Twist of Fate: Chapter 13
by Lisette
Legalese: See Chapter 1 for disclaimers and ratings.
Wincing, Jarod slowly rotated his shoulders, willing away the aches and pains that seemed to radiate from every single joint in his body. Then again, the pain was worth the outcome of his latest pretend. After some serious studying on what it took to be a risk-taker, Jarod had gotten himself involved in a group of thrill-seekers that all followed their ringleader, Zed. But after a little bit of time in the group, and Zed being hung off a bridge by a frayed bungee cord, Jarod had been able to obtain a videotaped confession of the man's tampering with a friend's bungee cord - resulting in the younger man's recently-ended coma. Just another day's work in the life of a Pretender.
But even that thought wasn't enough to distract Jarod for long. Sighing, he slowly shifted back in the stiff motel chair that he rested in, his weary eyes skimming the computer's information once again. Something was wrong. Really wrong. Even though he had been a victim of the Centre's cruelty for almost his entire life, a part of him still felt responsible for the nameless corporation's actions. After experiencing their cruelty firsthand, he found that he just couldn't sit back and watch it continue to happen.
Sighing, Jarod slowly lifted his hands and ran them through his wild brown hair, sending it spiked in all directions. He had been away from the action for too long with this last simulation, and now he couldn't help but return to his computer with a deep sense of unease. This time, he understood his unease all too well. It was Lyle.
For months now the pieces had been falling into place, outlining Lyle's secret life and the activities that no one at the Centre even knew about. But too soon, he had found that there was very little that he could do from his secret position save watch and wait. So he had then sent Miss Parker, Sydney, and Broots off to be his eyes and ears for him - his clues sending them right into the lion's den. And now, he needed only to confirm his worst suspicions.
Steeling himself, Jarod quickly popped a small yellow Pez into his mouth, allowing the sugary tablet to dissolve on his tongue before reaching for the phone. In seconds the call had been routed, and then rerouted through numerous locations before the other end finally began to ring. "What?" came the snapped reply that he had been waiting for.
"Miss Parker," he replied, a small smile lifting his lips despite the nature of his call.
"Jarod," came the solemn reply. Yet it was her tone, more than anything else, that alerted him that his fears were about to be confirmed. After all, this was usually the point in their conversation where Miss Parker would bemoan the fates for his most recent tricks. But not tonight.
"What did you find?" he asked, his voice turning somber as his eyes returned to the laptop's glowing monitor.
"A room," her voice whispered back, soft and for a brief second, almost vulnerable. But then that illusion was shattered as a low growl echoed through the connection, her anger obviously returning full force. "He has a room hidden behind a secret door in his closet."
"A room?" Jarod echoed, his brow tightening in confusion. He had been expecting something, but not quite this.
"Inside he's built a shed-"
"A recreation of the shed that his adopted father used to lock him in," Jarod quickly surmised, his mind beginning to enter the scary place of Lyle's psychosis, "before he killed off that identity."
"If you knew what we were going to find, why did you send us there?" Miss Parker quickly snapped back, her anger obviously finding direction on him.
"Because I didn't... not for certain," Jarod admitted, absently reaching for another Pez. "Did you find evidence-"
"Nothing concrete," Miss Parker quickly interrupted, her voice faltering as a long silence stretched over the line. "But we think... we think he's been using the shed to torture and murder young women," she quickly hurried on, as though it pained her to speak it aloud. Pained and disgusted her. After all, Mr. Lyle wasn't just a part of her family. He was her twin.
Nodding slowly, Jarod realized that his mentor and nemesis both had come to the same conclusion that he had been fearing for awhile now. "Well, I can say for certain that he's capable of it," Jarod murmured, unable to stop himself as visions of his own torture came to mind - all at Lyle's ever capable hands. Then, shaking his head, Jarod quickly sat forward in his rickety chair. This wasn't about him. Not anymore. "Miss Parker, you have to watch him carefully. You have to stop this."
"I know," she sighed, her voice so weary that Jarod felt a pang of sympathy for dropping this on her lap. Then again, it was her twin, as she evidently realized by the renewed wrath that entered her voice. "He's been distracted for awhile now - something obviously going on. I just had no idea that it could be something like this."
"We have to do something about Lyle," Jarod continued, undaunted by her biting anger.
"I will do something about Lyle. This won't happen again," she murmured, as Jarod's eyes once more returned to his computer screen, the newspaper article outlining the gruesome murder of May Lin, a young Asian waitress, glaring at him.
"See that it doesn't... just see that it doesn't," he repeated quietly before slowly returning the phone to its cradle. For now, Jarod had done all that he could. With Miss Parker and the others watching Lyle from their end... well, it was a hope, anyway.
With narrowed eyes, Miss Parker slowly returned the phone to its cradle, her long fingers tapping absently against the polished wood of her desk - the only sound in her large office. If she was truly honest with herself, Miss Parker had been expecting... no, anticipating Jarod's call ever since they had made their discovery. Even now, it was too easy for her to visualize the secret room that they had found. The room that had no doubt been the last thing that many innocent young women saw before they met a cruel and undeserved end. And all at the hands of her brother.
"Well, I can say for certain that he's capable of it."
Sighing, Miss Parker knew instinctually of what Jarod was referring to. After rescuing his clone, Genesis, Jarod forsake his chance of escape and freedom with the boy and his father, Major Charles, to help her. She had been shot while trying to protect her father, and she knew that had it not been for Jarod, she would be dead now. He couldn't leave her when she was in pain... she, the person who had devoted the last four years of her life in a relentless hunt for his capture. It was like a game for them. But in that instant, he had given up the chance to be reunited with his family to help her. Something that she would never forget... nor allow to change her mission.
