent images that some part of
me thought real.

Instead of the beach, I thought
only of Talia. I recalled the way her small hand fit so well in
mine, how her cheeks turned bright red when I made a sexual joke,
and how her hair always smelled like vanilla. Soon, I saw her. She
was in a small room, sitting on a couch with a croqueted afghan
covering her legs. Penny was curled up on the opposite end, sipping
steaming liquid from a white mug.

Two men were with them. The older
of the two stood by a window, gazing at the outside world. From the
back, I didn’t recognize him. His close-cut hair was salt and
pepper, and he stood ramrod straight, his posture suggested he’d
spent time in the military. A much younger guy with dark hair and
piercing green eyes perched on the edge of a recliner to the left
of the couch.

“The first wave will arrive by
sunrise,” the younger guy said. “I warned Marin that she would be
busy with so many extra people around.”

The older man turned, and my blood
froze: Ian Crane. What the hell was in that drug that was causing
my imagination to run in this direction. Why was I imaging my
girlfriend curled up in the dragon’s lair? Okay, so maybe I didn’t
believe Crane was the devil incarnate or anything – that title was
reserved for Danbury McDonough – but Talia sitting within spitting
distance of the man who’d tried to kill her, terrified
me.

Maybe the point of the injections
was to give me nightmarish hallucinations, I thought. Dr. Wythe and
the Director were trying to drive me insane. First I imagined Talia
talking to a dead girl, now I imagined her sharing cocoa with the
same dead girl and a man who tried to kill her. Well, if they
wanted me to lose my mind, they were about to succeed.

“Thank you for taking care of
that, Brand,” Crane replied. He crossed his arms over his chest and
leaned against the window frame. “I’ll hold a briefing tomorrow
evening, once everyone has arrived. We should be able to organize
the troops to move the day after.”

“That’s too soon,” Brand protested.

“Too soon?” Talia interjected. Her
eyes were dry now, but still bloodshot. She wore the same cream
sweater I’d seen her in previously. Her dark curls were wild,
making the glare she shot Brand frightening. “Erik’s living on
borrowed time as it is, Brand. The day after tomorrow isn’t too
soon, it might be too late.”

Hearing her say my name almost
undid me. Her voice broke at the end of her rant, but fierce
determination shone in her eyes. This was the girl I’d met in the
arena. The one who refused to shake my hand after our match was
declared a draw. The one who demolished a cheating boyfriend’s
cabin. The one who kidnapped the Director’s grandson.

“Seeing as you are not part of the
Coalition, you don’t get a vote,” Brand shot back. There was no
love lost between Talia and this guy. I hated how relieved that
made me. Being jealous of a hallucination was just
pathetic.

“Without me, you will never be
able to pull off this mission,” Talia hissed.

“Without you, we wouldn’t even be going on this
suicide mission,” Brand yelled, jumping to his feet.

In the blink of an eye, Talia was
off the couch, and Brand’s back was slamming against a wall next to
a fireplace.

“Enough, enough,” Crane said,
lazily sauntering across the room to stand between them. “This is
not a democracy. No one gets to vote on anything. I have made my
decision, and we will all have to live with the
consequences.”

Penny, who’d been watching the
fight with the indifference of someone who’d seen it before,
finally spoke. “Our people at Tramblewood are ready and waiting for
your word, Uncle Ian.”

“What’s the boy’s status?” Crane
asked, gesturing Talia back to her spot on the couch, and Brand to
his recliner.

Penny glanced between Crane and
Talia before answering. “He’s alive,” she said slowly. “Our sources
confirm that he has been meeting with Dr. Wythe twice a day.” Penny
shuddered when she said Dr. Wythe’s name, and rubbed her right arm.
She was wearing a long-sleeved shirt, but the shirt moved up her
forearm when she rubbed it. Tiny, red dots lined the blue vein
running from her wrist to the crook of her elbow.

A hollow feeling filled my gut
that had nothing to do with the fact I’d had little more to eat
than stale bread since coming to Tramblewood. The pin pricks on
Penny’s arm were identical to the ones on mine. Suddenly, I wasn’t
so sure these visions were hallucinations.