Chapter 2: One Year Later

Cold hands encompassed her.

Bright lights.

A tinge of blue in them.

Cold.

So, so very cold.

Figures in white coats. Dark figures.

“We need to give her a stronger sub-governor.”

She tried to move her arms and legs, but she couldn’t.

Trapped.

No where to run.

The figures were edging closer and closer to her face.

Knives. Shiny and sharp. Directed towards her head.

“We’ve already given her the highest level.”

“We’re at a ten, sir.”

“Then go to eleven. Go to twelve. Add two at once and go to twenty!”

The voices. So many voices. Close, yet echoing.

“If we don’t raise the level, we’ll lose control of her.”

She wanted to scream. She tried to scream. She couldn’t.

It was cold. So cold.

She was losing control.

So many voices. So many emotions. All with bad intentions all wanting to so something to her she didn’t want done.

It hurt so much, the thoughts running through their minds.

The pain was unbearable.

“We’ll give it to her twice, then.”

No.

No more.

She wanted to scream.

She wanted to.

They edge closer with the needles. Closer to her head. Faces fuzzy, but the needles. Five of them. All attached to one tube. One gigantic tube. Wired and running on electricity.

Please, no.

Closer to the nap her neck, now. Almost there.

It plunged…

She screamed.

PROJECT X

Tristan jolted awake, sweat dripping down his face and neck.

“Shit,” he breathed, the cold slowly creeping away from his chest. “Shit

A flood of images swathed him, the pain echoing in his mind. It was suffocating. He glanced down at his hands. They were trembling with bits of electric sparks. He shook them in a failed attempt to control the electrical energy.

Jumping out of bed, he quickly grabbed the shirt he’d tossed aside on his desk chair and made his way out of his room.

“Tristan!”

Elijah flew to him, wings spread out fully in the wide hallway, a look of panic across his angelic face. “Nev,” he landed next Tristan, folding his wings gently. “I felt it. I saw it. Did you?”

“The dream?” Tristan confirmed, walking hastily down to Neveah’s room. “Yeah.”

“That was…” Elijah shook his head, not able to explain it. “What was that?”

“I don‘t know, but I have pretty good idea.”

Her room was the very last one down the hall, and the door was opened ajar with a stream of light escaping the crack.

“Looks like Dr. H beat us to the punch,” Elijah commented.

“Breathe, Nev,” came a soft, soothing voice through the door. “That’s right. There you go.”

Both boys exchanged looks of concern before walking in to find Neveah sitting in bed, hugging her knees to her chest and breathing shakily with Dr. Harrison’s arm wrapped around her shoulders comfortingly.

Dr. Harrison looked up upon their entrance, old eyes weary and tired, but Neveah seemed to be lost in her own world.

Elijah crept toward the pair, afraid that if he made any big move, she would…snap

“What happened?” he asked.

“What he means is, ‘What the hell is going on?’” Tristan nearly growled.

Elijah tossed him a glare. Dr. Harrison sighed, shaking his head. Whether it was at the situation or himself, Tristan wasn’t sure.

“This is neither the time or place, Tristan,” Dr. Harrison reasoned, reaching inside the pocket of his pajamas to pull out a small bottle of pills.

“Sweetheart, are you with me?”

Neveah tilted her head slightly toward Dr. Harrison’s direction. He removed his arm from around her shoulder to pop open the cap of the pill bottle. He held out two blue capsules.

She stared dazedly the tablets in his hand.

“I don’t have insomnia.”

Soft, yet unwavering. That was how she always sounded when she spoke. Physically, she was delicate and frail. Mentally, she was worst. But spiritually, she was strong. Potent beyond belief.

“I know you don’t,” Dr. Harrison said calmly. “But it’s three in the morning and I know how much you hate stasis scans and sub-governors, let alone stasis scans and sub-governors at three in the morning.”

He took her hand gently in his own and placed the pills in her palm. “This is the best I can do right now. It’ll help you fall asleep.”

Grabbing the glass of water already at her bedside, gave her another quiet pleading look. “You may have powers beyond measure, but you’re still human. The pills will make you tired, and you’ll have a fitful sleep.”

