Created (Talented Saga) (14 page)

Crane returned to escort me to Harris’s cell.
The elevator ride to the prison level was tense and uncomfortable. I stared at the steel doors, at the numbered buttons, at my feet, anywhere except at Crane. I felt as though an apology was in order, but I was still peeved, so I kept quiet.

The prison level was just as cold and impersonal as I remembered it.
I shivered at the memory of waking up in a cage after my first encounter with Brand, which made me wish I’d hit him harder.

At the end of the long corridor, two soldiers waited for us.
They both nodded to Crane first, and then to me. I gave a small, tight smile in return.

The soldiers showed us into the cage area.
The cage had bars on three sides, allowing the inhabitant to be observed at all times. A small cot sat against the solitary wall; Harris was curled into a ball on top of the thin mattress.

“I’d like to go inside,” I said to one of the guards.

He looked to Crane for confirmation. When he nodded, the guard unlocked the cage door and held it open for me.

Once inside, I stayed near the door.
No one had prepared me for what I’d find, save that there was something “off” about Harris. I had no desire to be within arm’s reach if he decided to attack.

“Harris?” I said quietly.
He didn’t move. “Harris, it’s Talia,” I tried again. He still didn’t budge.

Throwing caution to the wind, I knelt next to the cot so that we were at eye level.
The guards outside the cage did have guns trained on us, ostensibly for my protection. If Harris made a threatening gesture, they were prepared to shoot. That idea didn’t sit well with me, but at least I knew they had my back.

Harris’s expression was blank.
His eyes stared through me as if I were invisible. He didn’t so much as blink when I snapped my fingers in front of his face. Yep, there was definitely something off with him.

I sank onto the concrete floor, sitting cross-legged.
I reached up to touch his cheek. Relief washed over me when he flinched. At least he wasn’t completely impervious to his surroundings.

“What have you given him?” I called over my shoulder.
Brand had sedated me upon my arrival, and I assumed the guards had done the same to Harris. Maybe they’d given him too much, which would account for his vacant expression and lethargy.

“Nothing,” Crane replied.
“He’s been like this since his arrival.”

Okay, so much for that theory.

I’d known Harris for years, and had enough of connection with him to easily read his mind. If he wasn’t going to talk to me, taking a look inside his head was my only option. I took a deep breath, inhaling the stench of his unwashed body and the smoke and chemicals that still clung to his clothes. I reached into his mind.

Harris’s most recent memories were of the cage.
He remembered being led down the corridor by two armed guards and being locked inside this cell. He hadn’t put up a fight, and as a result, the guards hadn’t been too rough with him. These images were of no value to Crane, since he likely already knew about Harris’s arrival. I wanted to make sure he was being treated well, so I took my time sifting through them. I saw food being delivered, and the guards offering to let him shower. He never spoke to his captors and left the food untouched.

Systematically, I moved backwards on the timeline of Harris’s life.
His journey to the cottage was uneventful. Like Crane had said, Harris ran aboard one of the escape planes and surrendered immediately. He’d been shackled in the corner of the cargo hold, and guarded by a woman in a torn blue dress with a large gun; he didn’t fight her.

I moved backward further, to the raid on the station.
Harris had been one of the first operatives on the ground. I cringed as I watched him shoot men, women, and even children as they tried to flee. He felt no remorse. It struck me as odd. No feeling, no emotion accompanied any of his memories. He’d been so upset after everything that happened with Penny, so I knew this wasn’t ordinary for him.

In all the time I’d known him, he’d struck me as compassionate and fair.
Despite the rivalry between Erik and Donavon, Harris had managed to maintain friendships with both guys. He was one of the few of Donavon’s friends who had actually liked me, as opposed to being nice to my face and talking about me behind my back.

I went back further still.
At least, I
tried
to. His mind was blank before the raid. It was like he’d been born the moment he boarded the plane for Gatlinburg. This was not the first time I’d used this type of mental regression when reading someone’s mind. But it was the first time I’d hit a wall such as this.

Scared now, I pressed harder, searching specifically for memories of Penny.
His emotional connection to her had been strong, so even if someone had played in his head, images of Penny shouldn’t have been easily suppressed. No matter how deep I dug, not one memory of her floated through his head.

I felt my heart starting to pound harder, and my head began to throb with the effort of using so much mental energy.
Calm down, I had to tell myself. Concentrate, you can do this.

Eradicating Penny from Harris’s memories wasn’t unheard of; it was possible.
A strong Manipulator, such as myself, could do it. Maybe his grief over her death had become too much, and Mac had ordered some type of mental extraction therapy to help him cope. This too was possible, but unlikely. Extractions were tricky, and extremely risky. I wasn’t even sure TOXIC currently had anyone on staff capable of performing one.

Switching gears, I tried to locate memories of myself, Erik, and Donavon.
The three of us had also played a major role in Harris’s life. We’d all been at school together, and Donavon had been on Harris’s hunting team. There were none of the boys, but there was one of me. Just one, though. And it wasn’t a memory so much as picture. He saw me as I looked in my official TOXIC photo, and the thoughts attached with the picture weren’t what I’d expected. He felt no emotion where I was concerned. My image didn’t conjure any sort of resentment or confusion or evoke a single feeling. When Harris saw me, three words ran through his mind: Capture. Don’t Kill.

I gasped upon seeing these words flit through his mind over and over again like a mantra.

“Talia?” Crane sounded alarmed. “What’s happening? What did you see?”

“Nothing,” I said hurriedly.

I would tell him when this was over. Right now, though, I needed to have another crack at Harris’s mind. I was in uncharted territory here. Deciding to pledge the Hunters meant I never received advanced interrogation training, but I had taken several classes on the matter while at school. I understood the principal behind delving beyond a block such as the one in Harris’s head. I just hadn’t expected to ever be faced with the situation.

