CHAPTER SEVEN

Pea Herding

'Well?' he asked.

'Well what?' I snapped more rattled by his sudden appearance than I wanted him to know.

'Have you given my offer any thought?'

'No.'

'How's the head?' he asked nodding at the foil of tablets.

'It was getting better.'

'You'll have to go back to the treatment room. You know that.'

'I could always leave.'

He leaned back in a chair I couldn't see and crossed his legs. 'Could you?'

The heavy feeling came back into my stomach.

'Have you tried?'

I glared at him. No, I hadn't tried. If it was as simple as just walking out I knew Ross or someone else would have escorted me to the door on one of the dozen or so times I had asked them. If it was going to be that simple they would not have kidnapped me in the first place. And they would not have threatened Beatrice and Henry, however indirectly.

'Thought not. So you can't leave and you can't stay without cooperating with them. At least not without compromising your safety and the little freedom you have gained.'

There was a pause as I played with the foil of tablets. Laying it all out like that it seemed, at the moment, I had very little choice.

'You don't have a lot of options,' Peter said echoing my thoughts.

'Those injections. You're sure?'

'I've seen her load the equipment.'

'You've seen her load the equipment with vitamins. If she believes that's what she is using, then that is what she's loading the equipment with.'

'She uses a bottle labeled vitamins, which I know to be... something else.'

'How?'

Peter shrugged. 'Jeremy gave that bottle to me. He was very particular about it only being used for one particular person and no one else.'

'That proves nothing.'

'There were standard bottles of vitamins in the cabinet that I gave to other patients. None of them showed any of the side effects that one particular girl did. And if it were simply vitamins and anti-inflammatory why give me a separate bottle to be used only on her?'

'And the side effects? What were they?'

Peter scrubbed his hands over his face.

'She said she was a witch. She had an active telekinetic power. Low level, nothing grand. Just a useful little power with a mild curiosity value. The stuff she was injected with seemed to dull her other abilities while at the same time her telekinetic power began to increase.'

'What happened to her?'

'Eventually, her natural magic was suppressed to the point she no longer had access to it. When we were caught trying to escape she was taken to the cells. I was killed.'

'The cells? You mean Margery? It was Margery you tried to save?''

'You know her?'

'I've seen her. You were trying to set her free?'

'She wasn't always like that. She was sweet and gentle and...' The door to the dining room swung open and Jenny and another nurse came in heading toward the coffee machine.

'Yet you kept on injecting her, knowing what it was doing to her?' I hissed slipping the card of tablets off the table and into my pocket. Jenny wasn't going to confiscate them if I could help it.

'No. I substituted the fake vitamins for the real ones,' Peter said, 'But the effect must have been accumulative. Stopping the injections prevented any further changes and her magic began to return but the telekinetic powers didn't subside.

'Accumulative?'

'Pardon?' Jenny said coming across to our, my table, cup of coffee in hand.

'Nothing.'

'How's the head?' she asked a little stiffly pulling up a chair.

'A lot better, thanks.'

'You're ready to continue the tests then.'

I looked from her to Peter who had glided sidewards out of the way of Jenny's chair.

'She's right,' he said.

I bristled, about to tell him, them, what to do with their tests before thinking better of it.

I smiled although my teeth had a little difficulty in parting. 'Yes, I'll be back.'

'Jenny raised her eyebrows as if waiting for more. If she thought I was going to apologize she would have to think again. The woman was probably poisoning me. The fact she didn't know she was, didn't make it any better. Peter relaxed into his none existent chair.

'This afternoon?'

'Err...'

The door opened and Ross came into the dining room and over to the table.

'Jeremy wants you, Grace.'

'Soon as I finish my...'

'Now,' Ross said. 'He doesn't like to be kept waiting.'

Seething quietly I rebelliously drained my coffee, scalding my mouth in the process, banged my cup on the table and stood up.

'See you at two o'clock,' Jenny said.

'How's the head?' Ross asked when the door closed behind us.

'Getting better. Thanks for the tablets,' I added feeling some acknowledgment was fair.

'Going back to the treatment room? Thought you had given up on that?'

I glared at him. Was that a smirk? 'I don't want to be here. I don't want them messing with my head.'

'So you still want to leave?'

'You offering?' I looked sharply at Ross who was staring at the lift doors and hope died. Even if he was willing to take me out of here right now I couldn't leave. Not while Beatrice and Henry were in danger. 'No. I'm staying.'

'What makes you think they're messing with your head?'

I doubted it would be safe to tell him what I had been told by the ghosts. I shrugged. 'The headaches and stuff.'

'Stuff? For instance?'

'Short temper.' I rounded on him. 'I just want this over so I can go home. I want my life back. I have no idea how to get through this in one piece and the longer I am here the less I seem to understand.'

