Star Trek Voyager characters are the property of Paramount Pictures

Switched

Chapter 41

Music. The sweet sound of music filled Cayla's cell. It seemed to come from nowhere, yet everywhere, and played in the air like the fragrance of a memory. For the instrument was a flute and the music was a familiar melody, a melody Cayla had heard a million times. Slowly, she raised herself off the floor and listened to the haunting sound of yesterday. Then Lacey's voice spoke eerily over the music.

"Do you remember this, Cayla? It was our parents' favorite symphony. Every time I hear it, every time I play it, I remember them. If I close my eyes now I can see them...Mother playing a silver violin, her hair dancing with the rhythm, and Father playing the piano. If I look a little further I can see myself standing beside them, a girl of sixteen with red hair and freckles, playing the flute so harmoniously. I can hear the audience clap, can see us all taking a bow to a standing ovation. But you? Where are you? A thousand miles away at St Vincent's, sitting in your dorm all alone. And all because you had no flair for music."

Cayla tearfully got to her feet and blindly addressed the air. "Don't play mind games with me, Taron! You won't break me. Do you hear? I won't be broken! I know you don't have Lacey. You can't! She's in space. So do what you want to me. Do it! Because I'm only too glad to die!"

"Just as you were when you were fifteen and tried to starve yourself to death?"

Cayla flinched. "How do you know about that?" A fear gripped her. "Do you have Lacey? Tell me! Because only Lacey would know that!"

The voice laughed. "Haven't you figured it out yet, Cayla? I don't need Lacey because I am Lacey. I'm Lacey and I'm Taron."

"Your mind games won't work," Cayla cried. "They won't work! I know who you are. I know!"

"Think about it, Cayla. How has Taron always known so much about you? How was Taron able to fix you up for jail so easily?"

Cayla span around. "I know you have ways and means, Taron! And I know you're Grant Merellus!"

"Yes, I'm Grant Merellus when it suits me, but Grant Merellus isn't me. I fixed you up. I fixed you up to arrest the wrong person. And then I fixed you up to pay for it. Because no one, not even my sister, messes with me and gets away with it."

"You're not my sister," Cayla cried. "Don't you dare pretend that you are!"

The music suddenly stopped and Lacey materialized before her. She was wearing a tight fitting shiny black outfit and her long ginger hair was loose over her shoulders.

"You're right," Lacey said. "I'm not your sister. A small matter of DNA frees me from that yoke. But I am Taron."

"You're not," Cayla cried. "You're a hologram." She looked up and around. "And I'm not fooled, Taron! Do you hear? Your sick games are not working on me!"

"Oh but they are," Lacey smiled. "Better than I could ever have hoped for. And I'm relishing every single second. Your face when you thought I was captured, your cries when I was dragged away, thrilled me to the core."

"Lacey would never do such a thing," Cayla answered. "Lacey loves me."

"Is that what you think? I've never loved you, Cayla. I've never even liked you. You've never been anything but a nuisance to me."

Cayla turned away from her. "I'm not listening. Show your real face, Taron! Show it!"

"But it's here," Lacey said, walking into her view again. "Right before you. I've always been right before you." She clicked her fingers and the music began to play again. "Remember the music, Cayla. Remember how desperately you tried to play the flute. All night you played, every night, desperate to impress our parents by getting into the school orchestra. But you didn't get in, you didn't even pass the first audition. How you cried then, how you begged me to help you. And what did I say? Go to hell, Cayla."

Cayla stared at Lacey for a long moment and then sank to the ground. "You have her," she wept. "You have Lacey. Oh God!"

Roughly, Lacey grabbed Cayla's hair and pulled up her head. "I don't have her, Cayla. I am her. Your Lacey is Taron."

"No," Cayla sobbed. "I don't believe it."

"Then let me convince you." She took out a knife and sliced her palm till it bled. "See, Cayla? I bleed." She then put her hand over Cayla's mouth, smearing her lips with blood. "Feel how real I am, taste it!"

The blood, the all too real blood, trickled into Cayla's mouth and she turned away in agony. "No," she wept. "You can't be. You can't be my Lacey."

"I am. I always have been. But don't call me your Lacey. I've never been your Lacey."

"But Lacey's in space. You're not her...you can't be."

"That's your trouble, Cayla. That's the world's trouble. You can't see the truth for ignorant assumptions. How well it conformed to your vision of the world for Taron to be an ex-convict like Grant Merellus. Who else would Taron be but a druggy and a thug? How about a mother, a music teacher, a perfect citizen of society? Oh no. Look at the losers, why don't we? Taron has to be there! Well, newsflash for you! Taron wasn't there. Taron was here, in me, in Lacey, all those years. Why do you think I married Starfleet men? Because I wanted the world to think I was in space with them when I wasn't. Why do you think I put my kids in St Vincent's? For old time's sake? Oh no! Because then I'd be free to do my own thing. You should never take things at face value, Cayla. Never! But you always do. The world always does. And that's why I've never been discovered."

