Hide My Soul: A Romantic Suspense Thriller Novel (Hide Me Series Book 4) (9 page)

Katerina gagged, retching at the horrible, burning taste in her mouth and nose. She kicked and punched and threw her head backwards, trying to connect with her attacker.

Slowly she realized she wasn't being attacked anymore. In fact, she was sitting motionless in a chair, and her arms and legs appeared to be bound. Katerina opened her eyes and realized she was no longer inside the lobby of the hotel.

In a panic, she whipped her head back and forth and tried to pull loose of her bindings. She worked spit up in her mouth and let it fly, trying to clear the taste from her mouth of whatever horrible drug had put her under. She took great, whooping breaths and pulled madly.

When nothing worked. she willed herself to calm down and try to find some control. She breathed deeply and stared at the floor in front of her feet.

Wait, there had been an airplane.

When she had started to wake up in the airplane, a wet towel had been slapped over her mouth, and then someone had injected something in her arm. Katerina's mind burned at the thought. Kidnapped. She'd been kidnapped the day after her wedding.

Slowly, with fear so great it was eating away at her life span, she looked up and around at her surroundings. Directly across from her, ten feet away, was a glass partition that went from ceiling to floor. Two people were looking at her from behind it. One was an old, bald man who almost looked out of place, wearing a long white coat like a doctor. The second was a woman with flaming red hair and a contemptuous look on her face, also wearing a white coat. They stared at her, telling her this was no ordinary kidnapping. If there was such a thing.

Katerina's senses all felt on edge, heightened. She watched as the man leaned forward and opened his mouth, about to say something. Katerina didn't want to hear it. She screamed at the top of her lungs, and noticed someone shifting in place just out of her field of vision. She whipped her head to the left and saw a young man in an army uniform, staring at her with unease painted clearly in his expression. Next to him, stood another man in an army uniform, but he was older. And in his arms he held a rifle, which was pointed directly at her. Katerina tried to look behind her, but couldn't. Instead she looked to her right and there, she saw another soldier with a rifle pointed at her.

She stopped screaming abruptly and looked from soldier to soldier, her breath coming in sharp gasps.

"Miss Holloway, can you hear me?" a controlled masculine voice said.

Katerina whipped her head towards the doctors, if that's what they were. The older man was talking.

"Right, yes, well. I won't waste words or imagine you want to be here. Let me just say that the sooner you cooperate, the sooner you'll be free to go on your way."

Katerina narrowed her eyes. That was obviously the biggest lie on the planet.

"My name is Dr. Ablewhite. This is Dr. Pritchard." He motioned towards the redhead next to him. "You have some, uh, abilities, we are interested in. We'd like to see a demonstration."

Katerina leaned forward in absolute disbelief. Until now, she hadn't even tried to think why she might be here. Because of her powers? They wanted to know what she could do? They wanted a demonstration?

The man spoke again. "Could you make electricity arc from your fingers?"

Katerina goggled at him. He wanted her to do what?

"Pvt. Poole will release one of your hands. If you hurt him, Sergeants Hughes and Nichols will shoot you. Not to kill, of course, unless you force them to."

Katerina's mouth dropped open. He was lying again. About what she wasn't sure. The shooting part? Or just the killing part? The red-haired woman behind the partition with him rolled her eyes and then focused on Katerina with the same contempt and hatred she'd seen before.

Pvt. Poole, the young soldier without a gun, came forward slowly. Katerina watched his face. He would not even look in her eyes. She could feel the terror coming off of him in waves. He didn't want to be there. He didn't want to be doing that. And he was terrified of her. He gently released the medical-style cuff holding her right arm and ran back to his spot against the wall.

"Okay," the man behind the shield said. "Go ahead."

Katerina shook her head, her mind bending in disbelief. What did he want her to do again?

"You're crazy," she spit out. "I can't do that. I never could."

The man inclined his head and clucked his tongue at her like she was a child. "You don't want to resist. Your time here can be very unpleasant and yes, even painful."

Katerina bit her lip and realized her whole body was trembling. She looked up at the ceiling and prayed that this was just a bad dream. That she would wake up soon, safe and warm in West's arms.

"Miss Holloway?"

Katerina ignored him. It was a dream. A nightmare. It would go away soon.

"Miss Holloway?"

"Shepherd," Katerina muttered under her breath.

