Shalimar spends the next hour trying to wake up. When she finally does she is so tired she just stares off, trying to recover memories of that girl in the lab. She has some pop up of waiting for the girl to wake up. More of the girl helping Adam in the lab. But one comes to her that scares her most.
Shalimar and Brennan were in the lab with the young women's twin brother.
"Who is Emilia?" she remembers asking.
We didn't call her Emilia? Shalimar questions to herself. Than an even worse memories comes. Brennan had questioned the woman's twin brother Emmanuel on why he was calling her by a different name. In which Emmanuel replied this.
"We were born under the names Emilia and Emmanuel Donahue. We were born to a really bad man named Dr. Javelin Donahue. He married into a million dollar fortune by a woman named Celeste. Celeste didn't trust men; she said she would leave half her fortune to Javelin and the other half to her first-born daughter. Before my sister and I she had two other sons. Javelin wanted all the fortune and thought he would get it until my sister was born. Javelin had a grudge against her from the day she was born. Than it got even worse. When she was four she accidentally used her powers on Celeste and ended up killing her. Javelin loved Celeste more than his own children. When she died he took it all out on my sister. He beat her and used her as his own personal lab rat. A chambermaid at the estate named Louis knew how bad my sister was being treated, but since she also had a twin she felt it would be a bad idea to leave one of us there. She kidnapped us in the middle of the night. Later she placed her and I in a different country, but her new parents moved back to America."
Shalimar sits up fast now she knows who has the woman and why. The two questions that remain are where is she? And what is her name if they didn't call her Emilia?
Shalimar walks out of the lab and into the living area. She finds a note on the coffee table explaining that Brennan and Jesse are shopping and Adam went out to meet someone. All of them would be back in a few hours. Shalimar smiles, she has been wanting to explore what Jesse called a storage closet. Shalimar presses a four-digit code that opens the drawer of a desk. The desk has a master key to every room in Sanctuary.
Shalimar enters the room the voice wants her to explore. Her spirits crash hard to the ground when she realizes it is just a storage closet. Shalimar begins to step in, but when a spider crawls over her foot she jumps back. "Don't always believe your eyes," the voice's warning replays in her head. Shalimar steps in the room again and once again a spider crawls over her foot. This incident doesn't strike Shalimar as a coincidence. She steps back and walks in again. Once again the same spider crawls over her foot. This time Shalimar walks all the way into the room. She shuts her eyes and begins to feel around like a blind person.
When she reaches her hand over and expects to feel boxes she actually feels a dresser. Shalimar continues to feel around the room. Not once does she ever feel a box or anything that would be in a storage closet. Shalimar knows she is in the young woman's room. The safe feeling envelops her again. Memories come with every object touched. A variety surface. From having fun with the girl to getting into sisterly quarrels. Shalimar stops when something hits her shins. She opens here eyes and is surprised to see the room in its real image. Not the illusion of the storage closet. Shalimar looks down at what hit her shins. It is the bed of the young woman. Shal looks around the bedroom. Her eyes stop when she sees a picture. It is of the Mutant X team, all of them. Including the red haired woman.
Shalimar runs into her room and begins to pick up pictures. Three days ago she couldn't see that girl in any of the pictures she's holding to her face. Illusions she thinks to herself they were all illusions. Despite the severe headache Shalimar runs back into the young woman's room. She starts opening drawers and searching through her stuff. She is looking for something with the girl's name on it.
"Don't," the voice shouts, stopping Shalimar dead in her tracks.
Shalimar's breathing comes in short gasps. When she catches her breath she asks, "you can talk to me in my waking world too?"
"Yes, Shalimar," the voice answers, "I am a psionic."
"Just like her," Shal says. "What is her name?" she demands.
"I can't tell you that now. If I do it'll bring back too many memories too fast. Then your body will be under such rigorous stress that your brain will shut down and you will die. Am I clear?" he asks firmly.
"Crystal," Shal says angrily and sits on the woman's bed.
"Patience isn't one of your strong characteristics is it?" the voice asks.
"Not really," she answers. "Where are you from?" Shal asks suddenly.
"What makes you ask that?" the voice questions.
"I can tell your trying to hide an accent," Shal confesses.