Neveah looked to Tristan and Elijah, who were both watching her intently.

“Go on, Nev,” Elijah smiled encouragingly. “Do it, and I promise that when you wake up in the morning, I’ll have blueberry pancakes ready for you.”

Blueberry pancakes were his specialty. He made them so well. Soft, fluffy and fruity with just a hint of vanilla. She could practically feel her mouth start to water. He was trying to bargain with her. She could sense the worry from him. From all of them. Desperation from Dr. Harrison, mostly. Sadness, too.

She spared a longer glance at Tristan. His emotions were the hardest to ignore. Anger radiated from him, warmer than the sun on a cloudless day. She picked up on some of his thoughts.

How…why…cruelty…sub-governors…not fair…so frail…protect…

It was rather ironic. He was usually quiet, but his feelings were always screaming - crying out to be heard.

Tristan’s lips curved to small smirk when he noticed the girl’s fixed look on him.

“That’s an invasion of privacy, you know.”

Neveah blushed. She knew he was referring to her thought reading.

She took the glass of water from Dr. Harrison and swallowed her pills quickly.

The doctor smiled, ruffling the hair of her head. “Good.”

Neveah laid back down, albeit grudgingly. Dr. Harrison helped tuck her in.

“I’m not a little girl,” she said, still allowing him to pull her covers.

“I know,” he answered, placing a kiss on her forehead. “You’re a young lady.”

A beautiful young lady.

The thought was barely a whisper, but she heard it, and she couldn’t help but blush again as she glimpsed at Tristan.

He gave her a small, sleepy half smile.

Did he think that purposefully, knowing that she would catch it? Or was it a slip? Either way, she tossed her questions aside, deciding it better for her to simply sleep.

All three males exited her room, Dr. Harrison being the last as he turned off her lights.

“Sleep well, Neveah.”

And once again, she was alone, enveloped in darkness with just the glow of the moon as her light.

PROJECT X

“She was getting better, Doc,” Tristan’s voice was accusing. “You said she was getting better.”

Barely halfway down the corridor and Tristan couldn’t contain his aggravation any longer.

Dr. Harrison took off his frameless glasses to rub his eyes. It was a habit of his, whenever he was exhausted and couldn’t form into words what he wanted to say.

“It’s been a year,” Elijah said, tucking his wings in closer. “And she is better. She can control it better.”

“Yeah?” Tristan was furious. “You saw it, didn’t you? You saw that nightmare as clear as I did.”

“You can’t always be in constant control, Tristan,” Dr. Harrison’s voice was jaded, his eyes bearing right through Tristan’s soul. “You of all people should know that.”

The boy’s nostrils flared in contempt and infamy.

“How did she do it?” Elijah’s questioned curiously. “How were we able to see what she saw?”

The elder man exhaled noisily.

“Like I said,” he explained. “You can’t be in constant control. It’s physically impossible. Neveah was dreaming, and her dreams branch from the source of her abilities. She had a nightmare, she was scared, so she cried for help. She reached out to us. And by doing so, she somehow projected her dream into our heads.”

He paused, noticing the confused expressions on both his students’ faces.

“Normally, people who have nightmares, they move physically in accordance with what they’re doing in their dreams,” he continued, attempting to make things clearer. “Therefore, say you have a nightmare. You may wake up screaming - and that scream is a cry of help. But for Neveah, she couldn’t do that. At least, not in this dream. So she reached out mentally, instead of vocally.”

There was a moment of silence after the doctor’s clarification as Tristan and Elijah took in what he’d said.

“But…what was that?”

Elijah’s inquiry broke the stillness.

“That’s what they did to her,” Tristan answered, arms crossed and gaze fixed on the carpet. “The day before we…took her from the facility. That’s what they did.”

Dr. Harrison watched Tristan for a moment, sensing the lulled resentment that was tormenting his thoughts.

He clapped both boys on the shoulder. “Get some rest, you two. I’ll see you in the morning for training.”

And Dr. Harrison left, walking tiredly down the hallway. Whether it was back to bed or to his office to research, neither knew for certain.

Tristan made a move to follow suit, but Elijah spread his out his left wing, blocking the way.