"Miss Holloway, I really have to ask you - "

"Shepherd!" Katerina screamed. "My name is Mrs. Shepherd!"

The two scientists or doctors or whatever they were looked at each other and the redheaded woman rolled her eyes again, then spit out a diatribe. "That fucking idiot. If he brought the wrong woman I'm going to have his rank. I'll have his fucking job. I'll fucking castrate him. Get Storm."

A third voice behind the partition said something, even though Katerina couldn't see a third person in that area of the room. All she could see was the two doctors, but only from the waist up. The rest of them was hidden behind the desk they stood behind. The voice sounded slurred and thick, like maybe the speaker was drunk.

"I'm here."

The redhead jumped and took a step away from where the voice came from. Katerina could read utter repulsion on her face, like she'd seen a spider the size of a kitten. Or maybe a rat carrying a baby in its mouth.

Katerina's already overworked heart jumped in her chest and its rate tripled. Who or what was Storm? A seemingly seamless door in the partition slid open and Storm emerged in a wheelchair. A fancy wheelchair with a motor, that he only had to press a tiny joystick and it rolled forward.

No!
Katerina's denial died in her throat. She knew who it was. The man wheeling towards her with a nasty grin on the destroyed face was Dylan Phillips. She'd thought he was dead. Hoped he was dead. Never, ever asked what exactly had happened in that hole beneath his family home after he had kidnapped Jordan and lured Katerina to the house and then threatened to kill Jordan. West had never spoken a word of it. Jordan had tried to tell her - had said Katerina had melted him. Katerina had covered her ears with her hands like a two-year-old who didn't want to hear what her mother had to say, then squeezed her eyes shut. Melted? How could that possibly be?

But Katerina saw how that could possibly be right in front of her. Dylan's face looked liquid, sliding to one side. There were no teeth left in his mouth. His eye sockets seemed too large for his face and his eyes looked in danger of falling out. His entire body was twisted and lumped to one side, his left shoulder sitting a good foot higher than his right. Even his skin looked wrong - too white, too smooth, and horrifyingly shiny - like a poisoned hard-boiled egg.

Katerina wanted to squeeze her eyes shut and pretend the nightmare didn't exist. The nightmare kept coming closer. When he came within a few feet of her, she could see scars where his hairline should have been, but she couldn't really call it a hairline since he only had a few wispy hairs clinging to a lumpy scalp here and there. The straight and clean scars seemed to stand out, like they were fairly new, like maybe he had just had surgery.

"It's her," Dylan said, then rolled to a stop within a foot of her.

Katerina clamped her teeth together tightly, trying not to scream or whimper or beg.

Dylan showed his gums in a wider imitation of a grin and held up one hand. Blue-white electricity jumped from his thumb to his pinky, sparking at each finger in turn. The noise was awful, terrifying, like the squeak of a gate into hell.

Katerina shrank back from his demonstration of power, even as she noticed his mouth pull into a grim line. It pained him to do that, she could tell.

Screaming sounded in the corner behind her and Katerina tried to whip her head that way in fear. Now that her hand was unbound, she could turn a little farther in her chair. Behind her, sat a row of twenty or thirty cages, tiny brown monkeys in each one. They were screaming and chattering at the sight and sound of the electricity.

"Shut up," the military man closest to them snarled, kicking the first cage. "Shut up, or I'll fry you myself."

Katerina's mouth went dryer still at the words. What in the world were the monkeys here for? Did they experiment on them? Did Dylan zap them with electricity? Did Dr. Asshole and Dr. Bitch expect her to do that too?

The electricity in Dylan's hand died away and he dropped the hand to his lap with a grunt.

Katerina shrank in her chair, wishing she were anywhere else. Praying that God would strike her dead before He let her be fried or tortured.

Words came tumbling out of Katerina's mouth of their own accord. "Look, I never could do that, but now I can't do anything. I've - I've lost all my powers. They are all gone."

Dylan chuckled, although his voice seemed softer than before. "That won't work here sweetheart." He looked at the two doctors behind the partition. "I'll convince her," he said in a grinding voice. "Re-fasten her hand," he barked at Pvt. Poole.

Katerina pulled her arm into her chest, but where could she go? The young private fastened his hands on her wrist, his face clearly saying he expected to be fried where he stood, but within a minute he was back at his post against the wall, safe and sound, Katerina fully bound again.