"You'll learn everything you want to know about me soon. I promise," the voice says.
Shalimar feels her cheek being kissed and then the presence of the voice leaves her. Shalimar lays down on the young woman's bed. She shuts her eyes and lets all the precious memories come to her. Shal soon falls asleep in the room she has a comforting feeling in.
"Why the heck is she sleeping in a storage closet?" Shal hears Jesse ask.
"I don't know. This place is horrible. A spider crawled over my foot when I walked in," Brennan's voice responds.
"She's been doing a lot of strange stuff this past week," Jesse says as Shalimar feels her body being lifted up.
"Adam says it has to do with that Emilia girl we found in the cave."
Shalimar feels herself being lowered to her own bed. "Her name's not Emilia," she mumbles from sleepiness.
"Oh yeah than what is her name," Jesse challenges.
"I don't know," Shal says and falls asleep.
When Shalimar wakes up it is almost three in the afternoon. Shal goes to the kitchen to fill her empty stomach, but remains scarce in her bedroom for the next few hours. Once she feels she has remained isolated enough Shal stands in the hallway and listens to the men talking.
"You know who I think has a nice butt," Brennan says to Jesse, "is Gwenyth Paltrow."
"Only after you saw that one movie. What was it?"
"Shallow Hal?" Brennan says confused.
"No, no, that one that used to be a really old book."
"Oh yeah," Brennan remembers.
"What was it called?" Jesse asks.
"Emma," Brennan answers.
Both men turn their heads when they hear Shalimar scream in pain and collapse to the floor.
Too many memories are coming to her at once. Shalimar feels like a heavy weight is pressing down on her body. Shal feels strong arms lifting her into a sitting position. She knows it's the voice.
"I'm going to die," she cries against all the noise in her head.
"Not if I can help it," the voice says.
The voice puts a protective psionic bubble around her. Shal watches as all around her pictures keep coming at the speed of light. Now Shal doesn't have to go through and feel every single memory.
"What are you doing?" Shal asks after she catches her breath.
"I'm detaching you from the memories," the voice tells her, "If every thing goes right when I release the bubble the memories will be there like they were never gone."
"Will you be okay?" Shalimar asks worriedly.
"I should be," the voice, answers.
Shalimar and the voice sit holding each other.
"Her name is Emma," Shalimar says after a few moments silence.
"Yes it is. Emma de Lauro," the voice assures her.
"We were best friends," Shal says quietly.
"She was a good friend to all of you," the voice says.
"Please don't refer to her in the past tense," Shal begs.
"Okay precious I wont." The voice watches as the memories slow down. He waits until the speed lowers down to a manageable one; the voice lets the bubble drop.
"You'll be okay, just badly sore when you wake up."
Badly sore was an understatement when it feels like someone has a tight grip on all of her muscles. Shalimar ignores it and focuses on everything else around her. The boys are moving around her fast giving her medical treatment. Shalimar gets up and pushes past all the arms trying to pull her back down in the chair in the lab. Shal rushes out of the lab and into the living room.
"We have to find her," she cries frantically.
"Find who?" Adam asks, reaching for her arm, but Shal pulls it away.
"Emilia, we all call her Emma. Her dad has her and he's torturing her," Shal yells.
Shal begins to pace. Adam tries one more time to get her arms. Again, Shal pulls away. Only this time she tries to run out of Sanctuary. Brennan grabs her first. Shal uses her feral strength to push past him. Jesse comes from behind and restrains her, massing his arms so she won't get away. He then drags her to the back of the living room.
Adam holds and injector full of a sedative, but wants to try talking to her first. "Shalimar, we didn't know her and I am certain of that. She is dead you are just going to have to accept that."
"NO Adam she's not…"
"People can't come back from the dead," Adam argues.
"Trust me Adam they can. She's done it once and now her older brother has caused her to do it the second time," Shalimar says, continuing to struggle in Jesse's arms.
"Where are you getting this," he demands.
"Someone told me," Shal snaps, ceasing her struggle and settling for staring at the floor.
"Who?"
"I did."
Everyone gasps Shalimar looks up. There is the voice, standing in front of the living room in the flesh.
