Pretense

Chapter Six

Serrated

            Lyle pressed the button to answer the videophone call, unsure of why he was so apprehensive.  Jarod was supposed to call back after he did his whole pretender thing, so it was probably just Jarod.  Still, Lyle's heart was pounding when he answered the phone.  Something inside of him, maybe that inner sense thing that Miss Parker had 'inherited', was warning him of the phone call.  He didn't want to see what he was going to.  The screen focused and Lyle saw Samarah looking pitiful and pained. 

"Hello, Mr. Lyle.  I bet you're glad to see Samarah alive and all."

"I suppose I am, Cade.  But I'm sort of disappointed to see you the same."

"Ouch.  That hurts.  Of course it doesn't hurt as much as what I'm about to do to Samarah here.  I bet you're wishing you had killed me when you had the chance.  You came close a couple of times.  Just a few more minutes with me and I would have been dead."
"What are you talking about?"

"So many of those experiments you performed on me almost killed me.  Samarah knows all about those experiments."

Samarah was struggling from where she lay and Lyle could see she was trying to sit up.

"Yes, Cade.  I know exactly what you're talking about, which is why I don't understand why you want to hurt me.  I am you.  Except I'm a girl."
"And you escaped.  Besides, Lyle gave you special treatment since you were putting out for him.  Men are like that, aren't they?"

Cade's eyes were glittering dangerously.  Lyle watched as Cade lifted up a sharp edged knife.   The silver winked at Lyle from the small light that the camera shone on it. 
"You remember this knife, don't you, Lyle?  It was one of your favorites.  Do you remember what you used to do to me with it?"

Lyle's heart dropped into his stomach.  He felt nauseous and fearful all at once.  He did remember it.  He remembered how he had used it.  He remembered the experiment.

"You were testing pain thresholds.  I'm surprised I have to jog your memory.  You seemed like you enjoyed this experiment a lot.  You'd keep me awake for days and then you'd cut me.  Very planned places where you cut me.  Then you'd let me start to heal and you'd do it all over again.  You wanted to see how much torture I could withhold before I would start agreeing to anything.  You wanted to know if I would betray the Centre if I was caught on one of my missions-"

"I remember, Cade.  I recognize the knife."
"It was your favorite.  It has the serrated edges."

"Did you steal it on your way out of The Centre?"

"Something like that."

Lyle watched in horror as Cade walked slowly to Samarah and pulled her up by her hair.  Samarah bit hard on her lip to avoid screaming out.  She wasn't going to give Cade the pleasure of hearing her in pain.  She wouldn't let him know how much she was hurting.  That would just give Cade more pleasure.  She tried to avoid looking straight into the camera.  If Lyle saw her eyes, he would know how scared she was.  That would be enough to break him, if he did still love her, like Cade claimed.  But she did glance into it once, whether it was subconscious or not, she wasn't sure.  Her eyes locked with Lyle's and then she knew Cade was telling the truth.  Even after all that Lyle had done, he did love her.  She saw his jaw tighten, a sure sign that Lyle was ready to crawl through the computer and strangle Cade.

"Let's find out what Samarah's pain threshold is.  I even let her sleep while she was here, so it should be higher."

Cade focused on the knife and shot it over towards Samarah.  He flicked his eyes and sliced the knife across her stomach.  A thin red line seeped over her pale skin.  Lyle watched the blood start to spill out and he wished he knew where Cade was.  He had killed people before, but he knew he hadn't enjoyed it as much as he would enjoy killing this guy.  He didn't care what he'd done to Cade.  He was going to make sure Cade's death was slow and painful.  And he was going to love every minute of it.  Cade sliced another line on her stomach and then another and another, making a square.  Then he dragged the knife down the square, making an X. 

"That'll make a cool scar when it heals, Samarah.  Mine were never interesting.  Just random cuts."

Samarah didn't respond.  She simply stared at him with mixed horror and bravery in her eyes.  Cade held out his hand and the knife flew to him.  He dropped it on the table.

"I hope you find me soon, Lyle.  I'd hate to have to call you every hour and make a new design on her.  She'll run out of room on her skin and then what would there be left for me to do?  Slit her throat?  Stab her in the heart?  I guess we'll find out."

Before Lyle could say anything else, Cade disconnected the phone call.

