Evan rubbed at his eyes and sat up in bed. The morning light was still dim and new – the sun hadn’t quite made it past the corner of the building across the street yet – and sitting still told him that the others in the apartment weren’t up and around quite yet. He rose from the bed and walked over to the window to twist the rod at the left side of the blinds to actually see out. It was a far different scene than the one that had greeted his eyes for most of his life – in the heart of the city, one could only see more buildings, streets and cars. There was no grass, no trees – at least nothing green and growing close to the building they were in. All was brick and cement and asphalt. The air smelled funny, like too many cars and fires. He didn’t know anybody here at all.

Still, his sister was here, and he wanted desperately to stay close to her.

He’d lain in bed for a long time after she’d left him alone in the dark the night before, thinking through what she’d told him. It was hard to believe that if she had gone through something very similar to what he had, that she would have turned around and done the same to him as was done to her – if HE had a kid, there was no way he’d do the same. How dare she!

He frowned, scratched at his head and considered looking for his robe and slippers – and then tweaked the curtains aside again and stared out at the barren view. At home, during those upsetting minutes of revelation before leaving for Philadelphia, Sydney had told him that there had been people trying to kill her – that they WOULD have killed her if she’d stayed, or kept trying if they’d found out that she had actually survived. He didn’t doubt that. Both his sister and the old psychiatrist had tried hard over the years to protect him from hearing very much about the place they worked at, but he’d stuck around often enough when they thought he’d gone outside to play to overhear them talk.

Their talk of the Centre both fascinated and repelled him. He never could figure out just exactly what that place DID. He’d never have guessed his sister carried a gun either. But he’d spent a couple of futile hours trying to figure out where she kept it hidden in the house after seeing her take off her jacket once and seeing the handle of a silver handgun poking out of her trousers waistband at the back. But if Sissy had carried a gun – a REAL gun – then it was very possible that there WERE people who could have wished her harm.

He would never forget that Sissy and Sydney had lied to him – lied to him by saying nothing to tell him that what he believed was untrue. Even Sam had been silent. He’d made a fool of himself at the funeral – having a difficult time trying to control the sobs that made him sound more like a baby than a big kid – and they’d let him. They ALL had let him down – and just thinking about it made him mad all over again.

But he was faced with having to make a hard choice – whether or not he could let go of that anger in order to remain with his sister. While it had been a challenge to go through the entire day calling Sissy “Mom”, Sam “Dad” and Sydney “Grandpa”, it hadn’t been all that difficult. In many ways, Sissy had been acting like a Mom for a long time – and he’d often wished that Sydney could be a foster grandfather. He’d often thought of Sam like an uncle – a lot nicer uncle than Uncle Lyle, whom Sissy never let him spend much time with at all – and he’d never really HAD a father. Mother, Father, Grandfather - it was the kind of family unit he’d wished for himself far too many times. And yet… they weren’t. It was a lie – just another lie, and evidently a dangerous one at that.

Evan let go of the curtain as the edge of the sun peeked around the corner of the building next door and stabbed him in the eye. He found his robe hanging from a hook in the closet, slipped into it and tied the belt around his waist, then slid his feet into the comfortably fleeced interior of his slippers. All that thinking last night hadn’t settled anything for him, except make him realize all the more that he wanted to stay with his sister. But keeping these thoughts to himself wouldn’t do anything. He had to talk to someone – he had to make some kind of promise that would result in their giving him another chance…

When he opened his bedroom door, he could smell the scent of fresh coffee beginning to waft up from the kitchen. That probably meant that his sister was now up and about for the day. He really didn’t want to talk to her again – not yet. He’d thought about what she’d said, as she’d suggested; and while he kinda understood, he still felt cheated and betrayed. He glanced at the closed door across the way and then went to stand next to it to listen.

Inside, he could hear Sydney moving around – and there was the click that sounded very much like the clasp to the overnight suitcase the old psychiatrist had brought his stuff in. Softly Evan knocked on the door.

Sydney opened the door and then looked down at Evan in surprise. “You’re up early,” he commented coolly.

“Can I talk to you?” Evan asked quietly, “Please?”

Sydney opened the door and let the boy into the bedroom. Already, the guest bed had been made up so that it seemed as if it hadn’t been disturbed at all. On the taut bedspread was the overnight case, shut. “You getting ready to go?” Evan asked, running his finger along the top edge of the case.

“It’s a long drive back to Blue Cove, Evan,” Sydney replied quietly, watching the boy with interest. “I’ll have to get a fairly early start.”

The reality of the possibility that he was going to have to return to Delaware finally sank in, and Evan turned eyes welling with tears on his guardian. “Am I going back with you?”

“I honestly don’t know,” Sydney replied, moving to the closet and retrieving his heavy jacket from a hanger. “I think that will be discussed at the breakfast table.”

“Sydney, I want to stay with…”

“I know,” Sydney put his hand on the boy’s shoulder comfortingly. “But you’ve made that a very difficult risk to take, you know.”

“I want to stay,” Evan repeated with a tear rolling down a cheek.

“What you want will be only part of the decision,” Sydney returned firmly. “The situation is dangerous enough without having to worry about you getting angry again at the wrong time and saying the wrong thing to the wrong people.”

“I wouldn’t…” Evan complained bitterly.