He raised an eyebrow.

'Yeah, okay, you were right. Happy now. I still know nothing. In fact, I know less than I thought I did. Strange considering all I have learned.'

He frowned.

I held up my hands, 'Don't you dare say it, I know it makes no sense. So if we're sticking by our original agreement I suppose you getting me out of here anytime soon is not going to happen.'

The lift doors slid open and I followed Ross into the antechamber of Jeremy's rooms.

'We are making progress though,' Ross said in a voice so low I could barely hear it. 'At least now you know the things you don't know.'

'Very funny.'

'It wasn't meant to be.'

He knocked on Jeremy's door and I swallowed my questions.

'Grace,' Jeremy stood to greet me, 'how's the head?'

I wished everyone would stop asking me that. It actually didn't help. 'Improving.'

'Good, good,' he indicated a seat which I took gratefully and Ross left the room.

'You didn't complete your tests this morning I hear.'

It hadn't taken Jenny long to report my absence to him, I thought. 'No, I'm going back this afternoon.'

'Ah, good. We are at a very crucial state it would be a shame to break off now.'

'Jeremy, when am I going to complete the other part of our deal? When am I going to meet the CSC?'

'That's one of the reasons I asked you here, Grace. That and to be sure everything was alright with you of course. We are trying to arrange a meeting for the middle of next week, Wednesday or Thursday if all goes well.'

My heart sank. I had been harboring the slim hope that after I had bungled the meeting with the CSC the clinic would turn me out and find someone else to conduct their test on. Stupid really. But, if Peter couldn't find a way to prevent Jenny from giving me those injections there was no telling what state I would be in by next week. Surely Jeremy must know that if he was the one authorizing the injections?

'So long?' I said, covering the overlong silence.

'The CSC doesn't move quickly. Like any committee-led organization it takes time. But on the bright side, your test results are impressive. Your help is proving invaluable in the work we do here.'

'That's great. I'm pleased to be able to help.' I lied.

Jeremy smiled a satisfied smile.

'I was wondering though.'

'Yes?'

'I seem to be experiencing a few side-effects. I was wondering if there was a way we could prevent them?'

'Really? What sort of side-effects?'

Something in his eager expression put me on my guard. 'Well, these headaches for instance, and the lack of sleep and I am aching all over from Jenny's exercise routine.'

Jeremy waited as if for more. When I didn't oblige he said, 'Well it won't be for much longer. I'll have a word with Jenny, see if she can reduce the exercise a little.' He smiled. 'Sometimes I think she forgets we aren't all built for extreme workouts.'

I felt my face heat up and clamped my teeth shut to prevent the response that rose unbidden into my mouth.

Clair and Lewis were in the dining room when I went in for lunch. As usual they beckoned me over to their table as soon as I had my tray of food.

'How's the tests going?' Clair asked.

I studied her over a mouthful of beans trying to decide if she was being sarcastic. And decided she wasn't. She simply looked interested.

'Intense. I'll be glad when they're over and I can leave.'

'Us too,' Lewis said flicking peas through the salt and pepper pots and calling them back to his fingers before they fell off the edge of the table.

Trying to ignore the peas I looked at Clair. 'You expecting to get out soon then?'

'Well, we hope so. Things are much better for us now.'

'What does Jeremy say about you leaving?'

'He keeps telling us we aren't ready yet,' Lewis said.

'Maybe he's right,' I said.

'I know he knows a lot more than we do about this stuff but we feel ready. Besides we were told there's a halfway house we can go to so it's not like we'll be by ourselves. We'll have back up.'

'A halfway house? Really? Where?'

'No idea. It's kept a secret to protect the people living there.'

'We thought we could go there first then set up somewhere together. We plan to get married,' Clair said.

'Married? Congratulations.' I said and meant it. It seemed inevitable somehow. In some strange way they were made for each other.

'Thanks, and you can come to the wedding of course,' Lewis said herding his peas back onto his plate using a piece of pie crust as a sheepdog.

'Love to. Do you think you can persuade Jeremy you're ready to move on?'

Clair shrugged. 'Not sure. He keeps putting us off. Saying we can discuss it later.'

'He's avoiding us,' Lewis said, itching his chair back from the table.

'I don't think so. He's just busy,' Clair said soothingly.

'You ready to leave?' he asked.

Clair gave me an apologetic look.

'It's fine. I'm going back to my room as soon as I'm finished.'

She stood to join Lewis. 'See you around then.'

I waved and breathed a sigh of relief when she linked Lewis by the arm and led him away.

I still had not made my mind up about Lewis. He had to be the most dangerous person I had ever met. Yet, despite that, there was an air of loyalty about him I found totally at odds with his obvious nature. He was a mix of light and dark. Good and evil. The problem was I could never be sure the evil wasn't about to win out.