Psychic Visions 08-Now You See Her... (11 page)

“See what I
mean?” Dean felt vindicated. Stefan and Dr. Manson, a friend of Stefan’s, had arrived right after Dean had called. They’d been watching Tia sleep, their conversation low and modulated so as not to wake her.

She’d woken anyway.

But it was the way she’d woken, obviously dizzy, moving in and out of visibility in a way that had the air crackling with electricity but more than that…she hadn’t seen them. And they’d been standing right in front of her.

Like what the hell?

Now she was asleep again.

“I’d like to have her back at the hospital,” Dr. Manson said.

“Ha,” Dean said. “Good luck with that. If she doesn’t want to stay you know she’s just going to walk out.”

“She might, but we have a few ways to keep her in,” Stefan said quietly, his gaze locked on Tia.

“But she’d have to be willing or it would be a fight every minute.”

Stefan nodded absentmindedly. “She’d need to be willing.”

“She’s not.” Dean made that clear. “I don’t think there’s anything you can do to make her willing either.”

“I don’t know about that. She’s not in good shape.”

“Actually, she’s in great shape,” Stefan said. “But her synapses are off.”

Dr. Manson said, “That would be very unusual.”

“Hmmm.” Stefan sighed. “We need to run some tests.”

“If she’s feeling bad enough she
might
be willing to undergo some,” Dean said. “She’s not very trusting.”

“With good reason. She was tested a long time ago. Fascinated, the specialists ran every test possible and then some.” Stefan turned slightly away. “Some of the tests were uncomfortable. Others downright painful.”

“What about her parents? Didn’t they do something to protect her or at least limit the time she was a lab rat?”

“Her parents tried when she was young, but she was too much for them. After she entered the program they, along with their son who had none of the same issues, literally disappeared into the night and left her behind.”

Dean stared at Stefan. “What? Isn’t that abandonment?”

“In theory, but in truth they signed papers to give her to the project and the head of the project.
Ansell Wilhelm
. He was a highly decorated doctor who’d done cutting edge research on genetics, but mostly with animals.”

“So what? Tia became his first human test subject?” Dean asked incredulously. “That’s not legal.”

“No one knew,” Stefan said. “There was a minor scandal when the world found out but no one cared. Paperwork disappeared and there was a lot of innuendo but no proof. Still, his funding was cut off when the hint of scandal happened and he more or less went off the grid, taking several of his patients with him.”

The doctor said, “Likely went underground. Possibly even a third world country. There is lots of money available if you aren’t too worried about where or why.”

Dean hated to think of Tia’s childhood as a test subject. “She must have had a horrible life.”

“Actually, it was worse than you think. That trailer you were at yesterday,” Stefan said, “was her childhood home.”

“What?”

“Yeah, it took a bit to run that down. I actually got the confirmation from her then ran it through the database. Her parents owned it for seven years. Along with signing her over, they might have been paid to disappear.”

The doctor threw out his arm suddenly as if to silence them. They all paused to stare at Tia. Her body was illuminated in a weird gold.

Stefan caught his breath and quickly moved forward. The doctor followed. Dean stood in place wondering what the hell had happened. Her body, instead of disappearing one chunk at a time, now lit up in one area at a time, but it was a luminescent glow like from the inside out. It was crazy.

He watched both Stefan and the doctor walk around Tia, studying her energy, her body. They were acting almost as crazy as she was. When Stefan dropped to his knees and peered from a bent over angle at the area where her foot glowed, Dean realized they were looking for something on her…or in her.

Lord only knew which. And why.

Surely this was an organic kind of issue. No, they said something about electrical. What he knew about electricity was minimal. He could change out plugs and fix a lawn mower cord after being run over but not much more. The principles were easy though – if you were talking about normal electricity.

He understood electrical currents flowed through the body. And she appeared to be “shorting” out. He just never imagined such a thing was possible.

In fact, he’d have said it was completely impossible.

Besides, if there were interruptions in her electrical impulses, she might feel weird but none of that should affect how she visually looked as in disappearing body parts.

The electricity wasn’t affecting him. He should be able to see all of her like a normal person.

But he couldn’t.

He had to admit it was fascinating.

And it was easy to imagine how a scientist might be willing to do just about anything to study her.

But what kind of tests had they performed? Ones to see how much power she had and what interrupted it? What could make her problem worse? Or how low her energy could go and she could still function?

None sounded like fun to him.

After a moment, as the other two men studied her intently, he asked, “Well? Any idea why she’s doing this?”

“Several ideas,” the doctor muttered. “Truly, she is unique. This must be a result of her individual abilities being shorted.”

Stefan said, “Yes, but is the shorting happening because she’s doing it, someone is doing it to her or is she injured in some way?”

“If she wasn’t…she will be soon. This is affecting her organic systems.”

“So you see her heading for a whole body failure?” Stefan asked, his forehead creased. “I was thinking she’s been doing something like this for years – probably while asleep – only something has set it off now in a big way that she can’t control.”

“What?” Dean stood beside Stefan, staring down at the young woman who’d become a little too important in his nice neat orderly world. “Are you saying someone has done this to her? As in trying to hurt her?”

“Quite possibly.” Stefan stood up and brushed his pants off. “In which case we do have one chief suspect.”

