Seeking Asylum (21 page)

So many times. So much pain.

“My God, bud. How did you stand it?”

He knew the answer to that before he’d even formed the words. His brother was strong-willed and brave. He’d managed all these years against impossible odds, and he would prevail.

Eric’s eyes stung and his throat tightened. Now he and Rachel had found Metzger’s lab. Soon they’d have the proof they needed to stop Metzger’s heinous experiments.

He closed his eyes and dragged his thoughts away from his brother. He had to check on Rachel. She’d been in the office a long time.

He started toward the office and then the shock hit him—like slamming into an invisible wall. He lifted his head. He couldn’t see. He touched his eyes, then his temples. His skin, his hair, felt the same, but inside, everything had changed.

“Caleb!” he whispered, his lips numb with fear.

Stark horror crawled up his spine. He reached out with his mind, with his hands, but there was nothing there.

He was alone.

For the first time in his life, he was totally alone. His mind was a dead, cold place.

Caleb was gone.

Chapter Eleven

Rachel heard Eric say something through her com unit just as she put her hands on the document she’d been seeking. It had been stuck in the back of one of the logbooks.

“This is it! Eric, I think I’ve found the formula.”

Forgetting everything else, she quickly scanned the handwritten notes, then frowned and read them more closely. Dr. Metzger’s swirled handwriting plus the fountain pen he favored made the notes near illegible.

It appeared that he used fluid extracted from the brains of healthy and schizophrenic patients, and sterilized and filtered it to remove contaminants, then added a local anesthetic. As she deciphered the formula, she keyed it into a second text file on her cell phone, so she could send it to Mitch.

Rachel’s stomach knotted in growing horror as she slowly made sense of Metzger’s handwriting. Somehow, naively, she’d had the idea that his theory of schizophrenia as an autoimmune disease was just that—a theory.

She’d had a mental picture of him cooking up chemicals in a laboratory and testing the results on mice.

But now, reading his description of the process he used to obtain and refine the chemicals, dread certainty settled in the pit of her stomach, making her feel nauseated.

Caleb had been telling the truth. Metzger was conducting evil experiments. More evil than Rachel could have imagined.

He was using his patients as test subjects, giving them a home-cooked concoction taken from their own brains. It was a diabolical plot worthy of an old black-and-white horror film.

Caleb’s description of Rachel’s idol as
Frankenmetzger
was amazingly accurate.

The paper slipped from her fingers. She stared down at it, her mind struggling to take in the full implications of what she had discovered.

She reached down to retrieve the sheet and her eye was caught by one of the shipping labels.

Germany.
She’d forgotten about the mailing labels.

Why was Metzger packing all his notes and documentation of his heinous experiments to send to Germany?

She straightened and glanced around the office. He was moving. He wasn’t just shipping his papers to Germany, he was planning to go himself. And with Caleb’s arraignment coming up, and the FDA breathing down his neck, she’d bet it was soon.

They had no time to lose. She had to get the formula to the FBI. Not only was it Caleb’s salvation, it was also proof of what Metzger had been doing.

“Eric.” Rachel rose, paper in hand, and headed for the door. “Eric, what are you doing? Look at this. It’s the formula.”

As she came around the edge of the door, the sight that greeted her almost knocked her to her knees.

Eric stood rigid beside the OR table, his face drained of color, his eyes rolled back in his head and his arms stretched out in front of him like a blind man.

As she watched, he threw his head back and grimaced. His jaw was so tightly clenched that cords stood out in his neck.

A choked, guttural cry erupted from his throat and echoed in her ear. “Caleb!”

He swayed and crumpled.

“Eric!” Rachel stuffed the formula into her pocket and ran to him.

He crouched on the floor, squeezing his head between his clenched fists and whispering, “No…no…no…” over and over.

Rachel stood above him, unable to move, as she stared in horrified fascination at the man who, just minutes earlier, had held her and kissed her and made love with her.

All she could think now was that he looked and acted just like his brother. Like Caleb.

She took a step backward, her entire body crawling with the urge to flee. Terrors she hadn’t encountered since childhood overpowered her.

