Authors: Angela Fristoe
How is our dear Coraline doing?
Fury ripped through him, crushing the note in his fist. Getting all the way out of the car, he swung the door shut and stomped around to the sidewalk.
“Let’s go,” he said, wrapping an arm around Cora’s shoulder while he scanned the street for anything suspicious.
“What’s wrong?”
He held up the crumpled note. “Sinclair. He, or one of his lackeys, was watching us. They were at the cemetery.”
She led the way up to her place, and when she unlocked the door, he scooted in front of her and locked the door behind them.
“Wait here,” he ordered, then did a quick walk-through of the apartment to make sure it was clear.
“What did it say?” she asked when he came back into the main room.
“It asked how you were doing,” he answered, and he moved right up to her, lowering his face level with hers. “Have you been sick? Noticed anything different since the accident?”
“No, nothing. I swear.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes.”
The thought of her going through some of the side effects he and his brothers went through during Sinclair’s tests was sickening. He grasped her arm and pushed up the sleeve of her sweater until he found the spot where Sinclair had injected her. The area was clear, no angry rash or blisters.
“Gavin, I’m fine,” she reassured him. “I’m not showing any kind of side effects, so whatever he did to me didn’t work.”
“Maybe, maybe not.”
Sinclair’s work was meant to be hidden. Gavin realized their options were limited. He couldn’t dismiss Sinclair’s taunting. Not when Cora’s life was at stake.
“You need to have blood work done to find out what he did to you,” he said.
“You told me not to worry.”
“I was wrong.”
“Okay, I’ll call the doctor’s office in the morning.”
He shook his head. “Not for this.”
“Then where?”
“SIEGE.”
SHE SHOULD TELL HIM.
She should have told him when he told her about Sinclair and how the psycho might have injected her with something.
Gavin was obviously familiar with strange, well-beyond normal crap. How else can you describe a childhood of forced confinement for a government conspiracy to perform genetic modification on children? Still, visions just seemed too fantastical. Any normal person would take her revelation as a cry for attention rather than seriously.
Cora stared out up at the massive brick building before her. It looked more like an elderly rich man’s country estate. Flowers blooming in the wooden flower pots lining the window panes, and a rocking chair on the porch gave the illusion that someone inside liked to spend their days relaxing as they watched the bird feeder hanging from the eave.
It was the building from her vision. Somewhere out there, Sinclair watched them. In the vision, she hadn’t realized what was hidden inside. It was a house of horrors.
From the outside, no one would suspect five innocent children had spent years trapped in the lower levels undergoing experiments that ravaged their bodies.
The night before, Gavin had told her more about what he’d been through, though she suspected he spared some of the more extreme details. Not once in his recounting did he mention how the marks on his back had been made.
She turned to Gavin and thought of how hard it all must be for him.
“You ready?” Gavin asked.
A lump lodged in her throat, making it impossible to speak. She was nowhere near ready.
How can anyone be ready for something like this?
She’d spent all afternoon thinking of excuses as to why she couldn’t and shouldn’t come. Yet, delaying only meant extending the constant fear of what she might learn.
She nodded and stepped up onto the porch then hesitated.
Knock? Ring the bell? Or just walk in?
Gavin solved the dilemma by pressing a button on a security keypad to the right of the door. A moment later, a buzz sounded followed by the click of the door unlocking. He opened the door, holding it wide for her to walk through.
While the exterior had the appearance of a home, inside was as high-tech as any Silicone Valley corporation. Dark slate tiles offset the stark monotone walls and chrome railings. A few feet from the door stood a full body scanner with a security guard next to it.
“This way,” the guard said and held out a bin for their belongings. “All electronic equipment is to be left here. No recording devices are permitted on the premises. If you are found to be in possession of any audio, video, or still frame recorders, SIEGE Corporation will pursue prosecution to the fullest extent of the law.”
Cora pulled her cell phone from her purse and handed it to the guard then placed her bag in the bin next to Gavin’s wallet. She walked through the scanner and waited for Gavin on the other side. The guard pushed the container through a smaller scanner and then handed it to her once it came out.
“Dr. Nielson left instructions that you meet her in the Level I conference room after you’ve seen the technician,” he said as he took the empty bin from her.
“This way,” Gavin said.
She followed him to the reception desk where he signed in for both of them and then up a set of stairs to the second floor.
