Wild-born (24 page)

I didn’t dare look up. I wondered if he was going to hit me. The metal rods touching my wrists were numbing out my senses, and I found it increasingly hard to stay standing, even with the bed for support.

The Wolf grabbed my chin and forced me to look up at him.

“The control bands that you are wearing are not merely designed to drain your psionic powers,” he said. “They can also be used to induce severe pain, or even kill when necessary. Would you like a demonstration?”

“No,” I answered quickly.

“That is good, because if you cooperate with us, there will be no need to hurt you.”

“Where is...” my voice trailed off as I wondered if perhaps they didn’t know Alia’s name as well.

“The healer girl?” asked the Wolf, releasing his grip on my chin. “She is alive and recovering.”

I stared at him in horror. “What have you done to her?!”

“You should be more concerned about what is about to happen to you,” the Wolf replied evenly.

Gathering my courage, I said defiantly, “I want a phone call.” I certainly wasn’t planning to call Mark’s house, but I figured that demanding to use the phone could not be denied. Anything to get out of this room and away from this man.

“You give me the number and I’ll make the call for you,” said the Wolf.

I shook my head.

Suddenly the Wolf grabbed my arm and shoved me down onto the floor. I struggled to my feet and, though it must have sounded pretty feeble in my drained condition, I did my best to shout, “Let me out! You can’t keep me here! I haven’t done anything wrong!”

He merely grinned at me as he pulled a small white remote control from his pocket. I looked down at the white bracelets I was wearing.
Control bands,
he had called them.

“I know my rights!” I shouted as fiercely as I could manage. Actually, I didn’t know my rights, but to be perfectly honest, I didn’t know what else to say.

“Your rights?” scoffed the Wolf, fingering the remote control. “What rights?”

“My rights as a—”

“Human being?” asked the Wolf, raising his eyebrows. “Is that what you think you are? You will soon be disabused of that notion, psionic.”

The man pushed a button on the remote control. I heard a muffled clicking noise from inside my bracelets. Then he pressed another button. A powerful jolt of electricity shot through my arms. I fell to the floor.

The Wolf said coldly, “You do not have human rights, psionic...”

Another shock went through me. I gritted my teeth to keep myself from crying out. Even though my senses were numbed because of the draining, the pain was still excruciating.

“...because you are not human.”

Another shock. I let out a gasp of pain as I desperately tried to tear the control bands off of my wrists. They wouldn’t budge, and my whole body convulsed violently as the Wolf sent another shock through me.

The Wolf released the remote control button. I relaxed my muscles for a moment. But then the Wolf kicked me in the stomach with his boot, twice. I tasted blood in my mouth.

“Now,” said the Wolf, crouching down and looking at me while holding his remote control delicately in one hand, “you will please tell me where I can find Cynthia Anderson.”

If I had been thrown into this situation as the sixth grader who thought that telekinesis was a fun way to disrupt a boring school lesson, I probably would have told him on the spot. I would have done anything to keep him from pushing that button again. But so much had happened since then. So many things had changed. Cindy, who had become my mother, my one and only true protector... No, there was just no way...

“Never heard of her,” I panted, still nauseous from the draining effect.

“Okay,” sighed the Wolf, standing back up. “We’ll start with easier questions, and work our way up. What’s your name?”

Looking again at the wolf patch on the man’s uniform, I spat the blood out of my mouth and recited, “Mary had a little lamb.”

Another jolt of electricity. I knew it was coming, but it still rattled me. I closed my eyes.

“Your name?”

“Its fleece was—”

The next shock came much sooner than I expected, and I cried out loudly. I didn’t care. He had asked where Cindy was, which meant he didn’t know. And every second of his time that I wasted would give Cindy a second more head start to escape.

The Wolf put his right boot onto my chest, pushing me hard against the floor as he said, “I believe the correct answer was Adrian Howell.”

“You know my name,” I said, gasping for breath.

“That was just practice, psionic,” he said, lifting his boot off of me. “Let’s try question number two. What’s the name of the healer girl?”

“And everywhere that Mary—”

He kicked me again. Then he grabbed me by my hair and, lifting me up, slammed me against the wall.