Helplessness, fear, the sense of abandonment and betrayal. The knowledge that no matter how hard she prayed, or how quiet she was, nothing she did would ever be enough to stop the madness.

She took another step backward, the child in her wanting to run away until he’d worn himself out and fallen asleep, like her mother always had—eventually.

But she forced herself to think rationally. She wasn’t a child anymore and this wasn’t her sad, beautiful, insane mother.

Rachel was an adult. A psychiatrist. Unlike that scared little girl, now she knew what to do.

If Eric had somehow cycled into an acute schizophrenic episode, he needed to be sedated.

She glanced across the room at the bright red crash cart. There would be an injectable sedative in there.

She looked down at his bowed head and blinked to rid her brain of the double image that floated in front of her eyes like a two-faced mask. Stepping around Eric’s crouched figure, she headed for the crash cart.

Eric heard a movement behind him. He blinked the tears away and tried to move. He found himself hunched down on the floor, his fists clenched so tightly they hurt.

Hurt.

Carefully he stretched his fingers, relishing the cramping pain. At least he still hurt. He must still be alive.

But Caleb was dead.

Anguish tore at his insides, as if a giant hand had reached in and ripped his heart out.

His throat rasped as a choked cry escaped. “I’m sorry, bud,” he whispered brokenly.

Something metallic hit the concrete floor behind him and the sharp sound pulled him out of himself and back into reality.

He was in Metzger’s secret lab, where Caleb had led him. His eyes burned with new tears. He couldn’t help Caleb now, but he could stop that monster from killing anyone else.

He stood and turned.

It was Rachel. For the few awful minutes when he’d first recognized the absence of his brother, when he’d experienced for the first time in his life the feeling of being alone inside his own head, he’d forgotten about her.

Just the sight of her soothed his loss. He wiped his face with both hands.

“Rachel.” His voice croaked. He swallowed and tried again, forcing himself to think about their purpose for being here. “Rachel, did you find anything?”

She raised her gaze to his and what he saw there staggered him. Her usually sparkling blue eyes were dull and sad, and she watched him with a narrow wariness that nearly broke what was left of his heart.

She lifted her right hand and he saw the syringe.

Alarm shot through him. “What the hell are you doing?”

Her lip trembled, but she lifted her chin and held out her other hand in a placating gesture.

“Eric—”

Then it hit him. He replayed in his head what she must have seen.

In that indescribable moment when his awareness of his brother had disappeared from inside him, he’d collapsed. The sudden emptiness had been like a light going out, plunging him into dark, nightmarish isolation for the first time in his life.

She must have thought he’d gone mad.

He took a deep breath and said, “I’m not insane.”

She blinked and bit her lip, but she didn’t move. “Do you remember what happened just now?”

He took a step toward her and spread his hands in a gesture of surrender.

She stiffened.

“Of course I do. Put down the syringe and let me explain it to you.”

“Why don’t I give you just a little bit of this and then we can take you back to your room. It will help you sleep.”

“Rachel, damn it. Stop talking to me as if I were one of your patients. I’m not crazy.”

She nodded and smiled, a bright, beautiful smile that he was certain made her patients feel comfortable as she assessed them and treated them.

But he knew her, and he knew her smile was fake.

“Of course you’re not. You’ve been under a tremendous amount of stress. You just need a good night’s sleep.”

He stepped closer and saw the apprehension flare in her eyes. “Ah, Rachel, don’t be afraid of me. I need to talk to you, and I can’t with you brandishing that thing like a weapon.” He dared another step.

Rachel recoiled, bumping the crash cart, sending the rattle of metal and plastic echoing around the room.

“Damn it. Would you stop acting like I’m some kind of monster? Come on, we’re in this together.” He held out a hand, well aware of the significance of what he’d just said.

He read her mind through her frightened eyes. She’d trusted him to be sane. She’d trusted him with her body, and with her emotions. Right now, to her, he
was
a monster.