            Jarod sat in the middle of his hotel, trying his best to focus on Cade.  He wondered if his pretending block had come because he was emotionally involved.  Usually, finding people didn't have to do with anyone he knew or pretending to be someone he knew.  He sighed and tried his best to recreate what had happened.  He and Samarah had been talking about Lyle and Cade by the computer.  The door had opened suddenly and before Jarod had known what was happening, he had been on the floor. What had Cade done?  He had knocked him over the head.  Samarah hadn't really had the chance to react when Cade had grabbed her.  What had he done to make Samarah not fight him?  He had used chloroform.  Jarod could feel Samarah in his arms, slumped and heavy.  He had dragged her out the door and into a car before driving back to his hotel room.  He was in this area.  In the Delaware area, near Blue Cove.  If he were Cade, he would go to a small, unobtrusive hotel, one that no one really noticed.  He would have to be able to get to his room without going through a lobby.  People would notice a man carrying an unconscious woman through the hotel.  So it must have been like a Holiday Inn or something.  Jarod pulled out his map of Delaware.  Cade wouldn't stay in Blue Cove.  That would be too easy for Lyle to find him, to trace him.  He wanted Lyle to squirm, wondering where Samarah was.  But Cade wouldn't have gone to far from Blue Cove.  Ashworth, maybe?  Or Collington.  Collington.  That's where Cade would have gone.  It was about 30 miles away from Blue Cove; close enough to taunt Lyle, far enough away to be safe for a while.  Jarod smiled triumphantly and hurried to the door, ignoring the throbbing pain that remained in his head.

            Lyle had never felt so angry and helpless all at once.  Not even when he had been Bobby Bowman.  Watching Cade cut Samarah had been too much.  He had seen the pleasure on Cade's face and it made Lyle scared.  Cade would kill Samarah just for fun.  She was caught in the middle of him and his subject once again.  Didn't Cade know that Samarah had been disgusted by what he'd been doing?  Cade seemed to know everything else, so he had to know that Samarah had run away after finding out what he had been doing to Cade.  Why was he taking it all out on her?  She'd been through the same thing Cade had.  Lyle took a deep breath to calm himself, but all that seemed to do was put fuel on the fire inside of him.  He slammed his fist on the glass desk hard enough to shatter the area he'd hit.  He looked up, ignoring his bloody hand, to see Miss Parker watching him sympathetically.  That was ironic, Parker looking at him sympathetically. 

"Don't do that."

"Do what, Lyle?"

"Sympathize.  It's weird.  You hate me.  It's the natural order of things."
"Samarah was just tortured.  That deserves some sympathy.  Besides, it wasn't for you, it was for Samarah."
"Whatever."  Lyle walked to Angelo and sat down in front of him.  Angelo stared at him as if not seeing him at all.  Lyle shook him roughly and he watched Angelo's head lull back and forth.  There would be no reaching the empath.  Angelo didn't want to be reached.  Lyle felt Sydney's hand on his shoulder, but he shrugged it away.  He stood up and looked at Parker. 

"I wanted her to escape so long ago.  I was the one who helped her come up with the plan.  But did you know she wouldn't leave me behind?  She said she couldn't leave The Centre if I wasn't there with her.  So she refused to go, even though I'd come up with this whole idea of how it could be done."

Miss Parker folded her arms, shifting her weight to one side.  She hadn't expected Lyle to start opening up to her or Sydney or Broots.  Lyle wasn't that type.  None of them were, except maybe Broots.  She asked questions anyway.  She had been wondering about it.

"You knew where she was this whole time?"
"I didn't know her exact location, but I knew how she got away.  It was my plan. She just didn't use it until a year after I had told her about it.  She left because of Cade.  She found out I was working for The Centre, working on the projects like her.  It disgusted her.  I disgusted her.  She left about a month after she found out.  I didn't go after her and I didn't turn her in.  It was better that way.  She never deserved to be locked up the way she was."

"And Cade did?  Jarod?  Kyle?  Angelo does?"

"It's not up to me.  Not all of them.  Jarod and Kyle are gone anyway."
"Kyle's dead after you killed him."
"Yes.  And Cade escaped.  So Angelo's the only one smart enough to stick around here.  Or dumb enough."

Angelo's head cocked to the side at the mention of his name.  Lyle wondered if he was responding again, if he had come back into the regular world instead of that world he seemed to fall into when he was empathing someone.  Still, Angelo made no other movements, so Lyle decided Angelo wasn't coming out of it.

"I don't think Angelo's so dumb, Lyle."
"Maybe he isn't.  Maybe he just acts like he is."

"Maybe."  Miss Parker was agreeing with him?  It worried the both of them.  They had never been one to bond like a brother and sister would.  They took sibling rivalry to a whole new level, a nearly deadly one.  And that would never change, even if they did bond that night.

"How did Samarah escape, Lyle?"

He shook his head.  He wouldn't tell.  He couldn't.  It could put Samarah in more danger than she already was.  They needed to concentrate on finding Cade, not on Samarah's disappearance from The Centre.  If the sweepers found Cade first, Samarah would be locked up again and punished for running off.  The Centre almost expected her to be indebted to them.  Samarah had been an orphan and they had saved her.  Yeah, right.

"It doesn't matter now, Sis.  It was a long time ago that she escaped and-"

A sudden movement cut him off.  Angelo was on his feet and running towards the air vent.  Was he trying to escape now?

"Jarod!  Jarod!  Jarod!"