Dylan leered and his too-large tongue fell partially out of his mouth. Katerina squeezed her eyes shut as he heaved himself closer to her. She felt him yank on her shirt and felt air on her chest.

Katerina opened her eyes and looked down in terror, seeing her shirt pulled open to the waist. "Oh God," she muttered, partly in fear, mostly in repulsion, as she realized Dylan was staring at her breasts. He squirmed in his chair and Katerina's eyes dropped to his lap. His simple, white, cotton pants bulged where an erection would have been, but it was no typical erection. It was as lumpy and misshapen as the rest of him, like some grotesque armadillo had wandered into his pants. Katerina swallowed hard, knowing her mind couldn't take much more. She felt herself swoon and actually seek out unconsciousness. Anything to escape what was happening.

Dylan's hand snaked out and headed back towards her chest. The fingers were bent and swollen at each knuckle, and long scars stood out between every individual finger, like they had been fused together and needed to be cut apart.

Katerina closed her eyes and called West's face into her mind. Only West. He would save her. She knew he would. She just had to hang on.

The horrible arcing, electricity sound came again and the monkeys screamed behind her. Dylan swore under his breath and Katerina squeezed her eyes shut tighter. She felt a horrible burning and pressure at her chest, just over her heart. The intensity of the sound ratcheted up and she was pushed back in her chair as Dylan grunted and then screamed like the monkeys.

Katerina opened her eyes. Dylan was cradling his hand to his chest like it was hurt. An expression of determination came over his face and the hand reached her way again. Katerina watched it come, feeling sick with revulsion. Her chest jerked forward and a white heat burned over her heart again. Electricity arced from him to her, or was it from her to him?

His gums were clenched and sweat dripped from his brow as he seemed to use all his strength to force his hand forward.

The sound of an explosion ripped through the air and Katerina knew no more.

Katerina woke up with no sense of if it was night or day. She was on a tiny cot in a tiny cell, no bigger than a jail cell. She felt as if she had slept for hours, her arms and legs and back stiff and sore. Slept? Or been unconscious?

She tried to move her tongue about in her mouth. Her mouth still tasted horrible, like the drug they had used back at the hotel, which seemed like a million years ago.

She sat up and saw she had a new bandage on her left arm. From an IV? Under her shirt she could also feel a bandage on her chest. No pain though. Katerina peeled back the corner of the bandage, wanting to see how bad the damage was. An ugly dark burn stared back at her - a third-degree burn and that meant the worst kind – the most likely to get infected or have issues healing.

She palpated the burn gently, wondering if the force that caused the burn had done anything to her heart. She had tried not to worry about herself since her heart attack, but she had to face it, she wasn't as strong as she had once been.

Done exploring her injuries, she smacked her lips, feeling incredibly thirsty. She stood up to look around. A tiny sink sat in the corner and she walked that way quickly, twisting the knobs when she reached it. But nothing happened. No water flowed out.

Next to the sink was a toilet. She peeked inside. There was water in there. She looked around with a grimace. Cameras sat on the walls and stared at her. She wondered if they were trying to humiliate her, break her. She wondered how long she would be able to last before humiliating herself by drinking the water out of the toilet.

With nothing to do but explore, Katerina walked slowly around her cell. It was set up more like an enclosure, with some sort of hard, clear material blocking her from the plain, dark hallway outside. On the ceiling and the walls, nozzles were placed every few feet. Some looked like the kind of sprinklers that sprayed water, like she would find in a hotel room. Others probably sprayed something different. Foam maybe. Katerina grimaced and pushed against the outside wall of the cell. It didn't budge an inch.

On the other side of what she assumed was the door, although she couldn't see a handle or knob, a simple note was taped so that she could read it.

Don't try to blast your way out. We will be able to stop you. We are watching. Consider being more cooperative next time.

Katerina completed her pathetic circuit of the tiny cell and fell with a thump back onto her bed.

West! Where are you? Please come and save me from this!

Katerina fell back against her pillow and tried not to cry. She heard a noise in the hallway outside of her room and sat up quickly, her heart beating hard. Someone was coming.

"Dylan," she said when he was revealed. She pushed herself back against the far wall, remembering his horrifying electric touch.

"That's not my name," he said simply. "Call me Storm."