“Wouldn’t what? Get angry, or know what is the wrong time or who are the wrong people?” Sydney tossed back. “If the people at this new place your sister is going to work for are as bad as we suspect, there’s a good chance there will be listening devices installed in secret places here in this apartment. All it would take would be for you to pop off because you don’t want to go to bed, and you could write your sister’s death warrant.”

“I won’t do that,” Evan was trembling. WAS the situation that dangerous? WOULD it only take the wrong word at the wrong time for him to be facing his sister’s death for real? “I want another chance…”

“It isn’t up to me,” Sydney told him gently, his hand back on the boy’s shoulder. He tossed his jacket over that arm and then used the other to take firm hold on his luggage. “C’mon – waiting up here isn’t going to get you any closer to convincing your sister.”

Evan hunched his shoulder under the warm, heavy hand. “Sydney?”

The hand tightened just a bit. “What?”

The boy looked up into the aging face, studying it. Sydney’s eyes were serious but kind – he’d never known the older man to be anything but a true friend. Sydney had taught him to do so many things. Why had he never bothered to notice that Sydney really did care about him? Sydney had remained silent, but he’d had his reasons – like keeping a promise to Sissy – he hadn’t wanted to make him feel bad, or hurt him. “I like the idea of you being my Grandpa – for real.”

Sydney’s face softened into a smile – one of the wide, heart-warming ones that Evan didn’t see all that often. “When this is all over, maybe you and I can discuss whether or not we want to keep that going?”

“I’d like that.”

The hand at the shoulder patted comfortingly. “C’mon. I don’t know about you, but I’m ready for a good breakfast. I have a long way to go before I get home, and I don’t want to have to stop for anything but gas…”

Evan nodded and looked down. He was going to miss having Sydney around. And for a moment, he wondered if Sissy was going to miss him too.

~~~~~~~~*

Jarod peeked over the edge of the couch in the living room to check on his childhood friend, and then frowned when he found the space empty. A soft sound drew his attention to the small space behind an end table near the corner, and checking, he found Angelo curled into a small ball beneath the warm blanket Em had given him the night before. Jarod straightened, understanding. Angelo had been living in the small, cramped spaces of the Centre ventilation system for years – the openness of the living room, a room that was by most people’s standards fairly limited, would be intimidating.

He still wasn’t entirely sure what to make of the jumbled warning Angelo had poured into his ear the evening before. Something about danger coming closer – and a danger not only to Miss Parker but also to him. That made no sense at all. Nobody not already associated with the Centre would be able to link the two of them – would they? He moved quietly toward the kitchen, searching his memories for anybody on the outside that would have enough information to constitute a danger to them both.

“You have very interesting friends,” Em commented quietly, as if not wanting to disturb the sleep of the strange little man that her older brother had welcomed into her home with the proverbial open arms.

“Angelo is a very unique individual,” Jarod replied absently, going through the motions to set up the coffeemaker for the morning’s infusion of caffeine. “He doesn’t….” His explanation skidded to a halt – how to explain Angelo and his “gift” to someone who had never been inside the Centre walls? “He… doesn’t see things in quite the same way that we do – and he’s had a lot of trouble learning to communicate what he sees to the rest of us.”

Em’s eyebrows were sailing high on her forehead, but she seemed satisfied with his description for the moment. “What are we going to do with him? We’re both going to have to go to work tomorrow…”

Jarod shook his head as he turned. “Angelo is harmless – and I’d imagine that he’s pretty spooked being out here in the big world all by himself.” At Em’s look of continued concern, he hastened to explain, “Angelo is a very empathic person – he can sense feelings and… things… that the rest of us…”

“Are you telling me he’s supposedly a psychic?” Em charged with a thoroughly skeptical glare.

“I’m telling you that after you know him for a while, you’ll realize that some of the stuff he comes out with, while it didn’t necessarily make a lot of sense at the time, was really very astute and perceptive,” Jarod tried again, “…to the point of being downright spooky at times. He isn’t dangerous, however…”

Em wrinkled her nose. “He smells, Jarod – like he hasn’t had a shower in a VERY long time.”

“He probably has NEVER had a shower, Em,” Jarod answered frankly. “I took my very first shower three days after I escaped – in the Centre, we were lucky to be given warm water and a rag once or twice within a week.”

“Eww…”

Jarod shrugged. “Just give him a little bit of space and a little bit of time, Em. He’s a very sweet person, once you get to know him.”

“Maybe he’d be safer with Mom and Dad on the farm?”

Jarod shook his head. “He’s been traumatized by being around nothing but strangers for long enough for the time being. He needs time to acclimate to living out here, with the rest of us. Please just let me give him a chance to be safe with us for a while? If it doesn’t seem to be working out, I’ll think of something else – I promise.”

Em sighed. This entire proposition was becoming something completely different than what she’d imagined it to be when she agreed to let Jarod stay with her in the first place. First it had been to welcome and play hostess to people he’d been eluding for years – and now this. “Does he drink coffee?” she asked in a tone of obvious capitulation.

Jarod smiled in relief. “We’ll have to ask him when he gets up. I’ll make him some eggs and bacon, though – I’d imagine he’s hungry too.”

He wouldn’t ask himself how long Angelo had survived out here in the big world without a meal or a secure place that would be safe from his “voices”. The look of exhaustion that had lain behind the expression of relief and concern the night before had spoken eloquently. Angelo needed to be able to sleep himself out – and then eased into where he could feel safe and protected.

Perhaps, when this was all over, maybe Sydney could be convinced to help play a part in sheltering Angelo. Jarod hoped his old mentor would be open to the idea.