“The guy who attacked her earlier?”

“I’m presuming so.” Stefan turned to study the room around them. “Now if only we knew who that was.”

From the other side of the room, the doctor said, “I need to run some scans to see if there are any implants hidden in her. It could be microchip size, and I think it’s sending a pulse or something to disrupt her system.”

“Or maybe it’s not on all the time, as that would make it easier to detect, but something might have set it to go off accidentally. You know, like a smoke alarm when the battery is dying or a CO2 alarm when there is gas.”

“Maybe this is an alarm system,” Dean suggested.

Stefan turned to stare at Dean. “That’s a very good possibility. This could be her body sending a message. These being the symptoms of the bigger problem.”

“I need her back in the hospital,” the doctor said.

They all jumped back slightly when Tia opened her eyes and said in a hard tired voice, “I’m not going back there.”

T
ia wanted to
bolt up from the couch and run as far and as fast as she could from the three men. But she didn’t move a muscle. In fact, she wasn’t sure she could. Her body was starting to seizure but her muscles didn’t appear to move. Energy seizures? Was such a thing possible?

People with abilities seemed to have two systems. One physical and one energetic. If a person could get sick on the physical system, in theory it should then be possible to get “sick” on the energetic level.

Great.

Just what she needed. Was there an equivalent to cancer on the physical system? ’Cause it would be so typical of her to be the first one. Damn.

The doctor studied her with a narrow gaze that made her wonder if he could see right through her. But there was no intrusiveness. Just a practitioner’s assessment. Stefan looked at her with an unfocused gaze and she realized he was studying her from an energy level.

Deciding she’d had enough of being stared at, she shifted to a sitting position. Then, using the armrest for support, she stood up – a little shaky but at least she was vertical. She studied the room. As far as she could tell she was still in Dean’s house, but everything was foggy. As if she was looking through a light rain.

“Where’s Dean?”

“Right in front of you.” Dean’s voice came through a weird cloud.

She rubbed her eyes but she still couldn’t see him clearly. “I can’t see you very well,” she muttered.

Instead of a shocked exclamation, a warm hand landed on her shoulder, grounding her. Instantly, her vision cleared. He stood in front of her, a worried look on his face.

She smiled. “Thanks, now I can see you.”

“I didn’t do anything, but you’re welcome.” His smile gentled, but his gaze narrowed as he studied her features. She could feel the power of his concern. It was…disconcerting.

Feeling stronger, she took a step forward. With a mental shake, she reached up and rubbed her temple. “I wish I woke feeling like I’d had some rest. Instead, every time I wake up I feel frazzled, frayed at the edges. Terrible feeling,” she muttered. She should go to the washroom, wash her face, maybe it would wake her up, but she didn’t want to move.

Dean stepped back, letting his hand fall away and as if a connection had broken she suddenly felt worse. Weird. She felt better touching him. Still, she could hardly hold his hand all the time. Besides, she was better than before she’d collapsed. She excused herself and went to the washroom. She didn’t want to look into the mirror, but she knew she had to. She felt so disconnected from everyone, everything. She hadn’t even asked for an update on Simone. God, what was wrong with her?

She used the facilities, gave her face a good scrub, tried to run her fingers through her hair. Thankfully there was mouthwash in a cupboard. Stefan had brought her meager belongings from the hospital, but apparently toiletries had not been among them. Still, she was grateful to have her purse back.

Finally, she pushed open the door and walked out to the living room and to the men who waited for her. She heard Dean say something to her but where he stood was only a blur of energy. Turning toward the sound of Stefan’s voice, she realized he was no longer as clear as he’d been either.

She whispered, hating the fear snaking through her, “There’s something wrong with me.”

Then she fell to her knees.

The men rushed to her side.

But not in time.

She toppled face forward to the floor.

*

“Damn it. What’s
wrong with her?” Dean asked after moving her to the couch. Stefan and Dr. Manson checked her over while he watched.

“We don’t know,” Stefan said. “I wish she’d given us some of her symptoms before collapsing.”

“There’s something going on between Dean and her,” the doctor said quietly.

Stefan nodded. “I saw that.”

“Saw what?” Dean cried out in frustration. “What are you talking about?”

“When you placed your hand on her shoulder, her energy strengthened as if you were stabilizing whatever was off with her system.”

“I didn’t do anything but try to offer my support,” Dean said. “Who’d have thought something like this was possible?”

“We didn’t. And we’ve seen some crazy things.” The doctor turned to Stefan. “Your call.”

He nodded. “We need to take her in.”

“She doesn’t want to go anywhere,” Dean protested. He didn’t know how he felt about any of this, but he knew she didn’t want to go to a hospital. And given her delicate condition, he couldn’t imagine a hospital helping her.

“She can’t stay here,” Stefan said gently.

“If we move her, she’ll feel betrayed.” And damn if it didn’t feel like he was the one doing the betraying.

“She is hurt, sick. She needs help and before we can do that we have to know what’s wrong,” the doctor said. “Therefore I have to run some tests.”

“Do them here.” Dean hated that he was starting to sound belligerent but, damn it, someone needed to speak up for her. She couldn’t so it was up to him. And that made him feel like a fool. Again. She’d made him feel that way from the first meeting, but now he was doing it all by himself.