I slipped into the room, edging past him and the other guards. “Make sure the camera is recording. You don’t want to get in trouble for that.”
“Shit, I always forget. Thanks,” George muttered, then snapped an order and sent one of the other guards off running to the control room.
I crouched beside the kid and scooped him up so his head was in my lap. I bent over him, my hair falling in a vivid blond wave that hid my mouth from being easily read by anyone, cameras or not. This was where it got tricky. The fingers I could always feel inside my head were there, but they were not paying attention. They were distracted. Not for long, but I had this moment and I used it to full effect.
“If you’re awake, don’t open your eyes. Squint them.”
A soft squint followed.
“Listen to me and do exactly as I say if you ever want to see the light of day.”
Another squint.
“Let them believe you are broken. Give them what they want.”
His eyes opened then.
“Camera’s on,” George called out.
The fingers tightened as if they realized they had not seen something they should have.
“Do you understand?” I said softly, louder than before. “You need to let the doctors help you. They will help you.”
The kid swallowed hard. “And what about you?”
“I’ll be around.” I forced a smile to my lips again. Something in me rolled, the part that had to stay hidden deep, far away from the surface. Like an undertow in the ocean, it swirled hard and dangerous under the surface of the calm water.
A leviathan that was not happy that it could not come to the surface.
“I’m your friend, kid. I need you to let me help you too. Think you can do that, Cowboy?”
He blinked up at me, fear thick in those blue eyes that hadn’t seen enough years, that wouldn’t see any more years if he didn’t do exactly as I said. “Yeah. I can do that.”
I slid him off my lap. The effects of the Tasers would take a bit to wear off, and there was nothing I could do for him right in that moment. He would have to wait. It wouldn’t be long before he was given his own handler. Soon as the doctors gave him the clean bill, he’d be passed off.
Standing, I turned toward the door. George watched me, his eyes far too considering. “You talk to the doc lately?”
I shrugged. “No need. You want me to do a voluntary session?” I offered the words in a calm, neutral tone. Compliant.
George watched me for another beat, brown eyes unreadable in that almost too soft face. His gaze stayed on me long enough that the smallest trickle of sweat started down my spine. I worked to school any emotions, any errant thoughts. My own handler was still not fully focused on me; the difference was subtle, but there.
“Nah, you’re one of the good ones, Fiona. I like that about you. You make my job easy.” He gave me a wink and then waved his hand for me to leave the room.
“Good luck, Cowboy,” I said over my shoulder. “Do what I said, and you’ll be okay.”
The kid’s jaw flexed then softened and he lowered his eyes. “Yeah. Sure.”
Damn it, he was already forgetting that the guards had taken him down in a matter of seconds. His ability couldn’t protect him from Tasers specially calibrated to knock out our kind.
My handler was back online.
You aren’t really an abnormal.
“Of course not,” I murmured.
I stepped through the doorway, heading back to the chow station. As I got close, the clatter of dishes, murmur of voices, and smell of bland, barely seasoned food floated to me as the others ate their lunch. My stomach rolled, unhappy with the thought of the food available.
“You not hungry?” A guard at the edge of the hall touched his earpiece and gave me a look. “Stomach ain’t happy?”
I nodded, used to the intrusion in my mind, used to them knowing exactly what I was feeling as my handler passed on information to the guards. “I’m going to lie down. Should be fine by dinner.”
Across the hall, Esther stood from her table and waved me over. I shook my head and pointed back toward the dorms, motioning that I was going.
I had to have a moment of quiet, I had to . . . no. Not yet.
Breathing through my nose, I turned on my heel and headed back the way I’d come. All the way past Cowboy’s room, from which I heard a muffled yell.
“Damn it, kid, don’t fight them,” I whispered, meaning every word. The soft approval of my handler washed over my mind, and I hurried my feet.
My doorway beckoned and I slid through, closing the door behind me with a soft click. I stripped out of my pale blue pants and top, and sat in the center of the bed, folding my legs and closing my eyes.
I could feel the camera on me. I knew there were eyes on my skin, fingers in my mind, and it took all I had to hold myself together a few seconds more. Each breath came slower, softer, until everything was still inside me, the quiet on the surface of the river, barely moving, sluggish in summer’s heat, giving the handler what he wanted. The quiet one.
The good one.
The obedient one.
The one who never caused any problems.
And then I dove through the surface and opened myself to the raging current beneath.
2
There was no worry of not being able to breathe under the raging waters of my mind. This was my quiet place. This was my escape from the guards and doctors. From the reality that was not real.
With the constant cameras on me and the fingers of my handler palpating my mind, this disappearing act of turning inward kept me from losing my fucking mind. Visiting this deep, quiet place gave me a chance to let my mind rest from the constant barrage of think nothing, do as they want, you believe them, you trust them, this is where you need to be, think nothing, do as they want, you believe them, you trust them, this is where you need to be.
I knew my body sat on the small bed in the small room, but another part of me stood amidst the frothing mouth of the river as it kissed the sea, then the water turned into an insubstantial gray fog I could walk through as if it were mist.
Here, my hair was black as night, not the dyed blond they told me was my natural color. I pulled the braid over my shoulder, like an anchor.
A scream cut through the dark of the fog, and I spun in shock.
This was a first. I’d wandered this strange darkness alone day after day, trying to figure shit out and memorize every possible detail about the facility. No one from the outside had ever shown up, which wasn’t a surprise since the only other person I knew who could find me here was someone I would never, ever summon. My son . . . I would never risk him by trying to reach him from here. While I’d tried to find other prisoners who could meet me, it had never worked before. I wasn’t sure the others could do it, for one, and it wasn’t the sort of thing you could explain in a word or two.
A stolen word or two was all I ever got.
I knew my handler had his eyes on me.
I knew that I was watched more than any other inmate. They were waiting for me to make a mistake, or to give them something they could use. They were waiting for me to flex my proverbial muscles.
I’d seen how the other abnormals were killed, seen their lifeless bodies dragged out of their rooms after going to sleep. The handlers were the key. I was sure of it.