“Technically, Sarah Temple’s never suffered from a dissociative disorder.” Metting grimaced. “But I suspect that the dream work of one of my colleagues is responsible for creating that very condition in both women now. Sarah’s been resisting that unauthorized interference. I assume Madeline has, too. But the resulting conflict has taken a psychic toll. Add in the way the twins’ psyches have been thrust into close proximity today, and each woman’s individual consciousness will deteriorate further the longer they’re kept apart.”
“Forced? You’re saying Maddie was driven to the brink of insanity, so she’d stumble into this circus!” By nightmares and voices her sister…sent her?
“By someone at this facility who—”
“By you!”
“No, by someone who didn’t fully understand what they were doing. Bringing these women together, while their mental barriers have been weakened by whatever dream contact they’ve shared, will reap disastrous consequences I never would have initiated.”
“Then who?” It was the only question Jarred could process. He ran a protective hand over Maddie’s hair. “If all this wasn’t your doing, then who?”
“I don’t know yet.” The other doctor’s clinical expression slipped to something as close to fury as the soulless man likely got. “Someone else working on Dream Weaver.”
“Dream Weaver?”
“A government weapons program. One that’s been infiltrated by an inexperienced third party operating beyond my control. Whether she realizes it nor not, Madeline has been sloppily subjected to—”
“Oh, she knew. You’ve been driving a brilliant doctor insane for three months!”
“Three months? She’s been having nightmares for three months?”
Jarred nodded; then he was in the other man’s face. “How did you know about the nightmares?”
“Because projecting Sarah’s dreams is my domain here. But it’s become clear that someone else has been performing unauthorized experiments with both twins’ psychic abilities.”
“Experiments?” Jarred clutched Maddie’s hand again.
“We don’t have time for this.” Metting’s exasperation came complete with a sigh that was going to get his teeth knocked down his throat. “Your twin is psychic. My twin is psychic. Their minds are now joined, both inside and outside their dreams. Hence, the homicidal scene I walked in on in reception.”
“That was…” Jarred dropped Maddie’s hand.
His
twin?
“That was what?”
“I…I don’t know.”
“Exactly. What you need know is that as long as my patient’s on the run without someone to control how she projects her psyche into the world,
your
patient will continue to be in as much danger as her twin.”
“As opposed to the danger Maddie’s in right now, from you?”
Metting sighed again and glanced toward the door. “If you really want to save your patient’s sanity, you’re going to have to trust me and do exactly as I say.”
“You’re insane!” Jarred’s shout caused Maddie’s head to jerk. “I don’t trust a damn thing—”
“It’s no coincidence, Dr. Keith, that these women’s minds are connected again.”
Jarred stiffened, his brain fully engaging for the first time. “How the fuck do you know my name?”
“I know a great deal, Dr. Jarred Mathew Keith. That
you found your way into psychiatry after surviving the loss of both your parents before the age of ten. That you and Madeline Temple have more in common than childhood tragedy. Not the least of which is your genius IQ that should already be stringing together the random details you’ve observed tonight and processing at least part of what’s going on here. And I know,” Richard added as Keith braced himself on the balls of his feet, “that you’re contemplating taking another crack at beating me to a bloody pulp.”
“It would be satisfying to try.”
“Curb the impulse.”
“You people have—”
“You have no idea who my people are or how critical it is that you and Madeline help me find Sarah.”
“Help you?” Jarred’s laugh burned on its way out.
“
I’m
the choice you have to make, Doctor. Between running blind or giving Madeline the only intervention that will save her and her twin.”
“By bringing them under your control?”
“Better me than the bastard who wants to use them as psychic killing machines.”
“You’re the Raven, aren’t you?” Jarred squinted. “In the nightmares Maddie keeps having with her twin. I saw a raven in Sarah’s nightmare. And then you were there.”
“You’ve…” It was Richard’s turn to stare. “You’ve shared their lucid dreams?”
“Nightmares, Dr. Metting. Of an all-powerful Raven controlling Sarah. Making her do horrible things to people while she makes her sister watch, over and over again, until Maddie thinks she’s the one doing them.”