Katerina said nothing, only watched him. He would always be Dylan to her. Dylan the monster. Dylan the feared and pitied.

Dylan wheeled his chair directly in front of her door and she noticed a tiny flap in the clear material, almost like a mail slot. Dylan took an item out of his lap and pushed it through the flap.

A bottle of water! He held it there and although she wanted to jump up and grab it, she did not want to get close to him. She stared at the water, licking her lips, her eyes wide.

"I'm not going to hurt you," he said and shoved the water through the hole.

Katerina jumped up immediately and dove for the water as it hit the ground, her eyes on Dylan the entire time. She uncapped the bottle and drank the entire thing in four gulps, only thinking after it was gone that she should have checked to see if it was sealed.

Too late now.

Dylan thrust another bottle of water through the hole in her door and then shoved through something that looked like a candy bar.

Katerina scooped up both items and ran back to her bed, pushing herself to the far end and taking her time with the second bottle of water, her eyes on Dylan still.

Dylan watched her for a few moments before he spoke. "How did you do that?" he finally said.

"What?" she replied dully.

"You ..." He shuffled his feet in his custom-made shoes. "You repelled me."

Katerina studied him and the look of pure vulnerability on his face made her almost feel sorry for him. Her thoughts swirled dangerously. She had repelled him? She hadn't done anything. Just waited for him to burn her. Third-degree burns even.

"How did you do it?" he asked again.

"I don't know – I didn't do anything." Anger welled up inside Katerina. What in the hell was she doing here in this place? Kidnapped and burned and asked to do things she couldn't. "What I said earlier was true! I lost all my powers!"

Dylan studied her and Katerina didn't like his eyes on her. But his face was still open and vulnerable. He cocked his head to the side and looked like a lost little boy. A grotesque lost little boy, but still a lost little boy.

"How?" he asked.

West's face filled her mind and she squeezed her eyes shut in the wave of pain that followed it. "Healing someone," she choked out, her eyes still shut.

"You can heal?" Dylan said, his voice wistful and soft.

"I could. Not anymore," she said opening her eyes and looking at Dylan again.

Silence stretched between them for many moments. Dylan looked down at his lap and fiddled with something there she couldn't see. Katerina pulled herself into a tiny ball in the corner of the bed and ate her candy bar.

Several minutes after it was gone, he finally spoke again. "You must have some powers left. You did something to me. Repelled me somehow ..." His voice was soft, strange.

"I didn't try to," she said, but she was confused because she knew she had wanted to do it, and if she had known she had the power to do it, she would have done it on purpose.

Dylan sat silent again for an eternity. When she couldn't stand another moment he opened his mouth one more time. "Don't tell them that."

"What?"

"That you don't have any powers." His eyes bored into her and he sat up straight to be more forceful, leaning towards her enclosure. "You're never leaving here and if you really don't have any powers left you won't be useful. They'll kill you."

"Like you are useful?" Katerina sneered.

"Yes, I'm useful," Dylan said, contempt and pride in his voice.

Katerina shook with subdued anger and all the emotions she'd been holding back for so long. "I'd rather be killed than fry defenseless animals," she hissed at him.

Dylan surprised her. He spoke softly, his gaze on the floor. "Yeah, I don't like that either."

Katerina would have thought that was one of his favorite parts. "What?" she said.

"The monkey's pain. It hurts me right here," he said, pointing at the center of his forehead. Katerina noticed that he shifted his hands in his lap as he did it, as if he were about to use his right hand, then changed his mind and used his left instead.

"Oh," was all she could think to say.

Dylan brushed it off. "So, uh, sorry about before."

"Before?" Katerina echoed, feeling like an idiot.

"You know, when I kidnapped your friend to make you come to my house."

It was the last thing Katerina had expected him to say. "Oh," she said again unable to comprehend what was happening in the conversation. Once again, silence stretched on and this time it made Katerina feel uncomfortable. After a few moments, just to provide a break in the quiet, she said, "Sorry for, uh, for that," flapping her hand at him.

Dylan looked up at the ceiling and didn't say anything. Katerina studied his face and thought she'd never seen such sadness in another human soul. Suddenly she felt a yearning from him. Like he was desperate for connection or companionship or something. She furrowed her brow and tried to figure him out, but her mind couldn't stop thinking of the third-degree burn on her chest and the look on his face right before he gave it to her.

