The Doctor (16 page)

‘But,’ Sarah said again. She seemed to be searching for some reasoning behind everything. ‘I’ve seen into his head, not at any point did I get any suggestion he had a son. That I had a brother. You must be wrong.’

‘What do you mean you’ve seen into his head?’ I asked, handing back the photo, and staring at the girl in front of me. She looked a lot like my mother. I really should have seen it before. Maybe I did, but I didn’t want to believe it.

‘My mother was a telepath, my father is a telepath and I seem to have some sort of connection to my father’s mind,’ she said. ‘It’s different to the connection I have with you though.’

‘Does he know?’ I said quickly, glancing round as if the Doctor would suddenly be waiting there to scupper the plan that was forming in my mind. Maybe we had a chance.

Sarah was shaking her head. ‘I don’t think so. No, I’m pretty sure he doesn’t.’

‘Good,’ I said absent-mindedly. This could just work. ‘We need to find Daniel and work out what to do next. It won’t take long for the Doctor to realise we’ve rumbled him—he may already know—and then we won’t have much time before he comes looking for us. I want to find him first, catch him off guard.’

‘It’s not possible to catch my father off guard,’ Sarah said. She was watching me closely. Probably wondering, like I was, if there was any way that I was wrong, that the Doctor wasn’t my father.
 

‘I think I might have found a way,’ I said mysteriously. I was about to explain more when we heard someone running down the corridor. Quickly, I pulled Sarah back against the wall and mentally berated myself for staying here this long. The Doctor could easily have figured out by now that this was nothing but a distraction. Surely he’d head back to his study?
 

The entrance to the cell was open, but it was possible he would be so focussed on returning to his study that he wouldn’t notice. Okay, I didn’t really believe that, but there was nothing I could do to get us out of here so it was the one thought I could focus on that wouldn’t end in certain death. This cell had no exits, and the only way out of the corridor was to go past the person coming down it. My heart sank as I realised he could easily trap us in here.

‘Come on,’ I whispered to Sarah, taking her hand, ‘We have to run. We’ve got no choice. If we get separated then we meet back at your old cell, okay?’

I took the high-pitched squeak to mean she understood, even if she didn’t like it. We moved to the gap in the wall and took a deep breath ready to run, when suddenly a face appeared. It took everything inside me not to yell, and I slammed my hand over Sarah’s mouth as she screamed at the top of her lungs.

‘Dan,’ I said, barely able to contain my delight, ‘You scared the life out of us, we thought you were the Doctor.’

He grinned and moved into the room. ‘Nope, Doc went off in the other direction. It just took me a while to calm the wolf down; I didn’t want to come and find you until I was sure it was safe.’

Another head poked around the wall. The werewolf this time, his tongue hanging out the side of his mouth as if he were grinning. Sarah backed away.

‘I’m getting quite fond of him now,’ Daniel said, glancing behind him, ‘He’s pretty useful if he can scare away serial killers.’

He had a point. Maybe I needed to trade Tez in.

‘Daniel, meet Sarah. The real one this time,’ I said introducing the girl who was half hidden behind me. They shook hands and ten minutes later we were all up to speed. I explained to them the plan that had been forming in my head since I’d met Sarah—the real one. Now to implement it and hope it worked. Fooling telepaths was not easy, particularly when their skills were as advanced as the Doctor’s.

‘Okay,’ Dan said, ‘First things first, how are we going to find the Doctor? If we stay here we would be easily trapped when he comes looking for us.’

‘Oh, we’re going to find him before he comes for us,’ I said, turning around, ‘Sarah, that’s where you come in. Can you use your connection and see where he is?’

‘I’ll give it a go,’ she said, closing her eyes to concentrate.

‘He mustn’t know about you accessing his mind, remember that. Everything hinges on him not finding that out,’ I said. She nodded, not even opening her eyes.

Dan and I stood there, waiting as quietly as we could. We glanced at each other and I hoped we were doing the right thing, involving Sarah in this. I felt a pang of guilt, knowing I really should be keeping her away from the Doctor, not taking her to him. But she might just be our only chance. If it worked we could get her away to safety, take her away from this place.