“How do you know where to go?”
“Some things you don’t forget.” He shoved his hands deep into his pockets. “After the Posthuman Project shut down, the government wasn’t quite sure what to do with us. Both the Defense Department and SIEGE needed things to look good in the public eye. That’s how Mark and Sarah were able to adopt us. But the board couldn’t just let us walk away.”
“What do you mean?”
“Up until we turned eighteen, we were required to come in for check-ups. It was one of the conditions Mark and Sarah agreed to for the adoption to go through.”
They reached another doorway, and Gavin pushed the button, waiting for the corresponding buzz. The room they entered could have been any other doctor’s office in the country. Behind the reception desk was a middle-aged woman whose gaze followed them as they sat down on the bench pressed against the opposite wall.
“Should we check in with her?” Cora smiled at the receptionist.
Gavin shook his head, and she could tell he wasn’t really listening to her. Instead, he glared at the woman as his thumb rubbed the back of his left hand.
“Do you know her?”
Gavin glanced down at her, and for a moment, she saw the scared little boy he must’ve been growing up there.
“Donna was a level one assistant.” He held up his hand for Cora to see the small circular scar he’d been rubbing. “Lucky me, I got to be the first person she ever stuck a needle in. It only took her a dozen tries. Right, Donna?”
The older woman had the good sense to look away.
“I thought the Posthuman Project violated SIEGE’s policies? How could they keep someone on who was part of it?”
“Well, Donna here had no clue the project was unauthorized. She was as much a victim of Dr. Sinclair as we were,” he explained with biting sarcasm.
Cora suspected Donna overheard his remark because she abruptly rose from her seat and disappeared through a side door.
“I’m sorry you had to come with me,” Cora said and slid her hand into his, linking their fingers.
When he first brought up coming to the SIEGE labs, she’d been hesitant, and if she were honest, she still was. Even more so now that she understood the length the board went to in order to protect the company.
“I couldn’t let you come alone.” He scanned the waiting room. “We’ve suspected for a long time that SIEGE hasn’t cut all ties to Sinclair.”
“Then why are we here?”
“Because they know what Sinclair was working on. They’ll understand what to look for.”
“If they are still working with Sinclair then how can we be sure they’ll tell us the truth?”
“We don’t—” his hand squeezed hers briefly, “—but it’s our only option.”
A door opened across the room, and Donna appeared, a chart clutched to her chest.
“Through here,” she ordered. She led them to an examination room and told Cora to sit on the exam table.
Cora hopped up, and the cold steel instantly had her wishing she’d skipped the mini-skirt and worn pants instead. She squirmed, trying to get the thin sheet of paper covering the table under her thighs. Then she caught Gavin watching her with a knowing smile. She wrinkled her nose and he gave a soft chuckle.
Donna moved efficiently through the process, gathering a handful of vials of Cora’s blood and then ushering them back out to the waiting room.
“How long until we get the results?” Cora asked her.
“Dr. Nielson will meet you in the Level 1 conference room.”
Donna didn’t wait around for any more questions. She went back behind her desk, twisting slightly so her back was almost entirely to them.
“Come on,” Gavin said and took her hand, leading her down to the conference room.
With every step they took, the haunting sensation of needles pricking at the skin along his arms and his back assaulted Gavin. They got off the elevator and nausea-inducing memories rolled through him.
Level I. Those halls defined his childhood with their sterile white walls and tiled floor that marked the few moments each day when he wasn’t confined to his room or the class. They were the passageways that led him from his small sanctuary to the hell on Earth where Sinclair and his team nearly destroyed him.
When he turned eighteen, he swore he’d never come back, that he would never let SIEGE or Sinclair have control over him again. Yet, there he was and he felt even more powerless.
“Gavin? Are you okay?” Cora asked.
“Yeah,” he answered distractedly as he stared down the hall to the door marked with the number three.
He walked along the hall and stopped in front of the door that had been his. The small window that once gave him a glimpse of the world around him was now a window into his past.
Peering through the glass, Gavin saw the room as it was ten years before. A small cot with a pile of books near the head was next to a table and chair bolted to the floor. The sink and toilet in the corner were hidden by a thin sheet suspended from the ceiling.
