The Institute (16 page)

How many more
days of this will I have to endure until they give up on me like
they have with everyone else down in those cells? I have so many
questions and no one to answer them for me, except maybe Tate. I
just need to make it through today and get back to my cell where I
can talk to him again. Tate seems like he genuinely wants to help
me, I know it’s not much to cling to, but it’s all I have.

I have
obviously been too quiet for their liking, I feel the same
electrical current running through me again. It’s a little stronger
and for a little bit longer than the first one. I don’t need to
have Shilah’s ability to know where this is headed. I don’t know
what this is meant to achieve but it is definitely making me more
and more pissed off. Aunt Kenna’s words come back to me briefly,
before I think of Shilah. Is he enduring something similar? Is he
strong enough to handle this?

“Is there
anything you would like to tell me yet?” he asks when the current
stops running through my body.

“No.” The pain
when they hit the button this time is a lot more intense and it
feels like they are burning me from the inside out. I don’t know
how much longer I can put up with it, without saying something
about Tate so I can get a break. I tell myself I have to endure it,
no benefit will come of me telling them anything.

My interrogator
asks more questions of me, a lot of questions like “Now tell me,
have you suffered any physical or emotional trauma as a child?”
and, “Have you ever shown symptoms?” I could tell them about my
mother but what is the point, they are still going to do whatever
they want to me, I have to stay strong. With each unsatisfactory
answer, which just happens to be all of them, electricity surges
through me more intensely and for a longer period of time each jolt
I am given. My muscles feel frozen from constantly contracting.
Each time I am shocked with the machine it takes longer and longer
for them to loosen back up.

How long have
they been at this for? I hear him ask another question but I’m so
out of it, it barely sounds audible to me. I’m feeling dizzy, my
thoughts are hazy. My lack of answer causes another shock to run
through my body and it’s so painful, so intense I can feel myself
slipping away. My vision is starting to blur and black patches are
filling my eyes.

***

I open my eyes
slowly. It takes me a few moments to realise I’m back in my cell, I
don’t lift my head as it feels like it is being weighted down with
bricks. I have a headache and an aching sensation throughout my
body, all of my muscles feel worn out. My face still feels bruised
and I can’t help but think about how much more I have to endure
while I am here. I got so hazy towards the end when I blacked out,
I don’t even know if I told them anything.

“I am assuming
the fact that I am still here, means you didn’t tell them anything
you shouldn’t have.” It’s Tate. He’s in my cell, standing near the
door, the closed door.

I gasp.
Oh
my god!
My heart tries to leap out of my chest. “What are you …
how are you in here?” I try to stand up, a little too quickly for
my body’s liking. I am forced to stay on the bed but I manage to
sit up, I hold on to my sides when I realise just how tender I
am.

“I’m sorry, I
didn’t mean to creep you out. One of the nicer guards let me in –
technically you’re not allowed contact with other inmates until
your interrogations are done but I wanted to make sure you were
okay after what I heard you’d been through today. I’m very
impressed, I thought you would have given in.” Tate walks over and
hands me some pills. “Here, I got these off another guard when I
was being interrogated. They help with the pain and getting to
sleep.”

I take the
pills in my hand and I look at them. I don’t know if I should,
isn’t that like a rule – don’t accept anything from strangers?

“I think that
just refers to candy,” Tate responds with a smile and I find it
hard not to smile back. “Also, it’s not like we are complete
strangers anymore with everything I have umm … heard.”

“It is still
really weird to me that you can hear everything I’m thinking.”
That’s worse than Drew sensing how I am feeling. “How come I can’t
hear every one of your thoughts?” I ask.

“Well, when you
grow up in a house where your mother can hear everything you’re
thinking, you learn pretty quickly to block things from getting
out. Could you imagine all of those awkward teenage moments with
your parent listening in?” Tate shudders. I smile and look down at
the pills in my hands, I’m willing to try anything to help with
this pain. I take the pills and hope they kick in soon. “So why
didn’t you tell them what you can do?” Tate asks.

“Because I
couldn’t do it when I was up there. No matter how hard I tried, I
couldn’t hear anyone’s thoughts. I’m still not totally convinced
it’s me who is doing it.”

