DISCLAIMER: All characters such as Miss Parker, Jarod, Broots, Sydney, Angelo and all those bad, bad men, do not belong to me. I am not their creator, unfortunately. They belong to a bunch of three lettered words I can never remember. No money could possibly come out of a lawsuit against me... I don't even live in the USA. So let me borrow them for a while and I'll give them back later, unchanged... Well...almost.
WARNING: This is not a sequel to 'Smile before this is over'. I apologize for making the begging reviewer's waiting but I had to get this one out of my system. However I am working on the sequel.
AUTHOR's NOTE: I have already written 5 chapters for this one, but I need to know what you think about this first. If I get good reviews I should be updating them in three to four days period. That's how long it would take me to pass them to the computer and clean them up... The original papers are a mess! SO REVIEW!
NEVER FORGOTTEN
by BloodyMary2
Chapter 1: MORE HIDDEN SECRETS
Broot's point of view:
Though he worked in a place where danger lurked at every corner and life was as brief and precious as the next moment you found yourself still breathing, Francis Broots found his weeks filled with monotonous routines. He came in every morning after watching his precious daughter Debbie enter the yellow school bus; checked in with Sydney, the Freudian psychiatrist who always seemed to be the first one to come in every morning and the last one to leave every night; went through the mainframe and all other established contacts for any news on Jarod, the ever elusive pretender; got scared to death by Miss Parker, his secret crush, a beautiful and tormented soul, always hiding behind an ice cold mask; found another Center secret, hid from Lyle, the psychotic cannibal from Hell; went home...
Strange that many would consider this "routine" a true trial of courage, when he himself considered all this a trial of guts. Of how long you could hold down your stomach's contents after each and every secret revealed, after each and every life ruined, taken, locked away. Of how long you could bow your head down and do nothing, just to survive another day.
He sighed...
The computer geek had never meant to get involved in all of this. He had been a man of simple needs and reasonable dreams. But when the job offer presented itself, from a research company, pioneer in every single field, the pay had been too good an offer to let it pass. At the sight of the enormous, amazing building, surrounded by steel gates and a private beach, he accepted without question. He should have known better... Should have been suspicious, ought to have noticed that it all sounded too good to be true. Too much secrecy. Too many figures on that paycheck.
He would have remained in the dark, if not for Mr. Raines or the rumors and screams echoing from lower levels. Now all he wished for was a way out. To grab Debbie and run as fast and as far away as possible from this factory, which seemed to produce only nightmares and death... But he couldn't. No one dared leave the Centre. Not alive anyway. Like Miss Parker had once said... No one left the Center unless it was in a body bag.
And he wasn't prepared for that.
Not yet.
Sighing again, the balding man hurried to finish his much need coffee before either Miss Parker or Mister Raines came bursting in, her in high stiletto heels or him with the constant wheezing, followed by the creaking sound of his oxygen tank, making the tech spill the java all over his shirt. It was such a common occurrence, that Broots had learned to bring a spare.
But today, it was neither the huntress nor the emphysema that got the scared man wet. No, this time, what made him jump up his seat, was the thumping sound of the ventilation crate as it came crashing to the floor. Turning around, Broots waited for Angelo to come out of the shadows, as the empath had done on many occasions. But he never did.
Strange...
Gathering all the courage the usually squirmish man could muster, Broots approached the vent, all the way frightened that something would jump him... Paranoid and a bit on edge, he walked quietly, not trusting for a moment that things were not as scary as they seemed. After all, this was the Centre. Again, no one did.
As he got closer, the tech heard a faint and soft whimper. Hesitation. Fear. Small prayer to the skies. After a moment and a couple of years off of his life, Broots found himself face to face with a pair of sad, blue eyes... It was Angelo, as he had predicted, staring into space, silent tears running down his cheeks. He was murmuring something under his breath, agony clearly etched on the lines of his face.
Not knowing what to do or say, Broots made a move to leave, thinking about calling Sydney or Miss Parker, who seemed to understand Angelo the best. He found himself unequipped to handle the empath under these circumstances. A hand on his arm, however, stopped him short. While the strong grip managed to hold him in place, Broots could detect a quiver coming from the man before him. The tech started fidgeting, both scared and anxious, but unable to free himself. He wondered how a frail looking man like Angelo could possess such great physical strength... But then he remembered the endless excursion through the air vents. Shaking his head, Broots refocused on the situation at hand.
Breathe...
" Angelo, what's wrong?" Stuttering through the question, he seeked within himself some kind of self control, he had never been known to possess, while attempting to release his trapped arm... He failed. Expecting the worse, he concentrated on Angelo and asked him again. Nothing, however, could have prepared him for the words, fluently spoken, by a man, who Broots had always believed to be incapable of true communication.
"It's hurting to breathe, I can't open my eyes. Oh God it's so dark... And there was so blood, oh so much blood... So much anger. There was nothing I could have done. Nothing, nothing... Nothing I could do... No, no, no, no... You weren't supposed to let this happen... You promised me... You promised..." The man crying within the small air circulation system, rocked back and forth, his words filled with heart wrecking desperation. His voice had started with a deep, though childlike tone, resembling a teen. His last words, however took on a softer tone... Barely a whisper and Broots could have swore it had sounded like a girl.
Angelo was hyperventilating...
Then, it dawned on him. And his scarce breakfast threatened to make an unwelcome appearance. What Broots heard were not the empath's words or feelings. The childlike man was channeling someone else, probably two different people. He shuddered to think about the implications of Angelo's words. Because they meant, that somewhere in the bowels of the Center, people were being tortured, maybe even being killed.
Screams to fill the hollow silence.
New blood on already tainted walls...
Again he wondered... How long he could remain unbiased to the happenings of this Hell...
Broots sighed.
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