A suffocating weight fell on his chest. He took a slow, trembling breath and turned the knob. No longer locked to keep him in, the door swung open easily. The tiny space had been converted into a storage room with wire shelves lining the walls, loaded with medical supplies.
He walked into the room and knelt in front of the shelves facing the door. A sweep of his arm cleared the shelf and sent bottles tumbling to the floor. He ran his hand along the wall until he found what he was looking for—a series of grooves etched into the drywall made by digging his fingernails into it.
Twenty-six. Twenty-six trials he went through, and that was only after he’d been old enough to start keeping track like Noah told him to.
Taking his keys from his pocket, he reached back in and added one more line to his count.
“What are you doing?” Cora asked from the doorway.
He stood and turned to her, but she was busy checking to see if anyone was coming down the halls. She glanced back at him, her eyebrows raised.
“I kept track,” he said. “We all did. One mark for every trial we went through. I needed to add one more.”
“Why?”
“When the police and the feds showed up, I was strapped to a table in the lab. If they’d shown up ten minutes earlier, it would’ve been twenty-six.” He looked at his keys and wiped away the powdered drywall. “From the time I was old enough to count until we were freed, I went through twenty-seven different trials.”
Cora surged forward and wrapped her arms around his waist, burrowing her head into his chest. He encircled her in an embrace, and a feeling of peace settled over him.
“I’m sorry. I’m so sorry that happened to you,” she whispered.
He smoothed her hand over her blond curls and then pressed a kiss to her forehead.
“Let’s get this over with,” he said.
He led her to the conference room and they went inside. He hadn’t expected Dr. Nielson to be there, so he was vaguely surprised to find her sitting at the head of a large oblong table.
“Gavin, it’s a pleasure to see you again,” Nielson said with a sickeningly false smile. The severe bun she’d pulled her dark-brown hair into only emphasized the harsh angles of her heavily botoxed face. “Please, Cora, have a seat. I’m Dr. Yolanda Nielson and Chief Science Officer of SIEGE Corporation.”
Cora sat down on one side of the table, but instead of sitting beside her, Gavin stood behind her, his hands resting on her shoulders.
“Let’s skip the fake pleasantries,” he said. “What did he do to her?”
“I must say when I was informed about your request to test Miss. Evans, I was a little confused,” She said. “You implied you thought Dr. Sinclair was still employed by SIEGE.”
“Did I imply that? I’m pretty sure I flat out said it.”
“It’s public knowledge SIEGE Corporation terminated their professional relationship with Dr. Sinclair upon the revelation of unauthorized violations to the ethical standards of SIEGE.”
Gavin sneered. “Unauthorized? I remember you being rather enthusiastic about the project.”
Dr. Nielson sighed, and her left eye twitched.
“Prior to the discovery of Dr. Sinclair’s work on the Posthuman Project, I worked within the Agricultural Department of SIEGE,” she stated. “Dr. Sinclair acknowledged that he acted in direct contradiction to the orders of the Board, independently and of his own volition.”
Such a well-rehearsed answer. He could’ve recited it word for word from all the times he’d heard her say it or read her quote in the papers. He might’ve believed it, too, if she hadn’t been the one to give him the final injection.
His hands tightened around the edge of Cora’s chair until his knuckles turned white and his biceps quivered with barely-contained rage.
“You know damn well I’m not buying your crap story. What the fuck did he do to Cora?”
“We’ll get to that.” Dr. Nielson tapped her fingers on the table. She turned her icy gaze on Cora. “Have you noticed any changes? Fatigue? Blurry vision? Anything that seems even the slightest bit unusual?”
“No, nothing,” Cora answered, her hand lifted, letting her fingers flutter over the small puckering of pink flesh along her hairline.
“That looks like you took a nasty hit,” Dr. Nielson said and made a notation on the chart in front of her.
“Thanks to Sinclair running her off the road,” Gavin bit off.
“When did this injury occur?”
“A week and a half ago.”
“Really? It’s healing nicely. Quickly.” Another notation went on the chart. “So, physically you’re doing well. What about emotionally? Psychologically?”
“You mean other than living in fear that I’m Sinclair’s guinea pig for his new science project?”
“A reasonable concern, I suppose. However, I’m more interested in the inexplicable. Extreme anxiety, night terrors—” Nielson’s eyes flickered to Gavin and then back to Cora, “—hallucinations. Anything like those?”