“Well I can
tell you that it’s definitely not me that’s doing it to you. I
can’t explain to you why you can do this sometimes and not others,
when it first happened to me I couldn’t stop the voices from
getting in. My mother taught me how to control it and block what I
don’t want to hear and amplify what I do.”

“Is she here
too?”

“No,” Tate
responds.
‘She’s dead.’

“I’m so sorry.”
My mother is dead too
. We are both silent as we think about
our mums.

“Oh crap, I’m
sorry for this,” Tate says to me.

“Sorry for
wha—“

Tate quickly
jumps onto the bed, leans in and starts kissing me. My automatic
reaction is to push him off of me, try to anyway.

‘
Just, trust
me,’
he tells me.

I forgot I
don’t need my lips to ask you what the hell you are doing. Why
exactly are you kissing me?

‘
Well it’s
kind of an unspoken thing that the only reason we may visit another
person’s cell is to umm, you know. The guards would never allow it
if they thought we could possibly be conspiring against them,
they’re lenient down here, but not stupid. I’m really sorry, it
will be over as soon as he walks past.’

Umm that’s
okay, it’s not so bad … I can’t believe I just thought that, and
now you’re laughing at me. I’m so embarrassed.

“You don’t need
to be,” Tate says as our lips part.

“Why was
everyone so much louder when we were kissing, is that normal?”

“No, that
wasn’t normal. I could hear more too, I don’t think it was volume
so much as it was quantity, I could hear more people I think,” Tate
responds.

“The voices
stopped as soon as you pulled away.”

“Okay, I really
don’t know what’s going on now. Kiss me again,” Tate says.

What?
I
raise my eyebrows at him.

He rolls his
eyes at me, “I’m not hitting on you, trust me. I can say without a
doubt that that will never happen. Just kiss me, I just want to see
if it happens again.”

Gee, way to
make a girl feel attractive, I really want to throw myself at you
now.

“Oh, you are
taking this the wrong way. How can I put this delicately … I don’t
exactly play for your team, Allira.”

“Oh, sorry I
didn’t realise.”

“Not many
people do at first. So just kiss me again.”

Are you sure
this isn’t just a rouse to get into my pants?
I smile.

Tate laughs,
‘Sorry babe, your equipment just doesn’t do it for me.’

Now I’m
laughing. I lean in for another kiss.

It’s happening
again! I can hear at least ten different people … and eww, two of
them are actually getting it on. Okay, make it stop now please.

‘
I can hear
them too,’
Tate replies. Our lips part again and the voices
quieten down immediately.
‘Okay, this is just weird, nothing
like this has happened before.’

That’s
probably a good thing considering the other person you could
converse with was your mum.
We both laugh, “Look at that, even
in my state of crazy, I manage a joke,” I say.

‘
I guess it
is true though.’

I look into his
eyes and it feels like I’m looking at someone I have known for
years, someone I can confide in, rely on.

“Well it’s not
surprising you feel that way, after all we did just make out, and
let’s face it I am pretty fabulous.”

“Wow, I’m now
wondering how I didn’t notice it this morning.”
Clearly very
gay.

“Notice what?
How flamboyantly awesome I am?”

“Stop, you’re
making me laugh and then everyone will think you look hilarious
naked seeing as we are technically ‘hooking up’ right now.” We
giggle some more.
It feels good to be silly with someone
again.

“It’s good to
have someone to distract me from this place.” Tate admits. “Okay,
enough of this mushy bonding crap,” he says with a smile. “Let’s
focus on the issue at hand. What happens if we just touch, give me
your arm.” I offer up my hand, “I can hear them again, can you?” I
ask.

“I can hear
them too. I have no idea what is going on, this never happened with
my mother. Are you sure nothing has ever happened before? Even the
smallest change, something you thought wasn’t worth mentioning,
anything?”

For the
millionth time since I got here, no there is not one single moment
where I thought I could be Defective … Oh wait,
“I once pulled
Drew out of a car while he was unconscious and at the time I was
worried that I might have super strength or something but when I
tried to lift a table about the same weight a few weeks later I
couldn’t even make it budge. I just put it down to adrenalin
getting me through it. Of course, if I knew then what I know now, I
would have left him in the car to burn. I have never heard anyone’s
thoughts or anything else though – that’s as close as I’ve come to
showing any symptoms.”