“You’ve got spirit, boy, I’ll give you that,” growled the Wolf.

“Yeah, so I’m told,” I coughed feebly, remembering how Ralph had once said the same. Even a reminder of Ralph was a welcome distraction.

“What’s her name?” the Wolf asked softly. “You can at least tell me that.”

Did he really not know? What had happened to her? Alia might not speak with her mouth, but if they had done to her what they were doing to me, surely she would have said something telepathically to them.

“Bob... uh, Jack... something like that,” I mumbled. “Maybe it was Tom.”

“Adrian Howell, you are going to die now,” said the Wolf, and pushed the shock button again, this time keeping it down.

I screamed. I didn’t even know I had enough strength left to scream, but I screamed anyway. The shocks came rapidly, one after another. I could no longer think of anything but the agonizing jolts of electricity pulsing through my body as I writhed on the floor unable to breathe. I wanted to lose consciousness. I wanted to die.

“Alia!” I cried. “Her name’s Alia!”

It stopped, and I lay there sobbing with my face on the floor. I realized that I had vomited, and wet myself as well.

“Now that wasn’t so hard, was it?” the Wolf said quietly.

I slowly turned my neck and looked up at him, unable to even sit up. My vision was hazy, and I saw double.

The Wolf continued in a cold voice, “Take a deep breath, Adrian, and think of what is going to happen if you miss the next question. Ready? Where is Cynthia Anderson?”

I looked up at him, forcing my vision back into focus. How much could the truth hurt?

“I don’t know,” I whimpered, preparing for what I knew would be the last moments of my life.

The Wolf crouched down and studied my eyes carefully before saying, “You know what? I almost believe you, Adrian. Almost.” He stood up again and continued in an annoyed tone, “The problem is that I do not have a lot of time. Surely you know that, which is why you are wasting it. I can’t afford to wait around if you pass out. So let us change the rules of this game a little.”

I stared up at him full of dread, wondering what was about to happen now.

The Wolf turned away from me and paused for a moment as if deep in thought. Then, still looking at the wall, he said quietly, “The healer girl... Alia, you said... She refused to speak with me. I doubt very much that a child her age could have managed it, so I can only conclude that she is unable to speak. As a source of information, she is useless to me.” The Wolf turned back around and stood over me, his eyes full of malice. “If you do not tell me where Cynthia Anderson is, I will kill Alia.”

I believed him. At the time, it was impossible not to. I gave him Mark’s address and Cindy’s old home address. I even told him Cindy’s real name.

“I swear that’s all I know,” I said, my voice still hoarse from the screaming. I tried not to think of what was going to happen next. Would he kill me now? And Alia as well? Were we “useless” to him, now that he had his information?

“I believe you, Adrian, and you have my thanks,” the Wolf replied quietly, and then turned to the intercom, saying, “Open.”

The metal door opened, and the Wolf exited, leaving me lying there. Two uniformed soldiers came in. They silently grabbed me by my arms and, forcing me to stand, pushed me out of the room.

I was taken down a narrow and dimly lit concrete corridor. My legs were so weak that the soldiers had to drag me along. We passed several doors and a few turns, and then came to another heavy steel door, which automatically opened when one of the soldiers requested it through a nearby intercom.

I was pushed in through the doorway, and the soldiers left me there, slumped down on the floor. The door sealed itself behind me, and I felt the metal rods in my control bands retract.

I slowly raised my head and looked around at my new surroundings. This room was rectangular and more spacious than the one I had just left, but similarly secure with metal walls, two ceiling mounted security cameras, and no windows. There was some utilitarian furniture here, including a table with wooden benches and a few simple beds. The room was otherwise empty, except for a single occupant sitting on one of the thin mattresses.

“Alia!”

Although I was no longer being drained, I could still barely stand up, and I half-crawled to where she was sitting.

Alia was also dressed in a white hospital gown, though it was much too large for her and had probably been a lot cleaner when she first wore it. She wasn’t wearing control bands, most likely because there were none her size. Instead, she had iron chains wrapped around her neck, wrists and ankles. The chains, while not binding her, were locked in place and couldn’t be removed. I realized now why they couldn’t get any answers from her. They were draining her constantly, so she couldn’t use her telepathy even if she wanted to.