"I thought God told me to do it," he said quietly.

Katerina thought at first that she had heard incorrectly. She played back over what he had said and realized it made perfect sense.

He spoke again. "Well, actually, I thought I was God, giving myself messages through my dreams and thoughts."

Awkwardly, Katerina cleared her throat. "You don't think that anymore?"

"No," he said and Katerina thought she could see his cheeks burning with the admission.

"What changed?"

He didn't say. He stared at his lap and fiddled with whatever was there.

Katerina didn't think any of this information could help her, but if Dylan wanted to confide in her, maybe it could be helpful in some way in the future. "How long have you been here?" she asked, changing her tactic.

"Two months," he said quietly, his gaze still on the floor.

"Are you a prisoner here too?"

Dylan moved so suddenly that Katerina shrank back against the wall. He pressed his joystick forward with his left hand, bumping his wheelchair against her door. "I'm useful!" he shouted. "They need me!"

He pressed his lips together and wheeled backwards again. "I want to be here," he said in a softer voice. "You saw what I can do with my hands now! We've been working on my power, strengthening it."

Katerina nodded, her eyes huge and scared. He was a prisoner, but he didn't want to admit it.

Dylan lifted his left hand to his face and scratched, then dropped it into his lap like the feel of his own skin repulsed him. "Besides, in here, I'm wanted, respected, feared. Out there, I'm just a freak."

Katerina couldn't think of anything to say. So she sat silent and watched him.

Dylan looked at his watch. "I have to go. There's only thirty minutes before two a.m. checks."

"Two a.m. checks?"

"They check that everyone is in their beds and do a sweep of all the hallways."

"You aren't supposed to be here?"

Dylan shook his head and something like a smile crossed over his features.

Katerina pointed to the walls of her cell. "What about all the cameras? Won't they catch you?"

"Thisbe took care of them for me."

"Thisbe?" Katerina repeated, curiosity getting the better of her.

Dylan's eyes lit up and for the first time since she'd had the unfortunate experience of knowing him, she saw something like happiness cross over his face. "The computer system. This place is a hotbed of government secrets and we've got a smart computer system."

"You mean like artificial intelligence?" Katerina whispered, horrified at the thought.

"Kind of. It's not really like you see in the movies, she's not that intelligent. The Japanese invented her using the technology that we have today and our government stole one of their prototypes, then blamed it on ISIS. They set her up here to run this compound, after changing her name. I've been messing with her code to make her think it's okay to be devious. To hide things from her other coders."

"How do you know how to do that?"

"I took an entire computer science course when I was in jail twenty years ago for - well, that's not important. It was a pilot program to get convicts to work. But they just gave me the course, they never gave me a degree, so I couldn't really do anything with it. Nothing legal anyway."

Katerina blinked. She couldn't process all of this. It was bordering dangerously on being too much.

Dylan bared his gums. "Anyway, she likes me. Thisbe, that's her name."

"She likes you? She?"

Dylan sat up straighter and Katerina could see pride in his countenance. Her heart broke a little bit for the sad parody of a human being in front of her. "Yeah, the system has a personality, and can learn, and she likes me. I told her what happened tonight and she told me to come down and see you, see if you could ...."

Dylan trailed off and looked away. Katerina wondered if he was hiding something.

He kept speaking, his eyes on the floor. "Thisbe created a loop in the videos of both our beds and the hallways. The security guards watching the cameras just see us sleeping and see empty hallways."

Katerina's heart beat faster suddenly. If Thisbe could do that for Dylan, maybe ...

Dylan worked his joystick and moved himself backwards, his eyes averted from Katerina's.

Katerina stood up and walked closer to the door. "Maybe you can come back and talk to me later?" she asked hesitantly.

Dylan grimaced and once again Katerina thought she was seeing the saddest person in the universe in front of her. "Maybe. If I'm still ..."

"If you're still what?"

Dylan's torso quaked in torment, like he was struggling with something. Finally, he met her eyes firmly. "If I'm still alive." He lifted his right hand from his lap and she saw it clearly for the first time. It was blackened, burned, and falling in on itself, like the bones had been liquefied. It looked more like a mummy's hand than a humans.

Katerina stared at it in horror. "Call the doctors," she whispered. "They can help you."