“Okay, I have
no idea what is going on.”
‘Maybe you … no that doesn’t make
sense. It could be that … no that wouldn’t work either.’
We
both sit, motionless, trying to work out what is happening to me.
Tate doesn’t get any of his ideas into full motion before he
dismisses them as quickly as they come. It’s hard to follow. “I’m
sorry, I should let you get some rest. You’re going to need it for
tomorrow,” he says kindly.

Tate signals to
the guard that he’s ready to go back to his cell. I still don’t
have any answers, if anything I am more confused. I should try and
sleep, I have a feeling I’m going to need my strength back if I am
put through another round of interrogations tomorrow.

As I go to lie
back down on my pillow, I feel a lump of something under my side. I
reach under me and pull whatever it is out – it’s the clothes I was
wearing when I was arrested. I go to throw them on the floor but I
notice something in my jeans back pocket that I know wasn’t there,
at least, I never put it there. It’s a folded piece of paper. When
I open it up, I am shocked and almost throw it across the cell in
anger; it’s a note from Drew.

‘
It wasn’t
all a lie. Words can’t describe how sorry I am.’

Chapter
Eleven

‘It wasn’t all
a lie.’ That’s it, really? That’s his apology for putting me here?
For hurting Shilah? For lying to me? How can he say that when
clearly, it was. He never cared about me, all of the sweet things
he ever did for me was because it was his job to get close to me,
study me and try to find a way to arrest me. I can still picture
Drew kicking the life out of Shilah with me sitting by, unable to
do anything about it. I can still see the look on Drew’s face when
he talked about that night at the lake, the look of enjoyment he
had watching me squirm when he mentioned it. I’m just glad I didn’t
have sex with him that night, I can’t imagine how I would be
feeling now. I wish I could say the same about falling for him in
the first place though.

His note is
making it hard to sleep and I just know they are going to come to
my door again soon. I can’t stop tossing and turning, I want to get
the words out of my head, ‘It wasn’t all a lie,’ but they just
won’t leave me.

‘
Try and get
some sleep, Allira.’

Sorry. I guess
I’m being pretty loud.

‘
Well you do
have a pretty good reason to be angry, but dwelling on it right now
isn’t going to help you in your current situation. They’ll be back
for you soon and you need to get your rest time in between. It’s
time to think about you.’

But—

‘
No. No
buts. I know it’s difficult, but you have to put everyone else
aside right now, especially Drew. Actually, you can put him aside
forever. Just focus on you.’

It doesn’t feel
like I get much of a chance to focus on me before Ty, the guard, is
here to escort me to breakfast. I’m segregated from the rest of the
prisoners again, faced with another feeding of a brick of barely
edible food. Ty watches over me as I eat, just as he did yesterday
but I’m so hungry, his presence doesn’t throw me off like it did
the last time. Just knowing someone is right behind me, watching me
eat, creeps me out but I haven’t eaten in twenty-four hours so I
don’t care that he’s there, I just want to stop my stomach from
screaming at me to fill it with food, any food – even this stuff.
It sure does make me miss the fresh fruit and vegetables from the
farm though, the food I took for granted for so long, even got sick
of from time to time.

I’m almost
finished my meal, but Ty is getting impatient. He puts his hand on
my arm to try and drag me away from the table and I almost snap.
With Drew’s note still fresh in my mind and my lack of sleep, I’m
getting really sick of this place. It is taking away my choices, my
rights, and now Ty is trying to take away my right to finish eating
when I want to. I try to break free of Ty’s grip but it’s tight, my
anger is building and just when I think I am about to explode, it
happens – Ty literally takes off of the ground, bringing me with
him and hovering at least ten, if not fifteen feet high. We are in
the air together and I can see a dash of pride in his eye, followed
by surprise, fear and then panic; he let’s go of me. I fall
straight down to the ground and land on my ankle, rolling it, but
Ty floats back down as though gravity doesn’t even exist.