~~~~~~~~*

Miss Parker looked up as Sydney walked into the kitchen with Evan in tow, and she smiled softly to herself. Her little brother had gone to the old psychiatrist in search of an advocate, it seemed – but with Sydney just as concerned about protecting their secret from anybody untoward, it remained to be seen just how much sympathy Evan had actually managed to get from the old man. “Good morning,” she greeted the both of them.

“Hi Mom,” Evan offered without prompting.

“Cat,” Sydney responded, leaning forward slightly as he walked behind her to get to the coffeemaker and his morning cup to drop a swift, paternal kiss on her cheek. “You look rested.”

“I slept better,” she admitted with a quick flush. She’d awakened once more to find herself huddled against Sam’s back for warmth – only this time, it had been she who had risen and put space between the two of them. “But I think I need to consider putting some money in an electric blanket, though. This place gets chilly at night.”

“Morning everyone,” Sam sounded from the kitchen door as if he was just recovering from a yawn. He followed in Sydney’s steps to get to the coffeemaker, once more in the position of having to try to forget that just a short while ago, he’d been lying in bed, pretending to be asleep and feeling his former boss snuggle tightly against his back in her sleep. He really didn’t mind – he just wished that waking in the mornings weren’t such an embarrassing development. Perhaps, over time, the embarrassment would ease…

“Morning Dad.” Evan’s greeting pulled Sam’s attention the moment he had his coffee poured.

“Good morning, Buddy,” Sam greeted the boy with a smile, seeing that Evan’s face was pale with an uncomfortable mixture of anticipation and dread. “Good to see you looking so bright and cheerful this morning.”

Evan slipped into the chair that sat at “his” place at the table, not entirely sure whether it would be right, proper, or much appreciated if he just blurted out his need to know his fate. “Thanks,” he mumbled, looking to Sydney as if for comfort.

“You OK?” Sam asked gently.

“I just…” Evan started, then forced himself to rein in his emotions. “Yeah, I’m OK.”

“Did you think about what I told you last night?” Miss Parker asked, putting the newly opened loaf of bread on the table near the toaster, along with a cube of butter and two small jars of jelly.

“Yes, ma’am,” Evan answered immediately.

“And?” she prompted. Storm grey eyes came up sharply to meet and hold an identical set of orbs. “Did you come to any kind of conclusion?”

“I’d like another chance,” he stated firmly in a small voice. “I know I need to watch out and not get mad…”

“Do you honestly think you can do that?” Miss Parker asked him with brutal frankness.

“Cat…” Sydney started warningly.

“Let me handle this, Papa,” she stopped him with a sharp look. “Time is getting short, and decisions need to be made.” She returned her attention to the boy. “IF you want to stay, then you’re going to have to promise that you’re going to leave whatever mad you have going against me or Sydney or Sam behind until this whole mess is finished. It isn’t going to be easy to do – I know.” She gave the old Belgian a meaningful look. “It took me a very long time to let go of my own anger at being lied to…” She returned her gaze to Evan’s face. “…time you don’t have.”

“I know.” Evan swallowed hard. “But I’d like a chance to prove to you that I can do it. I really don’t want to go back to Delaware with S… Grandpa.”

Miss Parker looked up into Sydney’s face. “What does Grandpa say?”

Sydney looked back and forth from Miss Parker to Evan, and then let his gaze settle on his “daughter”. “Evan proved that, if he wants to enough, he can carry out at least the superficials of the pretend without too much trouble…”

“It isn’t the superficials I’m worried about, Papa,” she responded with a sigh. Sydney had never been known to give her direct answers when she needed them – but by the same token, his answer wasn’t UN-helpful... “I’m thinking about a week or two down the line.” Her gaze returned to her little brother. “I’m thinking about a time when the newness has worn off and, maybe, you have something remind you of what made you angry – and you get angry again. No,” she put up her hand the moment Evan began to bubble complaints, “don’t tell me it isn’t going to happen. Papa will never really know how many times I spent hours fuming at him for not telling me my mother didn’t commit suicide LONG after he thought I’d forgiven him.”

“Parker…” Sydney had hoped that it hadn’t been that way – obviously it had been a futile hope. That thought stung more than he’d thought it would.

She shook her head at him. “I got over it – but it took a long time. I know you’ll try hard,” she turned and nodded at Evan with a gentle smile, “but I also know that just because you aren’t going to be allowed to express that anger, you’ll carry it with you anyway. It will eat at you…”

“I think,” Sam piped up, drawing the eyes of all at the table, “that maybe we owe the kid another chance.” He looked over at Sydney. “You can come back next weekend, right?”

“Well, I suppose…” Sydney answered in surprise.

