Psychic Visions 08-Now You See Her... (25 page)

He stared at her. She nodded to her phone on the table and swiped across the top of the screen. Sure enough it said it was nine-fifty. He shook his head. “Where the hell did the evening go?”

“Lost like all my years in that shit hole.”

Taking another bite, his gaze wandered over the top of the pizza and back onto the folders. He could see names and scribbles all over the outside. They were both thick. Sad. Then he caught sight of one name. His heart lurched. Not wanting to go there, he flipped open the other folder.

“D
o you know
a Billy Massey?”

Tia paused, a third and so not necessary slice of pizza staring at her from the box. “Billy was one of the kids at the center.”

“A friend of yours?”

She glanced over at him, a wry expression on her face. “You are assuming we were allowed to have friends.”

His gaze widened. “Didn’t you have social contact with the others there?”

“Sure we did. During some of the experiments. Sometimes over meals. The odd occasion. But it wasn’t exactly what you’d call a nice scenario. Several of the kids there were happy, thinking they were special and had won some kind of accolades.” She shrugged. “They learned otherwise very quickly.” She really didn’t want to talk about this right now but with those files sitting on the table in front of them…

“To hell with it,” she muttered and snatched up the third slice. With her first bite she closed her eyes and let a happy moan escape. “It’s been so long since I had pizza.”

“What kind of food did you eat at the center?”

“Regular institution food. In other words, disgusting. I got skinnier and skinnier. Especially during my later teen years. I couldn’t eat the crap they were serving, I didn’t care to live the life I was living and the combination was deadly.”

She waited, knowing he wasn’t going to be able to let it go at that.

“And…?”

“And I escaped. It wasn’t well thought out. It was more an accident or happenstance. I realized after I was returned that if it happened once then chances were good it could happen again.” She glared at the stack of papers in front of them. “I wanted that second chance.”

“And you got it,” he said in a soothing voice. “You’re fine now.”

“Not quite,” she muttered. “Someone is still after me.”

“Do we know for sure that this person is related to the lab?”

“Has to be,” she said. “How can it not?”

“It’s a really fucked up world out there,” he said, reaching for the last piece of pizza in the first box. “And we need more than guesses at this point.”

“We do know that the guy at McDonald’s was possibly there when I was attacked. That means he’s likely connected to the lab.”

Dean nodded his head. “Right. So there is a connection to that extent.” He pondered for a moment, eating in silence. “What about Simone, did she have a connection to the lab?”

Tia smiled. “No. Given the shape I was in, she asked. But how could I explain about the tests ‘to make me healthy’ again.” Her voice took on a mocking tone at the end.

“Wait.” Dean leaned back. “I assumed the tests were parapsychological in nature.”

“They were. But most parents were of the opinion that there
was
something wrong with us. And they wanted us ‘fixed’ regardless of how.”

“Did Dr. Wilhelm pass his lab off as a place where people like you could be treated and become…hell I don’t know…normal?”

She nodded. “I think so. Then when he figured out what we could do, he wanted to do more and more tests. With me there all the time, he could do more in-depth tests.”

“What kind of tests?”

She laughed. “In the beginning they were everything from the type of food we ate, the type of music we listened to, the colors we wore.”

He grinned. “I gather that didn’t produce the results he was looking for?”

She shook her head. “Not at all. By the end, he wanted us to be better, stronger, have more abilities.”

“Whoa, I had no idea.” Dean stared at her in shock. “I can’t imagine that went over well.”

“At the beginning he always tested to see what made us stronger, then weaker, and poor naive us thought he’d meant to weaken our abilities so we were acceptable in our parents’ eyes. Instead, he was cataloguing our responses to see what made us stronger.” She shoved the pizza boxes back off the table and pulled the thick folders forward. “He pulled some pretty nasty shit in his attempts to see if there was something that would set off hidden talents. If he attacked, could we attack him back, bigger and stronger so to speak?”

“That sounds highly unethical.”

“Ethical and Wilhelm didn’t belong in the same sentence.” She opened the first folder and raised her gaze to Dean. “Especially after I managed to escape. There were only four kids there at the time, but according to them, they were all punished as if they were to blame for my escape. He always assumed I’d had help.”

She kept quiet for a long moment, wishing she could explain the inside fear that had tormented her for such a long time. “I did have help, but not the first time. Like I said, that was more accidental. But the second time…oh yeah, I had help.”

“Who helped you?” he said in a puzzled tone.

“I have no idea,” she whispered. “And you wouldn’t believe me if I told you.”

“Try me?”

She laughed. “All right. It was…I don’t know, you’ll laugh but it was like a ghost. Or something. I don’t know, but it’s like there was a whisper saying to run.” She shrugged. “Whatever it was, I saw that second opportunity and I took it.”

“And the ones you left behind,” he asked in a gentle tone. “Did you never worry about them?”