He arched an eyebrow at his winged companion. “We don’t go at it until tomorrow, man. But if you want to start training now…”

Elijah almost smirked. “Not that.”

“Then what?”

Elijah hesitated, unsure of how to form his words. “Was that what really happened to her? In there?”

Tristan breathed deeply, crossing his arms. “Yeah. I watched her for a week. It was the same routine everyday.”

Elijah looked disgusted.

“When that douche of a doctor finally assigned me as her guard,” he carried on, “she was so…weak. She couldn’t even stand. I’ve honestly never felt the need to punch someone so badly.”

Elijah smiled slightly at the last part. “I think I might actually agree with you.”

Tristan shrugged. “First time for everything.” He paused. “But I get first punch.”

PROJECT X

As Elijah promised, a stack of blueberry pancakes were made fresh and ready for Neveah when she woke up.

She padded barefoot into the kitchen, still in her pajamas and hair tied messily into a ponytail.

Serenity.

That was the sensation she received the moment she stepped into the enormous, Italian-design influenced kitchen.

She didn’t have to turn around to realize it was Elijah she’d received the feeling from. Such a sweet and good-humored emotion always radiated from him. It was part of the reason why she loved being around him so much. He calmed her with his presence. If ever she felt that she couldn’t contain all the thoughts and sensations in her head, she would stand next to Elijah and literally drink in his aura. It was better than any sub-governor injection. But of course, Elijah was just one boy with a few thoughts and feelings. There’d need to be literally a hundred of him to truly calm her down in a serious situation. Thus, the injections played their part.

“Those pancakes are going get pretty cold if you’re just going to stand there all day, Nev.”

Neveah looked over her shoulder and smiled sheepishly at Tristan, who’s disheveled hair clearly said he’d just woken up as well.

She stepped aside from the kitchen’s door to allow him entrance the same time Elijah looked up from the stove, a surprised look on his face.

“Hey Sleeping Beauty,” he greeted Neveah. “Have you been standing there this whole time?”

Neveah sat down in front of a plate full of pancakes with Tristan right next to her, whole practically devoured a five pancakes in under two minutes.

She’d barely gotten halfway through one.

“Training is in an hour,” Elijah said, pouring another batter of pancake mix onto the pan. “I think Dr. H wants you with us, Nev.”

Neveah looked up, taken aback. “Again?”

He nodded.

For the past six weeks, Dr. Harrison had a put her through training with Tristan and Elijah five times a week to help control her powers. Why, she wasn’t sure. It almost felt like it was a spur of the moment action. Ever since the ‘glass incident’ when she’d accidentally broken ever piece of glass in the kitchen because a murder had taken place two blocks down their house while she was eating lunch.

She remembered it vividly. Her mind had gone into overdrive. She’d left herself open for just an hour, allowing other people’s thoughts and feelings to course freely through her psyche as she ate her croissant sandwich, when a sudden pain struck her chest. It was excruciating. The feeling of a knife had cut right through her heart, and she’d cried out, screaming in agony. A woman was being murdered and she felt everything the woman felt. After five minutes, she’d opened her eyes to find the disturbed looks of three males and glass broken all around her. The tall window panes shattered along with her glass of apple juice.

About two days right after that, Dr. Harrison put her under rigorous stasis scan and had her using what he called ‘mental exercises’ with Tristan and Elijah.

“Are you all ready?” Dr. Harrison walked in, dressed prim and proper with a lab coat and a bright smile on his aged face, breaking Neveah’s daydream.

“Ready as we’ll ever be,” Tristan answered for them.

Dr. Harrison nodded before offering Neveah his attention. “I want to work on your ability to track and locate feelings, Nev.”

She looked at him curiously. “ ‘Track feelings?’” she repeated, uncertain. “You mean, like a…homing device?”

He chuckled. “That’s one way of putting, yes. But I believe you’re very capable of it, you just don’t know it.”

She nodded, still tentative but willing to settle her inquisitiveness. After all, how many people out there could say they had a homing device right in their head?

(A/N): The light and boring chapter, I know. But I’m easing my way into darker themes, as you can probably tell with the mention of murder.