The Nexus

Chapter 31

Emma sobbed. Hot tears flowed down her cheeks and the peace of her mind was shattered. Sophia's eyes, betrayed with the vision of Emma holding Alexis's hand, flashed over and over across her mind. She knew that all of the others had been in that SUV. Isabelle, Sophia...Thomas.

Thomas's voice joined in with the blur in her head, 'Calm down, Emma, be in the moment.' She remembered him saying something like that when they had gone into the meditation room at the Victorian Compound.

She held on to that thought. Her breathing started to slow. What was Alexis talking about? He used to ramble like this when she was first at the Agency. She thought back to when Joan had hypnotized her, the memory of her mom and her in the field and a much younger Alexis out in the parking lot.

Remembering the hypnosis made her body tingle a little. She sat and stared at the wall ahead of her. Something was calling to her. Something about that day, it was connected to the night she was meant to assassinate Miles Chandak and the hypnosis. 'Calm down, Emma,' Thomas's voice continued to call to her.

She was calm that day in the grass and calm when she planned to kill Miles. She had been trained to be calm in The Agency, control her pulse, focus on her target. She didn't have a target right now other than escape. She steadied her breath.

Alexis was right. The memories that she had been fighting had already revealed the truth to her. She had trapped her mom and the violent boyfriend in her little, childhood house, had barricade their bedroom with various items and jammed it shut. Then she had poured gasoline from the garage all over the house. Her eleven-year-old self had walked out the front door and lit a match. Some gas residue on her hand had caught on fire, but she ran out into the front yard and rubbed the burning flesh in the dirt. After all her childhood pain, nothing could hurt her.

She glanced at the small patch on her right hand where the slight scar was. There was more, though. Emma thought back to the grassy field, Alexis had been in the parking lot looking at her. He had smiled, her mom was telling her they had to go and pulling her off of the grass. They walked hand in hand on the sidewalk past Alexis and he walked close enough to bump them.

Emma's skittish mom had jumped back and stammered out some kind of apology. Alexis had squatted down and touched Emma's free hand, closing something in it, smiling (that award winning smile), and walked away. Eleven-year-old Emma had clenched her hand and her mom never noticed the matches. Not even when she had slowly tied Emma to her bed, the usual routine, leaving the usual weaknesses in the ropes.

Aranda walked back into the room whistling. "I think you're remembering," he seemed annoyed that Emma wouldn't look up at him. She kept her head down, trying to breath and focus on the color of her pants. "What's weird is that we never actually did anything to erase your memory, you seemed to do that all yourself. But it's all coming back isn't it?"

Emotions filled Emma as she clearly recalled the pain in her life. Why? She asked herself, Why would anyone do those things to a child? Why does anyone have to go through anything like that? Instead of an answer, there was Thomas' voice again, far in the background reminding her to be there in the room. The feelings filled her and threatened to take her over and she allowed them to.

Her heart and her filled then cleared while Aranda watched on with an amused look. It was like an ocean tide, the emotional ride she was on. During her clear moments she would guide her mind to reach conclusions. Alexis had known her before, had assisted in the killing of her mother. Then, after the dust had settled from the investigation, she was found guilty of third degree murder. Waves of hidden memories washed over her, reminding her of that time and how Alexis had come again. There were vague emotions in her then, but she was already numbing out, just a shell rolling around in the sea. By that time she was thirteen and she knew that her life wasn't her own; she was damaged beyond repair.

Clarity. She steadied her breath again, let all of the sadness, anger, betrayal flow through her. There were no more barriers inside, she was porous and yielding to it all. Thoughts, words, bounced around in her head, but she didn't pay attention to the stuff that didn't matter. Her younger self came to mind and Emma's heart swelled. That girl was a victim. That girl did what she had to do, or she would have died herself. It was all so animalistic, eat or be eaten. Emma's heart opened to her younger self. In her imagination she embraced her and enveloped her with protection.

"You're acting like a pathetic mess!" Alexis finally yelled. It interrupted the current that Emma had been riding on. "You need to remember that you are nothing in this world, a little speck on a planet that floats on an ocean of nothingness!!!"

"Maybe you shouldn't take my actions so personally then," she retorted.

He slapped her. The sting of it went through to her spine and she spit a little blood. Still she did not look up at him. There was pain, but she knew it was temporary, it always was. She straightened her body, kept her head down and went back onto her emotional ride. Aranda huffed and left the room.

Emma sat like this for possibly hours. Each surge of emotions or memories started to affect her less. Her mind just continued to hold that wounded girl while they both allowed the pain and grief to flow through and around them. She gave in to anything she needed to do at that moment.

By the time Aranda walked in again, Emma was feeling something else; a warm glow was replacing the black holes that had always filled her up. The tears that were dried upon her cheeks tingled. She looked up and inside her so did the girl from long ago. They merged into one. Emma realized that she loved that girl. She was precious. Emma was calm.

"Ahhh, ready to look at me I see. Why don't we stretch your legs a bit?" Alexis said. Another guard came into the room and unlocked the chains that were shackled to the floor. Her hands were still cuffed and the chain that dragged against the floor between her ankles allowed for her to walk slowly.

She followed Alexis while the guard led her by the arm. He allowed her to visit a bathroom and freshen up. When she looked in the mirror she could see traces of the child and her teenage self within her. Alexis stood behind her in the mirror and smiled. Emma noticed little sparks of light around his head and she blinked. The vision made her heart speed up again a little and she had to breathe deeply again to reclaim her calm.

Something occurred to her, "Alexis," she said, "how long have you known me?"

His smile widened, but there was a hint of something else in his eyes. The killer instincts in her labeled it as fear. "I've known you since you were born."

The answer didn't shock her. Something had told her that this would be his answer. Wordless answers were flowing into her now. The serene feeling was spreading. All the painful emotions seemed to have opened her to everything. She turned around and knew where they were headed next.