And just a few seconds ago she’d discovered that, once again, just like with her mother, just like with all her patients whom she was so determined to help, she’d had her trust betrayed.

Eric knew he could never make up to her for what she’d seen. But he did know that there was something between them. He couldn’t—he wouldn’t—name it, but he knew it was there.

The question was, would the thread that connected them be strong enough to hold, no matter how hard she pulled away? If it wasn’t, then he’d lost more than his brother. The sadness and sense of loss that he’d thought would kill him doubled. It took every ounce of strength he had not to collapse under the pain.

Knowing he was gambling with not only their safety but possibly their lives, he pushed aside his personal feelings and forced himself to play on hers.

He dropped his gaze to her lips. If he couldn’t convince her one way, he’d try another.

“You haven’t forgotten how good we were together, have you?” He whispered so softly that he knew she would only be able to hear him through her com unit. Did his voice inside her head affect her the way hearing hers did him?

“Making love with you was the most amazing experience of my life. You know that, don’t you?”

She shook her head, but he knew he’d gotten to her. In his deepest heart he felt a bitter self-loathing as dampness gathered in her eyes.

“For the first time in my life, with you, I felt safe enough to be myself. To hold nothing back.”

“Please, don’t say that. I know what you’re doing. You’re playing on my emotions.” She blinked, dislodging a single tear that slid down her cheek.

He shook his head. “I’m telling you the truth. Nothing I’ve ever seen compares with you.”

The tears overflowed, leaving glistening trails down her cheeks. “Please stop trying to get to me. It’s not working.”

Oh, yes it is.

He lunged forward and grabbed her arm, pressing his thumb into the inside of her wrist at a point guaranteed to make her fingers lose their grip. As the syringe hit the floor, he flipped her around and wrapped his arms around her, rendering her unable to move.

As Eric’s strong arms pinned her, Rachel panicked. “No! Let me go!” she cried, fighting him.

A terrifying sense of déjà vu washed over her. It was the same as when Caleb had grabbed her, except that Eric’s hold wasn’t punishingly tight. Nor was his forearm cutting off her air as his breathing sawed unevenly in her ears.

This was Eric, not Caleb. Eric’s hold was more of an
embrace. He had his arms wrapped around hers, his hands covering hers. He bent his head and pressed his mouth against her temple and whispered to her.

“It’s okay, Rachel. Didn’t I promise I’d take care of you? You need to calm down so I can explain. I know what you saw. What you heard. I know it scared you. I’m scared too.”

She felt him shudder.

“I need you right now. So much it terrifies me. I’m about to be lost, if I can’t count on you.” His voice quivered, sending a hum of apprehension through her. “Please don’t be afraid of me. I don’t think I can stand that.”

“What—” She swallowed. “What happened?” She took a deep breath, her breasts pressing against his forearm. Despite her fear and worry, her nipples tightened.

He loosened his hold just slightly and pressed his cheek against hers. “No more syringes? No more screaming?”

Eric’s voice in her ear, soft and reassuring, as it had been since the beginning, slowed her pounding heart and eased her panic.

He’d been through so much. The daily injections. The constant observation. Worrying about his brother.

Who knew what all that was doing to him? He deserved a chance to explain. She suppressed the vision that rose in her mind, of him with his fists against his forehead, his body rocking back and forth, just like Caleb.

She nodded and took in a huge breath, torturing her sensitized breasts, then blew it out slowly. “I’m okay.”

When he let go, it took all her strength to stay put. Every molecule inside her screamed at her to make a break and run. She looked up at him and saw in his eyes that he realized that.

He stood, arms out, palms up, his dark eyes huge in his pale face, his lips pressed together and white at the corners.

“Tell me,” she whispered, her pulse hammering in anticipation.

“I’ve lost Caleb,” he said flatly, his gaze never leaving hers. Tears gathered in his eyes and his throat moved as he swallowed. He lifted his chin and took a swift breath.

Rachel stared at him. “I don’t understand.”

He blinked. A single tear balanced, glittering like a diamond, on his inky lashes. Rachel stared at it, watching as it finally fell and slid down his cheek.