Wearily lifting a hand to her forehead, Miss Parker began massaging away the ever-present headache that her job seemed to bring. That her life seemed to bring. It had been a long recovery - a recovery that had left her out of the action in the weeks that followed Jarod's capture and return to the Centre. But she had heard rumor of what had occurred in her absence. Sydney had been barred from seeing his ward, and instead, Jarod had been subjected to weeks of needless cruelty by her brother's hands. Even now the thought of the torture disgusted her. Lyle had stated that he was teaching Jarod a lesson so that he wouldn't think to try and escape again. Instead, the very cruelty and pain had been what prompted the Pretender's speedy exit. Not that she could honestly blame him.
And now, her brother's cruelty seemed to need a new outlet. And for some reason, that perverse outlet was taking place in the form of young and innocent Asian women. Girls that had nothing to do with the Centre's dubious dealings and underhanded projects. Just innocent women who were brutally taken from their families for a few hours of tortured enjoyment at the four-fingered hand of her brother. Of her twin.
Shifting, Miss Parker quickly reached forward a jabbed a finger to a button on her phone's console. "Broots," she barked, her voice hard and firm, her eyes glaring daggers into the inanimate object.
From the speaker phone came the sounds of a glass breaking and then the scurried and shuffled footsteps of the nerdy computer technician. His panicked movements brought a small smile to her painted lips. "Y.. yes Miss Parker?" the man's breathy voice echoed through the phone, filling her large office with his nervous words.
"In my office, now."
"Y.. yes Miss Parker," he repeated before the connection quickly ended, casting the room into a thick silence once again.
With a few minutes to spare as the man bolted from his office and raced the levels to hers, Miss Parker slowly turned away, leaning back in the soft leather of her chair as her eyes traced the dark colors of the painting that hung behind her. Idly, she reached down and lifted the small glass tumbler to her lips, the sound of shifting ice tinkling in the room as the fiery liquid burned a trail down to her stomach.
It disgusted her to think that Mr. Lyle could somehow be the product of her mother and father. Could somehow be a part of her. Her mother, before her death, had been the epitome of goodness and kindness - her actions endangering herself and ultimately costing her her life... and all in order to save the children of the Centre from the destiny that her own husband had sentenced them to. All to save herself and another particular child... the one that she now hunted so to return him to his cage. And her father, despite his obvious... quirks, was still the only family that she had left. She would do anything to help her father, as she had proven time and time again. But now, with him in hiding with Bridgette from the Centre... well all of the black and white issues were being bled with shades of gray. Before it had always been a simple matter of finding Jarod and returning the Centre's prized Pretender to his cage. Bringing the lab rat back to the lab. And then she would have been free. That had been the deal that she had laid down with her father. But now... now other issues began to cloud the subject.
First had been Tommy's murder on the very morning before she was to declare her decision to leave the Centre for good. To follow him away from this shadowed life and begin again. Forever to cut herself from this damned building. His murder had very nearly torn her apart, for it always seemed that whatever goodness she managed to find in life, it was quickly taken away from her. Her mother's murder, being sent to boarding school as a young girl and having to leave behind the only friend that she had ever known, Tommy's death... and then the Centre itself began to reek of projects that were too horrible - too unmentionable even to her. On a matter of principle she refused to dwell on Jarod's own past and the possible moral questions that his kidnapping and life of servitude in the Centre begged to rise. But when she had seen the ghost of her past... the clone that had perfectly resembled her childhood friend... well, she could no longer just sit back and watch the Centre's actions through rose-colored glasses. And now with Lyle...
"Miss Parker?"
Startled from her thoughts, Miss Parker felt the cold liquid slosh from her glass and splatter her hand as she quickly turned back to her desk. "Broots," she muttered, sending the man an annoyed gaze as she hastily wiped the fluid from her skin, "I told you to knock before entering my office!"
"B.. but I did," Broots quickly stuttered, awkwardly shuffling from foot to foot by the door, his hand nervously running through his thinning hair. "Three times. There was no answer so I thought-"
"Your first mistake," Miss Parker retorted, a malicious smile pulling at her lips as she gracefully stood from the chair and advanced on the trembling man. "I need a favor."
Instantly panic began to cloud the man's eyes as he watched Miss Parker's slow advance. When she said favor, Broots knew that she really meant that she had a project for him of a more personal matter. Usually one that involved some sort of treachery to the company he worked, great personal risk, and even more at the hands of Miss Parker should he fail. "B.. but Jarod..."
"My task won't take you too far from your hunt for Jarod," Miss Parker interrupted, her smile thin as she crossed her arms across her chest, her heels allowing her to stare down onto his balding plate. "I want you to do some checking on my beloved brother," she murmured, the quick shift in his eyes assuring her that he, too, would never forget their discovery of Lyle's secret room. "I want to know what's been keeping him so preoccupied these past few months."
Sighing, Broots knew that there was no reason to bother attempting an argument. And besides, after knowing what he did... well, this was one cause that he felt a little better about risking his neck for. Nodding curtly, Broots turned and hurried towards the door, his hand freezing on the handle as her words stilled him once more.
"And Broots, I don't want Sydney to know about this. Not yet."
Timidly nodding his head, Broots waited a brief second to see if there was more before quickly making his escape, leaving Miss Parker to her solitude.