“Let me in, Harris,” I said softly, and put all my energy into making it a command.
The more receptive Harris was to the intrusion, the more likely I’d be able to break down his defenses.

Again, I searched for memories from before the raid, and again there weren’t any.
When I’d tried to infiltrate Crane’s mind, I’d been met with a similar resistance. But I’d been able to feel that there was something behind the wall. Harris wasn’t like that. He wasn’t blocking me; he actually didn’t have anything to share. This terrified me.

Had he been robbed of all of his memories, of the life he’d led prior to the raid, his brain would’ve suffered irreparable harm.
His motor skills would have suffered, and he wouldn’t have been able to participate in the raid at all. At least, that was what had happened to Ernest, the boy whose memory I’d inadvertently erased.

“What’s going on, Talia?” Crane called.

I heard the shuffling of his boots on stone as he shifted from one foot to the other nervously.

“Hold on, let me try one more thing,” I called back.

When Mac made me interrogate Ernest, his mind had gone blank, just like Harris’s was now. But when I’d tried to put his memories back, it had worked. I wanted to try the same with Harris. I hoped implanting my own memories of our time together would unlock the door holding back his past experiences.

I conjured up images of when we’d spent Festivis Day in D.C.
Along with Erik, Penny, Henri, and Frederick, we’d gone into the city to watch the parade and the fireworks. The six of us had drank, ate, and generally acted stupid. That was the night he’d first gotten together with Penny. With his feelings for her having been so strong in the past, I thought this of all nights would evoke a response. The memory bounced off of his mental wall. There was no other way to describe it. All the images I tried to project from my mind into his were flung back at me. I tried again. The same thing happened. It was like throwing a boomerang. Every toss was returned.

Frustrated, I pulled out of his head and stared into his unseeing eyes.
What the hell was going on? Why wasn’t this working? Was it because I was using memories that weren’t his? Because the images weren’t through his eyes?

I tried to stand, but my legs were shaky and they buckled under my weight.
A firm hand gripped my upper arm, forcing me upright.

“Thanks,” I muttered, my voice coming out strained.

“You okay? What did you do to him?” Crane asked.

I hadn’t even heard him move into the cell.

“Fine,” I mumbled. “He doesn’t remember anything before the raid. His mind is blank,” I added.

“Blank?” Crane asked.
“Maybe he’s blocking you?”

“No, he has no mental resistance.
It was easy, almost too easy to get into his head. I had no problem seeing everything from the moment he boarded the plane to Gatlinburg until now, but I couldn’t access anything before that. There wasn’t even anything to access.” My voice cracked; I was becoming slightly hysterical. What was wrong with him? What had Mac done to him?

I shrugged off Crane’s hand, wanting to throw my arms around Harris and comfort him.

“Don’t, Talia,” Crane warned. “He might attack you.”

“Harris won’t hurt me,” I shot back, moving towards my friend.
Slowly, I sat on the edge of his bed. He didn’t move.

“Talia, he doesn’t know who you are.
He doesn’t know that you used to be friends. You might be scaring him.”

I mulled over Crane’s words.
He had a point. Harris didn’t know who I was, only that he was supposed to capture me. But he was wrong about Harris being scared. There was no trace of fear in Harris’s mind; he wasn’t projecting any feeling at all.

Tentatively I placed my hand on his arm.
Fast as a whip, Harris shot up, grabbed my wrist, twisted it behind my back, and wrapped his other arm around my throat. The pressure wasn’t enough to cut off my air supply completely, but did make it difficult to breathe.

Crane was only a second slower drawing his gun.
“Let her go,” he demanded.

Crane wasn’t playing around.
His finger was on the trigger and he was milliseconds away from firing.

Harris said nothing, but his grip on me tightened.
I should’ve been frightened, but he wasn’t actually hurting me. Sure, I was uncomfortable, but uncomfortable I could handle.
Capture, don’t kill. Capture, don’t kill
, chanted Harris in his head.

What did scare me was the fact that Harris wasn’t scared.
His heartbeat was steady, his muscles relaxed given the circumstances. With Crane standing at point-blank range, ready and willing to pull the trigger, Harris’s adrenaline should have been pumping. His natural fight or flight instincts should have been taking over. They didn’t, though. He was calm, nonplussed by his current predicament. Even if Crane was a lousy marksman, his bullet would severely injure, if not kill, Harris.

“Lower your weapons,” I told Crane and the two guards, who now had their guns trained on Harris, as well.
Not one of them complied. “I said, lower your weapons,” I repeated in a firmer voice. This time, the guards obeyed. Crane hesitated, fighting my control. On a good day, Crane’s will rivaled mine. Today, he was no match. My fight with Brand had left me keyed up and taut as a drum. Crane lowered his gun, letting it drop to hang at his side. I relaxed a little.

“Harris, let me go,” I demanded, focusing my energy on him now.

Harris had never been strong-willed, so I was surprised he didn’t release me immediately. But with a surge of power on my part, he finally relented.

The instant I was free, Crane grabbed my arm and pushed me forcefully towards the cell door.
Without a word and as if nothing had happened, Harris sat on the edge of his cot before curling into the fetal position and closing his eyes.

“What the hell were you thinking?” Crane demanded, once we were safely in the elevator.
He sounded more scared than angry.

“He didn’t want to hurt me,” I replied defensively, stung by Crane’s chastising.
The stupid comment was harsh, but not unwarranted. I’d known better. My actions, as well intentioned as I’d thought them at the time, could’ve gotten someone killed. Most likely me.