“Good.” Sam nodded in satisfaction. “I say we give it a full week. Nine chances out of ten, the Foundation won’t be bugging the place immediately – it takes time to do a thorough background check and then find both a good reason and a good opportunity to break in.” He looked very comfortable with this presumption of knowledge. “I’d say a week’s time should tell us if Evan can keep up the appearances on a long-term basis – or if he’s got steam up that just won’t be denied. If he screws up – even just once – he can go home with Sydney next weekend. As for our cover story, we can claim we don’t like the school system or something, and shipped him off to his grandfather.” He aimed his gaze now at Miss Parker.

She stared at Sam, weighing what he’d said. As a sweeper who had worked his way up through the ranks before being tapped as her personal bodyguard, he knew better than any of them what the Centre’s policies about new employees with security clearance had been. Of all of them, he had the best information on hand with which to second-guess the Foundation’s actions. If Sam felt they had a week’s leeway to test Evan’s mettle, she was inclined to believe him.

“That sounds reasonable,” Sydney replied, echoing Miss Parker’s thoughts clearly.

“You heard Sam,” Miss Parker warned, forefinger waving in the air across the table at the now-elated and excited boy. “One goof-up, one blow-up – and you’re in the car with your Grandpa heading back to Delaware a week from today. There will be no more discussions, and no more arguments. Is that understood?”

Evan could hardly hold in his elation. “I’ll be good – I’ll be BETTER than good!” he promised. “Thanks Mom! Dad!” he turned to Sam, grinning from ear to ear.

Miss Parker turned to look at Sam – the mastermind of this current delight – and found him gazing at the boy with undisguised fondness. The big palooka was a secret marshmallow, she realized with a jolt. It was a startling revelation, one she really didn’t want to look too deeply into at the moment. “So… S…Papa? What do you want for a going-away breakfast?”

~~~~~~~~~*

“You do realize that you’re asking me to find a needle in a haystack, don’t you?” Ray Carlisle asked sharply after he finally looked up from the woefully inadequate packet of information he’d been handed. It wasn’t often that Susan Granger called upon him – usually only for the most difficult searches that had been beyond the abilities of the run of the mill operatives that were in such abundance in a place like Miami – and it was even less often that she had so very little information for him to start with. But what was most unusual was for her to call him in early on a Sunday morning – call him in to her office instead of letting him attend his morning Mass – to hand him an inadequate profile and then tell him the search was of the greatest urgency.

Susan’s gaze didn’t flinch. “If I didn’t know that I’m asking you to do the virtually impossible, I wouldn’t have brought this to you, Ray.”

Carlisle’s gaze went back to the photograph – wondering at the deep intelligence and wonder in the dark eyes of the man. “What else can you tell me about him – other than what’s in the packet?”

Susan rose and walked over to her file cabinets – and leaned her elbow on the top of the nearest one. “I met him only twice – once when he came to ask me for my help in finding his parents, and then the second time when he came to pick up the information I’d gathered for him.”

“Do you still have copies of that information?” Carlisle slipped the photograph back into the manila envelope.

“No.” Susan sighed. “The people who were chasing him very nearly caught up to him the second time he came to my office – and they confiscated all the information I’d gathered.”

“But… Didn’t you know where you’d looked originally – so you could reconstruct…”

Susan moved back to her office chair and sat down heavily. “I was warned against pursuing the investigation, Ray – against reconstructing the information OR ever looking for Jarod again. They made it very clear that it was in my best interests to just forget I’d ever met the man.”

Carlisle’s eyes narrowed. “You were threatened?”

She sighed and nodded. “And the men who were in my office after the first group left were more than enough to convince me to cooperate.”

“Who the hell did this?”

“Jarod was involved in that place called the Centre – you know, the one in the news lately…”

The detective’s dark eyes widened. “Holy shit!” Then his face folded into confusion. “Then why now? Why decide to ignore the warnings now?”

Susan threw her hands out. “The Centre is out of business, Ray. Nobody’s paying the salaries of the hired goons who parked themselves in my office while their snake-eyed superior laid the law down to me. And…” She sighed again and put her forehead in her hand. “…I discovered something that Jarod needs to know – NOW.”

Carlisle shook his head. “You’re not normally so mysterious, Susan.”

“I’m sorry,” she shook her head at him. “I really can’t tell you much more than that. Can you find him?”

“Any ideas where he might have gone?” The dark eyes closed in frustration as Susan shook her head again in silent answer. “You say you need this NOW – just how much time to I have to work with here?”

“As much as you need,” she told him fiercely. “It’s probably a matter of life and death – one that has come about as close to being about MY life and death as I want to ever see. Just find him, Ray – and tell me where I can find him.”

The diminutive detective rose to his feet. “My regular fees will apply…”

“I don’t care.” Susan rose too. “Will you do it?”

“I’ll do it,” he replied, tucking the manila envelope into the inner pocket of his jacket. “I’ll have a preliminary report ready for you in two days…”

Susan smiled. “If you have new information on this man in two days, Ray, I’ll give you a bonus!”

Carlisle’s return smile was predatory. “That sounds like a challenge. Looks like I may just have to miss Mass this week completely.” He put out his hand across the desk. “We have a deal.”

~~~~~~~~*

Jim Carrington was an elderly man with owlishly round wire-rimmed glasses that magnified the watery blue-grey eyes behind them out of all proportion to his face. His frame was bent with arthritis, and yet he moved quickly enough with the use of his carved cane as Suz Wilmot stood aside to let him into the house. “ABNER!” he bellowed in a voice strong enough to belie the age behind it.

