A/N: Sorry for the update delay, and sorry that this is a rather short chapter! But there's a clue or two below as to who's (partly) responsible for the shenanigans that has been going on... yes, I know, finally. Can you guess who? Enjoy!

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

::Rachel::

The first sensation that hit me was a wave of excruciating pain in my head. Like somebody was drilling a hole into my skull...

"AHHHHH!"

Even before I opened my eyes, I could feel it. The pain, the restraint...

The fear.

Jake and Cassie had described this feeling before...

Was I a Controller?

I opened my eyes.

By myself. Thank God!

I was crouched against the wall of a dimly-lit, bare room with grubby surfaces. There were no windows, and the only light source came from a single light bulb hanging from the centre of the ceiling, and it cast an eerie glow, luminating the only other object in the room.

A television screen.

It was a small one, blank, but its presence was so weird that my curiosity was...

"Ss!" I hissed as I realised what situation I was in. I was bound by wires, all coiled up tightly around me and biting into my skin. I could barely even move with the pressure of the metal against me.

What happened?

Panic was rising in me. I could barely remember what had happened, but right now, I just had to get out of here. Morph, Rachel, morph! Fly. I had to go housefly to go past the door, underneath it...

"Ahhh!"

I stared in disbelief at the wires around me. They weren't even connected to anything. How did I feel...

I screamed again as I tried to concentrate on my morph. After three tries, the electric shocks from the wires proved too much to handle, and my head collapsed against the wall.

Come on, Rachel... you're Xena, Warrior Princess. This little bit of pain is not supposed to get you down!

But I just could not summon that kind of strength.

Just then, the television screen flickered slightly. Static buzzed in my ears as I stared hard at the screen that now showed a scene...

A scene that almost made me jerk in incredulity, for the surroundings of the room featured was exactly like where I was. For a moment, I thought I was watching myself and some sick pervert was spying on me.

Then I realised something even more sickening.

It wasn't me in the video being screened.

It was Tobias.

He was curled up in the corner, but shortly after, he began to shift - and then, he was completely conscious and began to survey his surroundings.

"Tobias!" I gasped, but of course he couldn't hear me. I tried to shuffle forward, but only succeeded in moving an inch or two.

"What is this?" I screamed, struggling in futility.

There was no answer. I looked around to see if there was a camera of sorts, like the one in Tobias's room, but I couldn't see any.

Squinting back at the television screen, I could make out that - despite the fuzziness - Tobias was actually bruised and cut - and really, really mad. Unlike me, he was not restrained, and that simply led to him running towards the door and banging heavily on it, yelling,

"Who the hell are you? Let me out!"

Had Cam caught up with Tobias and thrown him here? Were the others caught and turned into Controllers? My blood ran cold at the thought of that.

A vague memory of colliding into something mid-air came back to me. It wasn't an object for sure. It had felt like a living thing. It had to be a bird. It must have been a bird out to have me for lunch. But that didn't seem very right either. Birds-of-prey attack from the top; they don't ram into you and knock you out like that.

I was scared to death, but that didn't stop my mind from working furiously. And it sure didn't stop me from noticing the strange differences between Tobias's and my situations. Here I was, able to see him, but there was no screen in his room and he was free to move.

Then again, Tobias could not morph, so it made no difference.

Whoever did this knew. But how could they? Did Visser Three guess?

"Please..." I found myself whimpering. No, Rachel, you can't give in to your fear! But as it was, watching a hurt Tobias rage about in the room made me feel so helpless. Time after time, he'd be hurt by our enemies and it would take a feral insanity within me to charge ahead, even at the risk of everybody else's lives. I would screw up the mission. For him. Yet now, I could barely move an inch and god knows if our captor would burst into the room any moment and torture him, hurt him, even kill him, and I would be watching helplessly, angrily, fearfully...

Why was there a screen in my room, for me to watch all of this?

Why was there none in Tobias's room?

"Tobias!" I cried once more.

"Get me out of here!" yelled Tobias, a millisecond after I yelled.

I could hear Tobias's cries for help, his rage, his own helplessness.

He couldn't hear mine.

I watched as he winced and brought his hand to the side of his face. Then he held his hand away and it appeared dark-coloured. He was wounded worse than I thought, but being battle-hardened Tobias, he ignored it and continued to yell and bang hard on the door.

The light bulb above switched off, engulfing me in darkness except for the dim light radiating from the television screen. But the light bulb in my head was blinking.

Whoever caught us knew us. But whoever it was didn't just know us; he or she knew me. He, or she, or it, knew that for me to watch Tobias suffer would be the most hurtful thing in the world.

This wasn't the work of Visser Three. The bird in mid-air... that wasn't a Yeerk's doing.

It began to dawn on me.

Whoever it was wasn't really torturing Tobias; it was me it was after.

I gasped a little.

"Help me! Help meeeee!"

No. No.

No!

I could feel the tears well up in my eyes as fear threatened to overload my entire nervous system. My eyes darted around fearfully, but with the light off, it was harder to spot any hidden camera. The horrid feeling of disgust and complete horror was creeping over my skin like an unwanted layer as the voice in my head screamed for help over and over again.

My conscience was coming back to haunt me, and this time, it would kill Tobias.