The Wolves had really done a job on Alia. Her long hair was a tangled mess, and there were dark, muddy stains all over her gown. I wondered if perhaps they had held her underwater. There was blood caked on her lower lip and bruises on both of her arms. Her left cheek was swollen deep purple. But worst of all were her eyes, unfocused and unmoving as she sat there staring out at nothing. Her lips were quivering almost imperceptibly, but no sound came out.

“Ali?” I said softly. “Ali, it’s me, Addy.”

Sitting next to her on the bed, I held her as closely as I dared considering how injured she was. I knew she couldn’t speak, but when I let go, I realized in horror that she hadn’t moved at all. Alia was so completely gone that she didn’t even know I was there. She sat on the bed lost in her own little world that she had no doubt fled to when the Wolves had questioned her. I gently stroked her back, feeling the crisscrossing old scars through her thin gown, and remembered the words Cindy spoke to me on my first day at her house: “You’d be surprised at what Alia has survived.”

Was this how she had been when Cindy first brought her back from the forest? How had Cindy taken care of her? I wished Cindy was here now. I almost wished the Wolves would catch her, so that she could come here and take care of Alia. I didn’t know what to do. All I could do was hold Alia’s hand, and for how long I don’t know, but we just sat together, two filthy kids, one terrified, the other lost. I barely even noticed it when the metal rods in my control bands touched me again, and the steel door opened.

“Time to go,” said a soldier, pressing a small pistol-like device against my right arm. It made a muffled popping noise, and I remember very little from then on.

C
hapter 12: End of the Line

All I have are vague images, feelings, and fragments of thoughts and dreams: Bright lights. Motion. Dizziness. Darkness. A giant room. The sound of an engine.
“Addy.”
Thin gray clouds. A man with a clipboard. “Sign here, please.” Cold. A sunset over a barren field. Descending. Sliding doors. Nightmare. A white corridor. Warmth.

I squinted in the painfully bright light. As my eyes slowly adjusted, I saw that I was lying on a hard bed in a medium-size white hospital room. There was a giant rectangular mirror covering most of one wall, and some computer-like equipment along another.

“Good morning, Adrian,” said a man’s voice. It was calm and friendly, but there was no one in the room with me. “My name is Dr. Otis,” continued the disembodied voice, “and I am the head researcher of the facility that you are now our guest at.”

“Where are you?” I yawned, sitting up on the bed and stretching.

“I will see you in person presently. However, please understand that at our first meeting, your powers will be restrained.”

I looked down at myself. I had been cleaned up and dressed in a white short-sleeve shirt and long white pants which I guessed might be made of cotton. My somewhat loose-fitting clothes matched the decor well. In fact, aside from the giant mirror, there was hardly anything in the room that wasn’t white.

I also noticed that I still had a pair of control bands on me. They were different from the ones I was tortured in. These were slightly smaller and fit more snugly around my wrists. I noticed some markings on the casings and examined one closer. “P-47” was stenciled across it in black ink.

I looked at the mirror, suspecting that this Dr. Otis was behind it, and asked, “What is this place?”

“This is the Psionic Research Center,” answered the voice of Dr. Otis. “I am here with Dr. Kellogg, and it is our job today to explain to you the conditions of your stay with us.”

“Where is Alia?” I asked the mirror.

“If you cooperate, you will see her very soon.”

“What do you want me to do?”

“We are going to restrain your psionic powers and then enter the room. Please remain seated on the bed.”

I felt the little motors spin in my control bands, and the dull and heavy sensation of draining washed over me. A door slid open automatically, and in walked two men. The older of the two looked to be about sixty and was dressed in white doctors’ garb and a lab coat. The other man, who I guessed was in his mid-thirties, looked a bit like Mark, with a shaggy beard and round glasses. He was wearing a tattered brown suit. They stood a few feet away from me.

“This is Dr. Kellogg,” said the man in the lab coat, “who is our resident psychologist. I am Dr. Reuben Otis, and, as I said over the speaker a moment ago, I am the head researcher at this facility.”