“Geez, Jim – talk about an entrance!” Wilmot scolded fondly as he walked from the kitchen into the living room to greet his latest guest.

“You’re the one calling me out on a Sunday morning to compile some mysterious “test”, my young friend,” Carrington chided back, shaking his cane at the psychologist. “Now, just what is this all about?”

“Not necessarily a what, but a whom,” Wilmot gestured toward the hallway he’d come from. “Come on in and meet my best friend from college and a couple of young men that he brought to me.”

Stu Markham looked up from where he’d once more been watching as Leo and Virgil had been inhaling the home-made breakfast presented by Suz Wilmot. He rose as his old friend presented, “Jim Carrington, this is Stu Markham – one of the best college roommates I ever had. And these…” Wilmot indicated the boys – who were still bent over their plates. “…are Leo and Virgil Doe.”

Carrington’s eyebrows soared. “Doe? As in “John Doe” – last name not known?”

Markham glanced back just in time to see that Leo’s fork had hesitated slightly at the statement. “My young friends here claim to have never known their last name,” he informed the old man pointedly. “The police gave them the Doe designation.”

“Here you go, Jim,” Suz handed the elderly mathematician a steaming mug of coffee.

“Oh, thank you, my dear.” Carrington had always had a soft spot in his heart for Suz Wilmot, courtesy of the many delicious meals she’d cooked in his honor after the death of his wife. He waited until she had moved back before seating himself at the table close to the older of the two boys. “So… I’m supposed to test out your abilities. What do you say to that?”

Virgil lifted his gaze to that of the old man’s for the first time, his look respectful and a little hesitant. “I don’t know what to say,” he replied truthfully. “I’m sorry.” He looked over at Markham. “Did I do wrong?”

Wilmot walked behind the boy and put a comforting hand on his shoulder. “You spend too much time worrying about whether you’ve done something wrong,” he told the boy. “I told you last night, I prefer an honest “I don’t know”, remember?”

“Yes, sir.” Virgil looked down at his hands again.

“Now – just how to do suggest I administer this test, Abner?” Carrington asked, turning to his host. “Any bright ideas?”

Wilmot shrugged. “You’re the mathematics expert, Jim. I leave the terms of the test up to you.”

“Suz, my dear, will you bring me a stack of printer paper from Abner’s office – and a couple of pencils with good erasers, please?” Carrington smiled up at his hostess. “I myself will need only a couple of pieces of paper and the pen I have with me – these young men will need much more than that, I suspect.”

“C’mon, Stu,” Wilmot rose and put a hand on his old friend’s shoulder. “Let’s leave your boys here in the Jim’s capable hands – and you and I can spend a little time catching up on the last few years.”

Markham rose too and gazed at his two young charges. “I won’t be far,” he reassured them once he saw their gazes impact his nervously. “Dr. Carrington is a professor of mathematics at the university up here – he’s just going to administer a couple of problems and see how quickly you solve them, OK?”

“Yes, sir,” Virgil answered for the two of them, casting a quick glance at his little brother. “We’ll do our best to satisfy you.”

“Just do your best, son,” Wilmot smiled at the two and led his old friend off as his wife came back into the room with ample paper and writing implements in hand.

Carrington took the requested items from Suz and, after taking several pages of paper for himself, divided the rest between his two subjects and handed them the pencils. Folding his brow thoughtfully as he pulled a pen from his pocket, he then began writing an equation across the top piece of paper, which he then turned around and showed to the boys. “Copy this at the top of your papers, please,” he directed, and then watched as each boy did exactly as requested. He retrieved his paper. “Now, even though I trust that neither of you would cheat, would you please sit on opposite ends of the table – and then solve the equation. Please show all of your work in a comprehensible manner.”

Both boys rose and, as if in mirrrored unison, moved to the seats on opposite ends of the long table and then seated themselves to begin working on the problem.

“Would you like some coffee while you wait?” Suz asked quietly.