Miss Parker perked up and started to follow Angelo.  He was in the air vent now.  She glanced back at Lyle, Sydney and Broots.  She sighed loudly.

"If any of you perverts look up my skirt, I will shoot you."

She crawled in after Angelo and soon, Lyle and the others were following Angelo through a maze of aluminum.

            Samarah seemed dazed now.  The blood had crusted over her cuts and all she could do was fear Cade's return.  She was too weak to leave now.  Cade had managed to cut her in all the right places to instigate some severe blood loss.  She realized then that Cade didn't care if she survived or not.  Cade wasn't just using her to bring Lyle here.  Cade wanted to kill her.  And she had no way to escape.  Her memory was foggy, her entire body almost felt like she was floating.  She could almost recollect a time when escape had been discussed.  Escape from here?  No, from The Centre.  Lyle's beaming face as he told her his plan to get her out of The Centre.  How foolish she had been to wait to leave.  She had thought that staying behind with Lyle would be worth it.  It hadn't been worth it.  At least she'd finally left.  And Lyle hadn't come after her.

The door shut with a resounding click in the near silent hallway.  Samarah had always wondered if other people stayed in the rooms down the hall, but she'd never known.  She hadn't picked up on any other people around her room except for the sweepers.  She smiled at Lyle, she had no doubt it was him.  He tended to visit at the same time every other night. 

"Lyle!"

"I've come up with it, baby girl.  I know how to get you out of here without implicating me and it's a way you'll be gone and they'll never find you."

"What?'
She was on her feet now and in Lyle's arms.  He seemed incredibly proud of his plan, but she didn't know how he thought she would leave without him.  She had just found him.

"You're next mission is to be a teacher, right?'
"Yeah."

"Well, when you show up, you can go to the police.  Tell them you've been followed for a while and they'll start protecting you.  With the police on you all the time, the sweepers won't approach immediately.  Then, you can disappear from your apartment.  You'll be a missing person and you can start over with a brand new identity."
"Until the sweepers catch up with me."
"I can distract them."
"How?"
"I can give them a location on Jarod."

"Jarod?  You know where he is?'
"No, but I can't pretend like I do.  I can even set it up like Jarod does, with a red notebook and everything.  Jarod is number one priority; you'd be placed down to number two.  They'll try to pick up your trail, but it'll be cold.  They won't be able to find you.  And they won't suspect me.  Even if they did, I can stave them off.  It won't matter, Samarah, and you won't have to be locked in here.   You'll be free."
"I'll be without you."
"Doesn't matter. You won't be isolated anymore.  You can have a real life, Samarah.  That's what is important."
"Lyle, I love you."  His smile was bitter and more mature than the first time she'd met him.  He used to look almost impish when he grinned, but now, not nearly so.
"I love you, too.  Which is why you have to leave.  We don't matter.  We're not meant to be together.  We have to put you first.  This isn't a relationship, me sneaking in to see you.  It just isn't real enough. You have this chance, Samarah, to get out of here.  You have to take it."

Samarah shook her head and pulled away from him.
"I won't leave you.  I don't care what you say. I know this is real. You know it is, too.  I don't know what I'd do out there, Lyle.  I've been in here my whole life.  I've been alone my whole life and I'm tired of it.  I haven't been alone since you've been here and I refuse to let that go.  I'd rather stay here than leave without you."

"Samarah, don't be stubborn."

"I've always been stubborn."  She said, her eyes glittering.  She looked away from him when she saw the seriousness on his face.
"Will stop it, will you?"

"I don't think it's possible."  Lyle laughed lightly, but stopped short.  He squeezed her hands, then forced her to look at him.  His face was somber, no trace of the man she'd always known.  Little did she know, that was the look Lyle would adopt when she did leave.

"I won't let you stay here your whole life, Samarah.  You're worth so much more than this."
"Well, maybe one day I'll leave.  Be ready to help me, with your plan, but I don't want to leave yet."

"You're crazy, you know that?  You're giving too much up."
"You've given stuff up for me, Lyle.  And that matters to me."
Lyle pressed his lips to hers in a severe, bruising kiss.

            She had left, using his plan.  After she'd learned about Project WYS and talked to Lyle about it, as soon as her next mission came around, she'd run.  Lyle hadn't come after her.  Lyle hadn't told them how she had escaped.  Luckily, when she had left, the chase for Jarod was more extreme than it had been before, so the sweepers were already distracted by Jarod.  They had looked for her, they had always looked for her, but they had never been close.  She cut off all contact once she'd settled down.  She'd accepted that she would be alone for the rest of her life and that she would always love the monster that experimented on projects, no matter what he did.  She'd been free for a few years, but Lyle had never been far from her thoughts.  And now this.  Her eyes closed as she remembered Lyle's kiss, tender and warm, or rough and passionate.  She faded back into the unconsciousness she had fallen into earlier.