“And in these nightmares, I’m a—”
“You’re the Raven, you maniacal bastard.”
Silence vibrated through the holding suite. Richard was too stunned to say anything. Sarah had projected him into her dreams—as a raven. And Jarred Keith had participated in the Temples’ link.
Sarah’s sister moaned—a woman whose face was so similar to her twin’s that Richard felt the impact of it each time he looked at her. Footsteps approached the suite’s locked door. Followed by impatient knocking. Then pounding.
“What’s wrong with this scanner?” Ruebens bitched outside. “Get this door open, Dr. Metting. What the hell’s going on? The directors are assembling, and they’re demanding answers.”
“What do these people…” Jarred Keith’s tone was nonconfrontational for the first time since regaining consciousness. “What do you and the government want with Maddie? If you’re trying to say that someone in this place has been—”
“—intentionally targeting Sarah’s sister, to ensure that Madeline’s unstable enough to require intervention, too? Ah. The light flickers dimly.”
“Dr. Metting!” Ruebens pounded on the door. “This is unacceptable. Dr. Keith, the directors of this institution apologize for you being held against your will this way. I assure you the administration will get to the bottom of
your deplorable treatment. And, of course, we’d be happy to help Dr. Temple in any way we can. Please, help me get this door open so I can straighten out this misunderstanding.”
Keith’s attention snapped to the suite’s door, then back. Richard pressed the hidden mechanism to open their escape route. He waited. Keith picked up the woman he’d kept a hand on from almost the moment he’d regained consciousness.
“No one’s hurting her again.” Jarred hitched Maddie higher as he stepped to Richard’s side. “Try it, and you’re a dead man.”
“Admirable, Dr. Keith, but naïve.” Richard ushered him inside the tunnel. “Madeline and her sister are both going to hurt more. All we can do is contain the damage that’s already been done and get them stronger. It will be quite some time before their minds are fully intact again and under their own control.”
He flipped a switch to swing the floor-to-ceiling panel shut, secure it, and activate overhead lights. A flat-screen monitor flickered on. It revealed a split image of the nowempty room behind them, and of Ruebens and the guard attempting to override the suite’s security outside. Ruebens typed away at the scanner’s keypad, looking ready to rip the device free of its mounting.
“It’s only a matter of time before they make it inside and discover the tunnel,” Richard mused. “I have a car hidden in the woods at the end of the viaduct. Take your chances here, with them, or come with me.”
Jarred set Maddie’s feet on the ground. Her cheek came to rest on his shoulder. Her eyes were tracking back and forth behind their closed lids. She was dreaming. No doubt linked with her twin, who was outside somewhere, running while she was dreaming herself.
Richard headed down the corridor.
“Is this really where you want the woman you love to wake up,” he asked, “while she’s disoriented and terrified of the power growing inside her?” He slowed his pace once he heard the echo of the other man’s footsteps following. “It’s good to know your instincts are sharp enough not to trust the people who’ve been brainwashing Maddie’s sister into—”
Richard’s legs were kicked out from under him. His already-aching head struck a protruding chunk of granite on his way down. Keith’s booted foot pressed across Richard’s throat.
“
You’ve
been brainwashing Sarah.” Keith leaned his weight into Richard’s windpipe. “You’re the one I don’t trust.”
“I’m—” Richard couldn’t grind out more.
“Sarah hates her Raven. And so did Maddie when she turned on me, then on those guards. Both women wanted to kill you, and that’s good enough for me.”
“I’ve been trying to—” Richard grabbed Jarred’s foot and shoved it away. He rolled to his side and tried to get his larynx to work again. “I’ve protected Sarah the best I could. You don’t understand the circumstances surrounding—”
“You’ve protected her so well, you’re driving her twin out of her mind!” Keith advanced, but the woman in his arms began to struggle against his hold.
“I had nothing to do with dragging Madeline into this,” Richard argued. “But I’m the only person who can tell you how her mind is going to deteriorate. I’m the only one who can help her use her abilities to find her sister. And trust me, reuniting the two of them is the only way either will survive.”