“No,” she said shortly. “I didn’t have to. You see, by the end, there was no one left. I was alone. In fact, I might have been the only one left alive in that damn building, except for Wilhelm. I figured I’d been forgotten in the padded cell. When the ghost appeared and showed me how to escape, I never looked back. For all I know the place had been deserted for days.”

*

He didn’t know
what to think. A ghost? An entity that helped her get out of a locked room from a deserted lab. How bizarre. And what could he say? Nothing. But he had to come up with a response of some kind. He smiled. “Sorry, you lost me at ghost.”

“Yeah, that’s where I lose most people,” she muttered. “Not that I tell many. What about you and your weird symptoms after the attack? Did you see or do anything odd that might make you think there was more to this physical existence?”

He opened his mouth to say no, hell no, only he couldn’t. Why. He closed his eyes and sat back, watching her study the very first page in the folder. He had seen some weird lights when he’d first realized there was a problem. After all, when you looked at a person and saw colors around their head, it was an obvious enough problem to go and ask the doctors about, and he’d quickly learned there was nothing physically wrong. The doctors had immediately turned to his psychological health. He’d been quick to learn that lesson. Not fast enough for a few odd notes in his file suggesting time off and that his mother’s illness might have had something to do with his mental stress, not to mention being a single dad and maybe he should look at getting some help at home. Like that was an easy option. He’d never told anyone else.

“So the answer is yes.” She snorted. “See how it feels. You don’t know if you should say something or not because I might consider you weird or not quite right in the head.”

“It wasn’t much,” he protested. “But along with the enhanced hearing came enhanced sight, only it was real weird. It’s like something was wrong. I saw colors where there weren’t any, edges blurred. After the regular doctor I decided it was likely a visual problem and went to see an eye doctor.”

“But he couldn’t find anything wrong – right?”

“No, he couldn’t.” Dean smiled. “But the symptoms are diminishing now so whatever was wrong is now getting better.”

“Fool you. It’s not getting better, you are getting stronger so you are learning to handle the information better, and it’s not something you see all the time.”

“Information?”

“Yeah, your brain received a lot more information based on the enhanced sight and hearing – way cool that is too – and so it didn’t know what to do with it all initially. Now that you’ve had a few months to figure it out, your brain has been able to compartmentalize the information – store it so to speak.”

“So you’re saying I’m not healing, the enhanced sensations are just going underground?” he asked doubtfully.

“Absolutely. A good way to look at it.” She smiled. “It’s all real, you know. The colors around people’s heads, around objects, the flares when people get mad, the warm rosy glow that surrounds people in love.”

He stared at her. “You see it, too?” he asked hoarsely. “I thought it was just my psychosis.”

She shook her head. “Nope, not a psychosis. It’s simple. You’re able to see auras and are starting to learn to read energy. Way cool.”

She turned the page on the folder in front of her. “It’s all good. You’ll learn to see more as time goes on – provided you are still open to the suggestions. If not it will become an ability you’ll draw on at certain times but will lie fallow the rest of the time. That’s kinda sad, if you go that way.”

“And why not go that way?” It sounded damn fine to him.

“Because this is a good ability. It allows you to read other people. To understand if they are telling the truth. To see if someone is really sick or not.”

He stared at her. “How is that possible?”

“Have to wait and see. Use them sometime, and you’ll see what information is available.” She turned and assessed him. “Considering you’re a cop, this could be helpful. Imagine a runaway teen girl who tells you a story and she’s looking so seriously sad that your heart breaks and you’d bend over backwards only to find out she has a couple of nasty pimps in the bushes waiting to beat the shit out of you.”

He didn’t dare tell her he’d never get into a scenario like that, being who he was, but her point was valid. “How?” he asked bluntly.

“Because energy never lies. People lie. People cheat. People steal. Energy is always energy. If you can read it, then it’s a huge life skill. It will always show you who is lying at any given time.”

“And you, are you lying to me right now?”

She laughed. “Nope.”

“How about this morning when you said, you loved me?”

She gasped in shock. And damn if her outline didn’t start fading away.

“I never said that,” she shrieked.

He laughed. “Gotcha.”

S
he snickered. “You’
ll pay for that.” And she turned her head to the papers in front of her. Inside though, her heart beat like a bird on the wrong side of a window. Why would he say something like that? It’s not something she’d ever say. Never had a chance to ever do so before and, given her history, she doubted the opportunity would arise any time soon. But his words stirred something in her.

Her teen years hadn’t been normal. She’d missed the chance to crush on anyone. There’d been a guy she’d liked at the center, but he’d not been there long. A few months. Then a new younger kid had shown up, and she’d become closer to him but not in any romantic way. Her entire hormonal life she’d been in that damn lab. Since living on her own, she’d had several relationships. Once realizing she was almost safe, only looking behind her shoulder a few times, she’d found a thirst for life and all the things she’d never had.