Cayla buried her head in her knees. "I don't...I don't believe you."

"But you're starting too, aren't you? Because think about it, Cayla. Why were you able to get into my head better than any one else? Because you knew me. You didn't know you knew me, but you did. Don't you see? The dots were right before your eyes all the time. You just couldn't join them up to spell my name. Oh you tried, so hard you tried, but you never got further than a V. Well, it's not a V, Cayla. Turn it 90 degrees clockwise and you'll find it's an L. An L for Lacey."

Cayla made no reply, just sobbed.

"What's the matter? The truth finally hit home? Yes. I see that it has. And the truth hurts, doesn't it? Well, I've got some more home truths for you. Who do you think got social services onto your kids? That's right, me. It's amazing what the tears of a concerned sister will do. The rest you did yourself. What happened, Cayla? Was prison too much for you? Was it? Yet how eager you were to send others there! You're pathetic, Cayla. You've always been pathetic. A pathetic little goody two shoes. 'Don't do that, Lacey. Don't do this, Lacey. Don't be a slut, Lacey.' Well, who's the slut now? At least my kids have a father, what about yours? Oh yes, that's right. They don't even have their mother."

Cayla said nothing, did nothing, just wept brokenly.

"You see, Cayla," Lacey continued, "the difference between us is that when the times get tough I get tougher, but you collapse in a heap. Just like you have now. That's why it took me so long to figure out you were Vonra. It never occurred to me that you'd get yourself so far out of the gutter to strike back at me. So, well done, you fooled me. It's just unfortunate for you that Janeway came back and got a knifing for the crimes that were yours. But for me it was a fortunate accident as it lead me straight to you. And boy did I laugh. My arch enemy Vonra was my own sister! You see? I could laugh. I could relish in the irony. But you? You're a blubbering wreck on the floor."

Lacey then put her knife back into its case and moved around Cayla.

"But then I've never soaked my brain in booze the way you have, never shot myself up. Because that's another difference between us. I've never taken the stuff I traffic. Drugs are for drop outs like you. Do you think I could run my empire if I did? Oh no, my brain would be fried. You once said that if I only applied myself I could do great things. Well, I've done great things. Not on your side of the law, maybe, but great nonetheless. I'm the most powerful of the powerful drug lords and my name is feared everywhere. My name, Taron. And I've always been Taron. You and your suits thought I was Ranto, but Ranto was an anagram I put out there when you started to tighten the net. But I got through it, slipped right out, and went from strength to strength while you rotted in jail." She knelt beside Cayla and yanked up her head. "Well, don't you have anything to say? Nothing?"

Cayla looked at her with terrible pain in her eyes. "Why?" she asked tearfully. "Why do you... do it?"

"Why do you think? For the thrill."

A tear ran down Cayla's cheek. "I loved you. I'd have died for you."

"Yes, and you never got it into your head that I couldn't care less about you. 'Let me come with you, Lacey,' you'd say, 'Let me join in, Lacey.' Why couldn't you ever understand that I didn't want you around? No one wanted you around. Not our parents, not our schoolmates. That's why you were in that dorm, alone, all the time." Lacey then got to her feet. "But, for the affecting concern you showed when you thought I was taken, I'll lessen your sentence. Because it was going to be very horrible. Very horrible indeed. First there was going to be torture and then I was going to let you starve to death, after all it was once your wish. But now I sentence you to quick execution." Victoriously, she pulled out her phaser and set it to kill. "Prepare to meet the devil, sister. For heaven's too good for you."

Lacey then aimed the phaser at Cayla's head, but just as she was about to fire, the doors behind her opened and Gus came in.

"We have a problem," he said. "Janeway."

Lacey curled her lip and then turned back to Cayla. "Touching," she said. "A true show of sister solidarity. But she's too late. Your time is up." She raised up the phaser again and moved her finger to fire, but stopped before she did and lowered the weapon. "On second thoughts, I won't play my trump card just yet. I'll prolong the game. After all, that's all it's ever been. A game."

"Just do it!" Cayla cried. "Just kill me! Do it! Do it!"

Lacey laughed and looked icily into Cayla's eyes. "When I've had my fun, sister. And I have a feeling it's just beginning."

With that she put her phaser back into its pouch and left the room. As the black doors shut behind her, Cayla's sobs turned to desperate gasps and she clutched her chest as she suffocated from the agonizing pain there. Her sister was Taron. Her Lacey. And that truth, that horrifying truth, was too much to bear.

END OF CHAPTER 41