How could things have gotten so out of control so quickly?
Richard had been flying under the radar for too long. He’d become overconfident. He’d been too focused on one battle, on protecting one sister, without considering how the government bastards he’d thought he’d snowed might be planning to use the other. He tried to stand, but the tunnel was spinning around him like a fucking top.
“No time…” he gasped. “There’s no time to debate this.”
“You’re right,” Keith agreed. The other doctor frisked Richard’s pockets. Snatched the Land Rover keys. “But it’s you who’s out of time. You deserve whatever those men back there do to you.”
Keith shoved Richard back to the ground. He picked up Maddie. He’d made it several yards away by the time Richard pushed himself to his feet.
“Dream Weaver is a top-priority weapons program the government intended…intends…to implement on a global scale. This project will produce a successful field test, or the principles being studied will be terminated in a manner that guarantees no one will ever know what transpired at this facility.”
Keith finally turned back.
“Terminated?” he asked. “Principles? I swear, I hear the words coming out of your mouth, but you’re making as much sense as a bad espionage thriller.”
“How’s this for making sense, then? The woman in your arms won’t survive the next forty-eight hours without her sister’s help. Or mine.”
“She’s going to be fine.” Keith started walking again. “I’m going to help her. Then I’m sending the authorities to deal with you and whatever you’ve done to her sister. That’s what you’re really afraid of.”
“By the time anyone else steps foot in this place, my
existence and evidence of any work that’s been done with Sarah Temple beyond caring for her chronic vegetative condition will be erased. The police will merely uncover proof that a paranoid, increasingly altered woman broke into the center and removed her unresponsive twin from the authorized care of her doctors.”
Keith sneered over his shoulder. “There are cameras all over this place.”
“Video and audio can be digitally manipulated in ways that would blow your mind, Dr. Keith.” Richard fought to follow, leaning against the wall for support. “The center won’t be found culpable for Sarah’s abduction. And they won’t stop looking for her or Madeline. Not after the trouble they went through to pull her into Sarah’s programming.”
“
You
dragged Maddie into this.”
“Then why am I letting you go?”
“Because I just kicked the crap out of you.” Keith hesitated, as if he was debating backtracking for another pass.
“Where do you plan to go?” Richard ignored the pain in his side and kept walking. “Home? Yours…hers? They’ll find you. They’ll most likely use local law enforcement to help them.”
“Then we’ll go to the police first, before you—”
“The government won’t let you get anywhere near anyone who will put them at risk. They’ll anticipate every possible move and stop you before you can make a report. These people will kill anyone—do whatever it takes—to secure the Dream Weaver outcome they need.”
Keith kept walking.
Richard stopped, accepting that he’d never catch the man. Not like this. He pulled his cell phone from his
pocket instead. He punched in a contact number—a number he’d given to only one other person.
“Dr. Keith,” he rasped. “Catch!”
The other man turned and grabbed the phone out of the air.
“What’s this for?” Keith asked.
“For when you realize that I’m right.”
“That’s never going to happen.”
“I’m uniquely qualified to help these women. But I can’t unless you convince Madeline to find her sister and bring her to me.”
“That’s
never
going to happen.”
“Yes, it will. Because very soon, you’re going to understand that I’m your only option. Just don’t wait too long, or Madeline’s mind will be too far gone to save. Just like her sister’s will be if I can’t find Sarah before she breaks from reality completely.”
Someone wanted Sarah to kill. She was resisting. Running. But soon she’d have no chance of fighting her shadow programming. She would grow even more volatile. More dangerous to herself and others. Richard had to find her before it was too late, something he couldn’t do without Madeline’s help.
Sarah stumbled through the darkness.
Through the forest. Rain and wind and death flowed at her…around her…through her…
Where was her host? Where was the Raven, promising he’d keep her safe from the horrible things others wanted her to do?
“Can I help you?” someone asked.
Sarah whipped around and the world kept whipping. Swirling out of focus. There was no center now. No voice to bring her back or help her rest.