‘I think,’ Sarah said, breaking the silence, ‘that he’s in a control room of some kind. There were cabinets, full of wires and buttons, all over the room. I’ve never seen it before. He knows we have found the study—actually I think he intended for us to find the study—so that’s why he’s not come back here.’

‘Follow me,’ I said, leading them out of the cell and towards the study. I was sure I had seen something on the map marked control room. Sitting down at the computer, I moved the mouse to turn the screen on, minimised all the windows and brought up the map again.
 

‘Here it is,’ I said, jabbing my finger at the screen. ‘Gotcha.’

It took a bit longer than I would have liked to find the place in person. It was one thing following it on a map, and another thing entirely walking through corridors that looked exactly the same as each other. But eventually we came to the place. A cough on the other side of the door told me that this was the right room.

‘Everyone ready?’ I asked, looking first to one, then the other. I tried to prepare myself before we entered. I was pretty sure the Doctor knew more about me than I had originally thought, which probably meant he knew I was a telepath too. I needed to keep him out of my head. If he got a glimpse of the plan then we could forget any hopes of ever escaping this projection. While he was in control, there was no way out unless he let us go.
 

Carefully I opened the door. Through the gap I could see into the room, but I couldn’t see the Doctor. As Sarah had said, there were cabinets everywhere, not just up against the walls, but all through the room like a maze. I could see a few doors nearby; it looked like there were lots of ways in and out of this room. The Doctor could be anywhere in there, I hoped we weren’t walking straight into a trap. We all moved inside quietly and looked around.

Suddenly a door slammed on the other side of the room, and we all jumped. I could sense he was elsewhere in the room, but I didn’t want to give away that we were here, so I couldn’t push too hard in case he noticed.

Before I realised what was happening all the other doors that had been open slammed shut too, including the one behind us. This wasn’t looking good.

Spinning around, I rushed back to the door, only to see the handle slowly disappearing. I tried to grab it, but my hands fell through thin air. I kicked at the door, no longer caring if he knew we were here. He already did. Unfortunately the door wouldn’t budge, and I just ended up with a very painful stubbed toe.

There was no way out; we were trapped.

CHAPTER TWENTY

Daniel

‘Maybe I’m just insane. That would explain a lot.’
 

‘He knew we were coming,’ Jack hissed, looking furious with himself.

I had to admit, it did look like we’d just walked straight into a trap. The werewolf was standing next to me, tapping his clawed feet on the stone floor. I told him to stop it, but he just glared at me and continued. Controlling him was something I was still learning, and it amazed me each time he did what I asked him to. I guess it was too much to expect him to do what I said
every
time I asked.

‘What now?’ Sarah asked in a low voice, holding tightly to Jack’s hand.
Good question.

‘We stick to the plan,’ Jack whispered, ‘The Doctor must have known we were coming for him, but it wouldn’t have been hard to work out we weren’t just going to sit around and do nothing. I don’t think he knows anything of the plan, so we go ahead with it. Ready Dan?’

‘Ready,’ I replied, looking at the werewolf next to me. He was still fidgeting from one foot to the other. I hoped we were ready.

I sent the werewolf off for the first part of the plan. We needed to know exactly where the Doctor was so Jack could focus on him. The werewolf needed to find his hiding place and cause enough of a distraction so that part two of the plan could start before the Doctor realised what was happening. It shouldn’t be too hard—the wolf was good at distractions.
 

Once the werewolf had tracked him down I pinpointed his location to Jack, who tried to break through telepathically into his mind. If we were right, and this whole place was a projection created by the Doctor, the only way to get out of here would be to turn the Doctor in on himself; lock him in his own mind. That wasn’t going to be easy. We needed to keep him from figuring out what we were doing for as long as possible, but I had my doubts about how well that was going to work.

Suddenly my connection to the wolf changed drastically.
Not again.
I could feel the control ebbing away from me. My mind grew foggy and I was struggling to focus on where the wolf was. I thought I had him under control, but maybe I never did. This must be the Doctor playing games with me again.

‘Dan? Are you okay?’