“That would certainly hit the spot – thanks,” Carrington stated, his gaze moving back and forth from one intent face to the next.

~~~~~~~~*

“This is a surprise, Jarod,” Miss Parker stated as she opened the door to the Pretender. “You were a little vague on the telephone as to why it was necess… Oh. My. God!” She couldn’t pull her eyes from the slightly disheveled empath peeking out at her from behind Jarod’s back. “Angelo?”

“Daughter safe now,” Angelo nodded happily.

“I’m…” Miss Parker looked from Jarod to Angelo and back again. “You were worried about me?” She frowned at Jarod. “Didn’t you tell him I was safe? How in the world did he get here?”

“Angelo walk – take bus,” the empath answered for himself. “Had to warn Friend and Daughter. Danger comes closer.”

“Danger?” Sam repeated the word as he came to the living room, glad that Evan had bounded upstairs to his room to dress for another outing to find a park where the two of them could work on ths boy’s softball batting skills. “What danger?”

“Danger from past,” Angelo stated vaguely, stepping past Jarod and into the spacious living area.

“Jarod,” Miss Parker hissed, pulling the Pretender aside, “what the hell is this about – and what is Angelo doing here in Philadelphia?”

“I’m not entirely sure, Parker,” Jarod answered in an equally low voice once Sam had moved closer, “but he was determined to speak to you – to warn you about the danger.”

“Warn Friend too,” Angelo inserted into the conversation. “Past twisted…” His face contorted with the effort of trying to make the warning as coherent as possible. “…turned loose.” Suddenly the child-like face cleared until virtually emotionless. “I decide who lives and dies…”

“What the hell?” Jarod started violently. He’d never heard Angelo recite those words in precisely that dead and emotionless tone before – and it was unnerving. “That was the phrase that Raines used on Kyle – to turn him into a sociopath!”

“I remember,” Miss Parker nodded unhappily. “Angelo…”

“Friend… hurting…” Now Angelo’s face twisted into confusion. “…Friend but not Friend…”

Jarod half-dragged and half-steered Angelo to the leather couch and forced his friend to sit down. “I need you to think, Angelo. What about the past?”

Angelo shook his head and then looked at Jarod with a twinkle in his eye. “You know… many laughs… much mischief…” His face turned tragic. “Caught… twisted…” He flinched hard. “So much pain…”

“What? Who?” Jarod pushed.

“I decide who lives and dies,” Angelo repeated, unable to make himself any clearer except to repeat the word that he could hear being echoed over and over again in a mind that was trapped. “Trapped in the search – danger…” Another sharp pain echoed through his mind. “Friend but not Friend trapped… hurting…”

“I wish Sydney was still here,” Miss Parker said suddenly, remembering how her psychiatrist colleague had been able to push at the empath in just the right way to make the incomprehensible make sense. Very few at the Centre had truly appreciated how it was often through use of the psychiatrist’s own underestimated intelligence and ability to understand the symbols with which Angelo often communicated that information had been gleaned. She looked over at Sam for support. “He could usually decipher what Angelo meant with just a little digging.”

Jarod actually looked frustrated. “I wish he were still here too,” he agreed, “because I was hoping that he’d take charge of Angelo for us until things cleared up here. I was thinking he could take Angelo back to Blue Cove with him…”

Angelo looked around the room, his mind only partly focussed on what Friend was saying about Sydney – the Mentor. Sydney had always treated Angelo with kindness – never using harsh words or rough hands…

A feeling – a thought he’d not paid much attention to previously – started to grow and make itself felt. Something else was wrong? What about the Mentor? He tried to listen – to hear Her voice explain to him what was going on – but there was only silence and confusion and the sense of something else going wrong, and another agonizing pain from somewhere else to distract...

“Sydney…” Angelo said softly, moving to the huge picture window that was the greater part of the outside wall of the living area. The mental threads were becoming tangled, confused – altogether quite overwhelming in malevolence. And Daughter was talking…

“Well, Syd’s coming back next weekend,” Miss Parker explained to Jarod. “We decided to give Evan a full week – to see if his wanting to stay with me will outweigh his anger with me…”

Angelo forced his thoughts away from the familiar-feeling minds around him, determined to follow that mental thread that touched the Mentor. But the voices in the room were beginning to overpower the subtle voices within…

“We’re going to have our hands full with Evan,” Sam added his perspective to the discussion. “Besides, the story you concocted about our lives doesn’t include an autistic adult…”

“No, that’s OK,” Jarod sighed, his eyes seeking out where his old friend had wandered off to. “Em’s not too thrilled about it, but considering that he’s generally harmless, she’s got no real complaints about his staying with us for the time being. I guess when Sydney gets home and calls you, will you have him get in touch with me so we can set up some plans…”

Angelo sighed – the mental thread that led to whatever it was that swirled around the Mentor was so vague, so difficult to discern, that there was no way he could articulate anything. He could feel Friend’s fear that his presence would make things difficult – but it was impossible to explain WHY he knew that not only would he NOT be going back with the Mentor, but that he NEEDED to be here. It was getting all mixed up now – the danger to Friend, the danger to Daughter, and the evil that swirled around the Mentor.

“Important Angelo stay,” was all he could come out with. Friend and Daughter glanced at him in surprise and then gave each other dark looks.

“Angelo stays with me for a while,” Jarod walked over to his old friend and put an arm about the empath’s shoulders. “Is that all right?”

The empath could no longer focus his mind anywhere – there was so much going on that he needed to say but couldn’t explain. Just struggling to interact with the world outside was becoming an exhausting effort. “Angelo tired,” Angelo managed finally, looking up at Friend imploringly. “Go home now?”

Jarod shrugged his apologies. “I guess I’ll take him back to my place,” he told the two in front of him and then gave them a closer look. “How are things going over here, by the way?”

“We’re making adjustments,” Sam stated brusquely, “but we should be ready to start carrying our share of this little masquerade tomorrow, right on schedule.” Miss Parker nodded agreement and moved ever so slightly closer to Sam – something that Jarod had never in his life expected to see.

“Good,” he told them, purposefully stomping down his own surprise and consternation at the mere idea of Miss Parker becoming closer to her bodyguard, of all people! “We should touch base Tuesday night by phone – if for no other reason than to make sure that our stories don’t need any further tweaking.” He steered Angelo’s feet toward the front door of the loft. “Until Tuesday, then…”

Angelo was more than content to abdicate responsibility for his movement to Friend. The pain that was Friend but not Friend was back – and that had taken the confusion and danger he’d been sensing all along and thrown it into total chaos. There was also despair – now that he’d found Friend and Daughter and given them the warning, was Her voice gone for good?

