It's My Life

Chapter 25 - Getting Serious

After my shower I was taken to Brad's office, and I looked around. The last time I'd been in here I hadn't taken anything in, but today I saw photos of Tabby, and Jenny, and a few of me as a child playing with Tabby, or relaxing with her. Seeing the photos made tears start to fall, and I lifted a hand to wipe them away.
"Sit down. We have a lot to talk about." Brad said. I sat down slowly, looking at the three men.
"I have nothing else to say, to any of you." I said, looking at the window. It was sunny and blue skies outside, and I stood up to move to the window when I was grabbed and held firm.
"Let go! I just want some sunlight." I cried, struggling. "Surely you can see how much I need it." I added. I knew how pale I looked, how drawn. The guards held firm.
"No. If you get to the window you'll see where we are and let your friends know." Jones said, pointing to the chair I'd vacated. I was pushed back into it.
"What friends? Thanks to you lot I probably have no friends left." I said, looking at each of them in turn. All three watched me.
"Your boyfriend, Tom, who you called last night." Brad said. I looked at him, feeling cold with dread.
"You have no proof." I said, tough I was terrified I managed to keep my voice steady. How could they possibly know who I called? Brad smiled.
"I have proof. Not a lot, mind you, but enough. Is he who you've been talking to today as well?" Brad asked. I looked at Shields quickly, who was watching me with a smirk on his face.
"I don't know what you're talking about." I said, unable to keep a quiver out of my voice. 
"Fine. Dr. Shields, go prep the CAT scan machine, and find restraints that will keep her still and contains no metal." Jones said. I looked at Jones as Shields stood up to leave.
"No. You can't put me back in there!" I cried.
"Tell us who you were communicating with then." Jones said, and Shields stopped by the door. I bit my lip, not wanting to divulge anything about Tom. Shields saw the look in my eyes, nodded, and left.
"I won't tell you anything." I said. Both Brad and Jones looked at me.
"You don't have to tell us anything. Your actions do it for you." Brad said. I looked at the window, wondering if it was worth it to try to break the window and escape. I grabbed a photo frame off the desk, recognising the thirteenth birthday party that had been thrown for Tabby, and threw it with all my might at the window. To my utter shock though the frame merely bounced off the glass and landed on the carpet underneath the window. Both Jones and Brad looked at the frame on the ground, then at me.
"Bulletproof glass. We have a lot of sensitive information here, the last thing we want is for our...secrets...to get out." Jones said. Brad picked up the frame and put it back on his desk. The phone rang then and Brad picked it up.
"Thompson." He said. He listened a moment, his eyes moving to me.
"We're on our way." He said, and then hung up. Jones was watching him. "Dr. Shields is ready for us." Brad added, and started to move to the door. I jumped up quickly and grabbed Brad's arm.
"Please, stop all this." I begged. I was grabbed and pulled back, held tight, and Brad looked at me.
"It's too late now. Come along." Brad said. I was pushed to follow after him down the hall, and I sent a telepathic message to Tom.
"Don't contact me until I contact you. They're taking me to have scans done, they think I'm communicating telepathically." I sent. I felt warmth and...I couldn't quite put my finger on it...sorrow?
"I understand. You be careful." Tom sent back. I could feel his exhaustion from projecting to me, and I built a clumsy wall around my mind to block it out. I was taken back to the lab with the scanner, and I cringed. Shields was waiting for us.
"Get changed." He ordered, indicating the hospital gown on the chair. I didn't move. "Do it, or I'll get Dr. Warden and Dr. Tucker to strip you." Shields threatened. I grabbed the gown and moved behind the changing screen, getting out of my clothes and putting on the horrible gown, my long hair hanging down my back, then stepped out. Shields and Brad watched me.
"Why are you looking at me like that?" I demanded. Shields turned away, but Brad came over to me.
"I didn't know what all this was doing to you. I'm sorry." He said, and indicated my reflection in the side of the machine. I looked, and gasped. The white of the hospital gown had seemed to draw all the colour from my face, dark circles under sunken eyes, my body looked as though I'd lost weight, my bones prominent.
"Get on the scales, Cass." Shields said, and I did so without hesitation. I was curious to see what a week of captivity could do to a person, and I wanted them to suffer for it, too.
"Sixty-one. She's lost four kilograms in a week." Shields said, looking at Brad, who frowned.
"I am sorry to hear that." Brad said, and looked at me. "Up on the tray." I shook my head.
"No. I'm not going into that." I said. He gestured and I was grabbed, lifted bodily into the air and placed on the tray. Before I could react I was strapped down at the chest, the waist, the thighs, my ankles and wrists. A funny cage was put over my head to keep my head still, and I whimpered, but I couldn't move. The tray was moved into the machine and I was told to close my eyes and stay as still as I could. Tears fell as I lay there, sobbing, trying not to move, panic spreading through me, doing my best, despite my terror, to stop myself thinking about telepathy or using my senses. It was very hard, but I hoped I'd done it. A few minutes later I was brought out.
"All done." Shields said. I was untied, the cage removed, and I moved to my things, trembling violently. I managed to change into my clothes, my hands shaking. Brad and Shields talked in low tones so I couldn't hear them.
"We ca't let her go now. She's become too valuable. Yet we're killing her slowly. Maybe Director Jones will allow me to take her home with me, and I put the node in my watch, if she goes more than five kilometres from me she'll feel it." Brad said.
"You don't live close to the beach though. The only logical step would be for Cass to return to her own home, which is less than two kilometres from Director Jones. She can swim, but be under house arrest, so to speak, or come here daily with him." Shields said. They broke off as I came over.
"Are you okay?" Brad asked me, moving as though to touch my shoulder, but I jerked away, not wanting him to touch me.
"I'm fine. You don't need to worry about me." I said curtly, and Brad frowned, but Shields moved to stand in front of me.
"We will have the results later today, but I feel we should check you over. I am afraid you're becoming very anemic, and weak. Soon you'll need daily swims." He said. Instead of responding to Shields I looked at Brad.
"I told you that you were killing me." I said, almost conversationally. He flinched, and I smiled slightly.
"Come and sit down, Cass." Shields ordered, but not unkindly, moving to the desk. I moved over to the seat beside it, taking care not to wobble too much. Brad stayed close, and inwardly I was grateful, but I wasn't about to show him. I sat down, crossing my legs, and did my best to sit straight. Shields used the blood pressure cuff on my arm and waited for the reading. I winced at the tightness of it, but waited stiffly until he'd removed it. He looked at the reading.
"It's a little high. Are you okay?" He asked, moving his fingers to my wrist, searching for a pulse. Brad stepped closer and before I could react he'd pressed his fingers to my neck to feel for the pulse there.
"It is a little irregular." He confirmed. I tried to move away from them, but I was grabbed gently and held still.
"Stay away from me!" I cried, pulling away. Both men stepped back.
"We only want to make you better." Brad said. I glared at him.
"I don't believe that for a second. If you really wanted that you'd remove the tracker and let me go, destroy your files, and forget me." I said.
"You need to rest. Come on, the guards will take you to your room, whilst Dr. Shields checks the scan." Brad said. The guard came over to lead me away and I tried to bolt but my legs refused to move fast, and I stumbled and fell to the floor. The guard moved to pick me up but Brad got to me first. As he picked me up I winced and looked down to see blood on my knee, the wound knitting together as we watched. I started to cry, not from the pain but from the look on Brad's face. Brad held me close and we headed out, him carrying me the entire way to my room. He didn't let go of me until the door was shut behind us and he lowered me to the bed.
"Drink plenty of water, eat dinner soon, and rest. Both Dr. Shields and I will be on call tonight, we will be here if you need us." Brad said.
"I want my mum and dad." I sobbed, feeling sick. Brad touched my forehead.
"Soon. Soon you'll be reunited." He said. It was an indication of how I felt that I didn't pull away from him. He made sure I had water, then wet a washcloth and wiped the now-dried blood from my knee. He looked at the cloth, remembering how all this had started. A simple bloodstained towel. He put the cloth beside me and left, the door locking behind him.