Jack’s voice was muted, as if he were talking to me through a door. I wasn’t okay, but I couldn’t seem to reply.

Then everything went crazy. The werewolf came hurtling around the corner, smashing into one of the cabinets and sending it flying across the room. He paused right in front of me, his chest heaving from the weight of his breathing. His nostrils flared and he looked right into my eyes. If I hadn’t been frozen with fear I would have run right through the door, handle or no handle. The werewolf could do scary very well.

‘Shit.’ I heard Jack mutter under his breath. Great. If Jack thought this was bad, then it was a lot worse.

That was when it happened. The werewolf made his move, claws outstretched, and he attacked me. Within seconds my clothes were ripped and he wasn’t stopping. I tried to shield myself with my arms, but he just attacked those too.
Stop, please stop.
He didn’t.
 

Sinking to the floor, I heard a squeal from Sarah, and Jack came closer until I could hear him through the wolf’s grunts and my yells. The wolf just ignored Jack and kept his attention—and his claws—on me.

‘Dan, you know this isn’t really happening. Focus on Beth, you need to take back control. The Doctor does not tell the wolf what to do—you do.’

That would be much easier to believe if it wasn’t attacking me right now. There was blood all over my arms, my legs, even on the floor around me.

‘Think about Beth,’ Jack said desperately, his hand holding tightly to my shoulder, ‘If you let the Doctor win then it’s not just you who suffers. Beth won’t wake up from her nightmares.’

The image of Beth entered my mind. It was a few months ago and we were sitting out in the local park watching the others playing Frisbee on the grass. I had told them that I couldn’t play due to my very sore ankle I had gained when doing something exceptionally manly earlier that day—I’d decided that tripping up over the cat didn’t class as manly, so I avoided the truth and made something up. Mostly I had just wanted to hang out with Beth, who was lying on the picnic blanket and enjoying the sunshine.
 

I remember laying down next to her, propping my head up so I could watch the guys falling over themselves whilst trying catch the Frisbee that had clearly been thrown anywhere other than towards the catcher. That day Beth and I spent the whole time chatting and playing games. I even think the others were actually keeping out the way to give me a chance to spend time with her, which didn’t happen very often.

I wanted to have that again. I wanted to see her, to touch her, to spend the rest of my life with her. I just needed to get out of here, and then… well, getting her to talk to me would be a start. I would not let the wolf ruin my life. Or Beth’s.

Snapping back to my current reality, I saw Jack move away and turn his attention to something else. His body language suggested it wasn’t something I was going to like. As the wolf moved slightly, I could see past him to what Jack was looking at. The Doctor. He was a big guy, with dark bushy hair that looked like it hadn’t been cut, or washed properly, in years. He was standing there, only a few feet away, laughing hard. I had a sudden overwhelming urge to jump up and wipe that damn smile off his face, but I had a significant other problem to deal with first.

‘Your friend is weak,’ he said to Jack, a smirk on his face, ‘he will die before he learns to use the werewolf properly. I gave him a gift, but he is not worthy of it.’

‘A gift?’ Jack cried, his fists clenched, ‘You think all the things you have done were to help people? You’re deluded. You’re a serial killer, nothing more.’

The Doctor just smiled at him and didn’t say anything. He was wrong. I could control this. I had to, for Beth’s sake. Knowing I’d done it before meant I knew I would be able to do it again. With every ounce of strength left in me I turned my attention to the wolf, who stopped in his tracks. He would not hurt me anymore.

By the time I had regained some level of control, Jack was looking very tired, but it seemed like the plan was well underway. Despite the unexpected attack, the wolf had done what we needed and kept the attention of the Doctor long enough for Jack to enter his mind. That in turn had distracted him from our real intentions.
 

‘Maybe he is not quite as weak as I thought,’ the Doctor said with a grin, ‘Interesting. When I’ve finished having fun with you all, I think I’ll keep the werewolf here to study him a bit more. I don’t usually get to see my subjects in the flesh.’

I was too weak to retaliate, or even get up. There was nothing more I could do now except keep the wolf out the way and let Jack take on the Doctor.