~~~~~~~~*

Cancer hung limply from the handcuffs, his feet touching the floor but his legs and knees unable to support his weight. The beating had been a swift and harsh one – but one he’d expected after finally having been given some of the most unappetizing food he’d ever had to eat. He’d never thought to have been required to eat anything less palatable than the green slop that had been his daily fare for years – until just a few hours ago. He hadn’t really minded, though – the rich, tasty food was still too new, too upsetting to his digestive track, to be fully appreciated.

This time, however, his tormentors hadn’t belabored him with demands for compliance – this beating had been punishment, pure and simple. Cancer knew they were trying to break him – wear down his stubborn rebellion. Little did they know that they were only making his determination stronger with every stroke of what must have been a whip.

THIS, it seemed, was the consequence of that Mr. McKenna’s order that he not be both starved and beaten. Cancer would have chuckled, if it weren’t that just breathing in and out weren’t painful enough. Granted that he’d never been physically abused this badly before - or for so long a time – but pain simply wasn’t the psychological battering-ram that this poor excuse for a mentor thought it to be.

Then rough hands were lifting him – lifting him just enough to take the weight off of the handcuffs so that they could be opened and release him. Cancer had no strength left – no energy – he collapsed into the rough hands that caught him beneath the armpits without any regard to what must have been open wounds on his back very close to where they were holding him. Being handled was agony – but it couldn’t be helped.

At least they were done with him for a while again, he mused while being half-dragged, half-carried down a corridor he was too tired to open his eyes to study. Soon would come the metallic sound of the door to his space being opened – and then he’d be tossed onto the thin mattress to wait out the time before his presence would once more be required. Would he have the strength to stand and simply stare at his tormentors, he wondered, or would he just collapse into a pile in front of the white board?

Cancer couldn’t help the low groan that erupted as he landed hard on the thin mattress. He’d managed not to cry out while being beaten, though – he took some comfort in that. But he was getting tired. So very, very tired.

If he had any luck at all, perhaps his bleeding and starvation and beatings would kill him before anything else happened. After all, if he were dead, there’d be no need to bring in another to try to make him cooperate.

At long last, Cancer was ready for that – and no longer entirely certain of his own indisposability. At this point, death appeared infinitely more appealing than continuing to live. He would not break – he would not give these monsters the satisfaction of having forced him to do anything – and that meant the beatings would continue. Cancer shifted on the thin pallet, trying to find a comfortable way to rest. He’d sleep for a little bit – he could make himself wake up after only a hour or two – and then he’d sit up into the meditation posture and set his mind a new SIM: the best way to kill himself with the resources at hand in his space.

~~~~~~~~*

It couldn’t be!

Carrington stared down at the papers in front of him in shock, and then back up again at the two young faces who watched his face with nervousness and alarm. “Where…? What?” This was impossible!

Merely as a way of studying the amount of subject matter known through looking at the steps used to try to solve the equation, he’d thrown at the boys an equation that he himself had been working on unsuccessfully for nearly a month. He’d expected to be able to measure understanding only. And while the younger boy’s answer demonstrated a deep understanding for mathematical principles without having found a conclusion, the older boy’s paper had gone much farther and had actually solved the equation. Neither had had access to a calculator – but his own tinkering showed that where logarithmic tables would have been consulted, the numbers pulled from thin air were the same as those he’d gotten from his machine.

“Did you say something?” Wilmot came back into the kitchen, followed by Markham. Both men had begun to wonder just what was going on in here – especially when Suz had served them lunch in the dining room while serving the boys and Carrington in the kitchen. The silence had been deafening – and hopefully now they would get some answers.

“You there!” Carrington summoned Virgil to his side with a quick crook of the finger, and the boy flinched as he rose to comply. “How did you know to do that?”

Virgil looked at the place in his reasoning that the old man was pointing to and immediately launched into a highly technical mathematical dissertation that had Wilmot’s mouth gaping, Markham staring, Leo nodding in agreement and Carrington himself rapt.

“I’ll be damned.” Carrington murmured to himself, studying the work ahead of him, and then patting Virgil’s arm as an afterthought. “Sit down, boy! Sit down! You did very well. It’s just…” The old mathematician raised his eyes to Wilmot and Markham. “This is amazing, Abner! Do you realize that these young men, in the course of two or three hours, have done as much if not more to solve this problem than I’ve done over the last two months?”

Markham slipped into an empty kitchen chair when the shock of having his suspicions so thoroughly proven took the strength from him. “I knew it!”

Virgil actually was starting to feel better, and he smiled at a very nervous Leo in an attempt to pass along the growing satisfaction. “Then we did well, sir?” he asked respectfully.

“Well? WELL??” Carrington couldn’t stop shaking his head. “You did amazingly, remarkably fantastic!” Finally a smile broke on the wrinkled face. “The both of you.”

“But I didn’t finish,” Leo protested softly.

“My boy,” Carrington leaned toward the younger boy confidentially, “you did better than I did – and I’m the one who was supposed to test YOU.”

“So…” Markham tried to marshal his thoughts, “now that you’ve both had a chance to do some testing, what would you suggest would be a good venue for these two young men to be placed in. I mean…” He shook his head. “Their education needs to be rounded up a bit, obviously – but…”

“Do they really have no family?” Suz Wilmot asked from behind her husband. Both boys had been gracious and polite – with little of the barely-harnessed energies of normal teenagers. Her mother’s instinct told her both needed serious emotional intervention if they were to grow up and be healthy in both mind and body. And her nest had been empty too long…

Wilmot looked up and saw the look in his wife’s eyes. “Honey, what about when Davie comes home?”

“He always wanted little brothers, Abner,” she reasoned with her husband quietly. “And there IS the guest room for him.” She looked over at the two boys who had, by now, claimed chairs close to each other once more.

“There would be a lot of paperwork involved,” Markham told them. “They’ve been declared wards of the State – and you two live across a state line…”

“I think we should consider what the boys want,” Carrington spoke quietly, having watched the young faces in front of him while their future was bandied about. That made both boys look over at the old man with surprise. “It is YOUR lives, after all – you should have a say in where you go and what you end up doing.”

It was Leo that found his voice first. “Nobody ever really asked us what we wanted before,” he said, glancing at Virgil for confirmation that his brother had been equally denied input up until now. “But…”

“There are so many things we don’t know,” Virgil picked up on the thought automatically. “Knowing what would be best for us is something other people always did.”

“Well, unfortunately, we have to get you back to Mrs. Goldstein this evening,” Markham told them, “but I promise I’ll start the paperwork from the school on Monday…”

“I can drive to Philly tomorrow myself, to get things moving from our end,” Suz declared firmly. “That is, IF Abner agrees…”

Wilmot looked over at the two boys – boys who, if Stu’s story held any water at all, had been virtually abandoned except to nourish a mode of genius never seen before. They presented both an opportunity and a risk. Either way, Carrington was right – they needed to be allowed to choose. “It’s up to them,” he stated quietly, nodding in their direction. “We can give them a home – if they want it.”

“Mr. Markham?” Leo pleaded with the one person who had been their advocate the longest in this adventure outside the walls that had held them for so long. “What should we do?”

Markham smiled. “Well, think of it this way – do you want to stay with Mrs. Goldstein, or do you want to live here?” And then he watched as the boys looked at each other again silently, wondering just what their wishes actually were.