"She is deteriorating rapidly. She needs sunlight, fresh air, and the ocean." Brad said. Shields was poring over the scans.
"This time tomorrow she can go to the beach again, may be earlier. You have re-calibrated the watch, right?" Jones's voice came over the phone speaker.
"Yes. Five kilometre radius. But what happens when she leaves here? Surely her college is more than five kilometres from here, or your place. She would surely want to keep studying." Brad said.
"Why my house?" Jones asked. Shields glanced at Brad.
"Just an idea, Sir. Would she come home with me, or to your place, or her own? If she comes home with me she would be far from the ocean, her home is more than five kilometres from mine, and from here, but close to yours. If you came to work each day though that would ruin things too." Brad blurted. There was silence on the other end of the line.
"I had not considered any of that. Maybe re-calibrate the tracker to send out a signal if she goes too far from home, or here, to alert the guards. That means if she tries to escape we'll be alerted and can stop her." Jones said. Both men looked at each other.
"Re-calibrating the one already inside her would be impossible, but I can do a new one with those new parameters. It'll be ready as soon as I can finish it." Brad said.
"Do it. Have you looked at the scans?" Jones asked.
"Looking at them now." Shields replied.
"Send them to me, I'll look as well." Jones said, and hung up. Shields immediately forwarded the results to Jones, and then kept looking at the scans.
"Look at this." Shields said. Brad stepped over and looked at the the images on the screen.
"She's terrified. So?" Brad asked. Shields shook his head.
"That wouldn't affect the hippocampus that way. This area, also known as the Parahippocampal Gynus, is associated with telepathy. She is trying so hard to hide it, but she just accessed that part, just slightly. The other day we had her in the machine for five minutes, and nothing." Shields said.
"She was also unconscious at the time." Brad pointed out.
"That wouldn't matter. The brain continues to use all those areas even if asleep. That means between then and now she's learned how to communicate with her mind." Shields said. 
"Is that even possible? Telepathy?" Brad asked. Shields shrugged.
"I don't know." He replied. Just then the phone rang. Shields looked at Brad.
"I wonder if Jones has come to the same conclusion." Shields speculated, then put the call on speaker.
"Shields." He said.
"Jones here. That brief flash of activity in the Parahippocampal Gynus. You don't think it was a glitch either. Telepathy. Is that what you two think?" Jones asked.
"We do. It would certainly make sense. She's gone nineteen years without knowing what she's capable of. Maybe there is someone out there like her. Many someones, who are like her. I'll be testing it too." Shield said. Brad was nodding in agreement.
"So you both think it's the boyfriend, Tom." Jones said.
"We do. I don't think she knows many others." Brad supplied.
"Many others?" Jones pressed.
"Many other people. Her 18th birthday had maybe a dozen school friends, including Tabby, myself and her parents." Brad said.
"No Tom at that point then." Jones said. It wasn't a question, but Brad shook his head.
"No. She met him at College, apparently he's a year above her." Brad said.
"I see. Keep working, and do a class search in the same field, second year students." Jones said, and then hung up. Brad looked at Shields.
"Do you need help re-calibrating the watch?" He asked. Shields shook his head.
"No. It won't take me long. Then I'll get ready for the testing tomorrow." Shields said. Brad turned to the door.
"No problem. Let me know if you need anything." Brad said, and then left. Shields watched the scan video a bit longer, then turned to the task of programming the new tracker.