~~~~~~~~~*

Sydney sighed as he steered his Lincoln town car around the corner and back onto Washington Avenue two blocks down from his home. It had been a long drive – and a lonely one. Despite the fact that Evan had not been a whole lot of company on the trip to Philadelphia, he had at least been a companion. This return trip to Blue Cove had been one of the most achingly lonely journeys in his entire life. Everyone he knew – absolutely EVERYONE – had been jailed, died or moved on in their lives. Everyone, it seemed, except him.

He gave a deep sigh and reached up to his garage door opener as that special tree passed his front bumper – watching as the white metal door began immediately to rise so that by the time he reached his drive, the opening would be completely clear. It was a move that he’d made every working day of his life since buying this comfortable home in the newer part of the little hamlet. But today, for some reason, he found no comfort in knowing that he was only moments from being safely in his own home – his castle.

His parting from Sam, Evan and Miss Parker had been a poignant one. To Sam, he’d passed the responsibility of keeping Miss Parker safe – and the big man had obviously been ready to promise to do exactly that. From Evan he’d received a tighter, longer hug than he’d ever received before – especially after promising to pack the microscope that had been forgotten.

He turned off the motor and sat for a long moment, remembering finally his parting with a woman he’d long thought of as a daughter and now pretended was one. Miss Parker had given him a hug too – behavior decidedly out of character for the tough-as-nails Ice Queen of the Centre, but evidently more in keeping with the happy-housewife-and-security-expert persona of Catherine Green Jamison. It had been a tight hug too – not rushed or unfeeling. For just the tiniest of moments, Miss Parker FELT like his daughter – and felt like she was thinking of him as a parent. It was the kind of moment he’d only dreamed of – and despaired for years of ever having with Nicholas.

Sydney gazed at the closed kitchen door with some trepidation. This would be the first time in his life that he would be completely alone. Jacob, his twin, was long dead and safely buried in a beautiful copse up near their old mountain cabin on White Cloud Lake. Everyone from the Centre was gone now too – not just Jarod, but all of his old colleagues and even his nemeses Raines and Lyle. There had been very little traffic in the hamlet as he’d driven through – even given the fact that it was the latter end of a Sunday afternoon. The Centre itself was gone – closed and locked and having its innards liquidated by a greedy Triumvirate desperate to salvage a dime wherever possible.

He pulled himself from behind his steering wheel, closed the driver’s door, and then fetched his overnight bag from the back seat. He had Miss Parker’s and Jarod’s new phone numbers committed to memory, pending entry into his cell phone. And he had bonsai trees out on the back patio that would need both watering and trimming in the next week.

He pushed the kitchen door open and reached around the edge of the door jamb for the light switch. He’d left the shades drawn, so the interior of the house would be getting darker with the coming twilight. He stepped through the door and into the pool of light from the fixture in the kitchen ceiling…

And then the world exploded – and turned suddenly very, very dark.

Chapter Index: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 | 26 | 27 | 28 | 29 | 30 | 31 | 32 | 33

Previous <<>> Fan Fiction <<>> Next <<>> Feedback