"I hope you're okay meeting here," Kim asked. She was sitting in the garden at Donovan Manor with Steve. She had asked Steve to come to the house for their session rather than have to hear a lecture from Shane about her safety. Thankfully, Steve had agreed to come over, even if he had not seemed particularly happy at the thought.

"I guess it's okay," Steve said. He glanced around. "I guess Shane's got you locked up pretty tight right now."

"More Andrew than me." Kim thought about the past few days. There were ISA agents parked in front of the house, and she suspected others were keeping watch from the lakeside, maybe from one of the boats moored nearby.

Steve shoved his hands into the pockets of his leather jacket, which raised some mixed emotions in Km. While she wanted to smile at such a sign of normalcy - Steve just had never seemed completely "whole" without his jacket - it also reminded her how so many things seemed to be returning to how they should have always been for her loved ones, while her own life seemed so off-the-rails. The thought fled her mind, though, when Steve shuffled his feet. He was her priority right now, and she could tell he was uncomfortable being here.

"We could go to the pier if you want," she said.

"No, we're here. It's okay." He looked around quickly. "Shane's not here, is he?"

Kim stopped herself from rolling her eyes. "No. He took Andrew for a ride." She was glad about that. It was the first time since the school shooting that Andrew had been allowed to leave the house or the back garden, and she could tell that he was not happy at being cooped up in the house. But that was not her focus right now. "Shane had Andrew's new pony sent over from England."

Steve shook his head. "Some guys get all the breaks," he muttered.

"What does that mean?" Kim watched him carefully as he continued to pace. She had an idea there was something Steve wanted to get off his chest.

"Look at this place," he said. "I'm scrambling to get some lousy warehouse job right now and Donovan. . . . You think he's ever had to worry about paying rent or where his next meal's coming from?"

Kim looked down. She understood what Steve was not saying. A lot of Steve's old insecurities about his background had surfaced in England when he had learned of Kayla's relationship with Shane. It looked like they had arisen anew since their return to Salem. Kim knew it was a touchy subject, so she tried to respond carefully. "I don't think it's my place to talk about Shane," she said. "I do know that Kayla loves you, and she couldn't care less about where you live or whether she's eating peanut butter on crackers or filet mignon."

Steve kicked the ground. "That's what she keeps telling me," he said slowly. "She's not really happy with me."

"Because you're talking to me, not her?" Kim recalled Kayla's frustration the week before at their parents' house.

Steve nodded. "She doesn't understand really. I told her that I need to work things out for myself, and she thinks it means I don't trust her. She can't get that I'm trying to protect her."

"Kayla's never been a shrinking violet," Kim said.

"But what if I hurt her? You've seen me. I keep losing it."

That was true, but Steve had been improving. "I don't think you'll hurt her. You're getting more control of things and I bet, if something happens, Kayla could talk you out of it." Kim hesitated, before adding, "Just tell her not to grab your hands or wrists."

"What about my wrists?" Steve looked at Kim with a puzzled expression.

He doesn't even realize it, Kim thought. "Something about what happened causes you to focus on being restrained," she said, taking care not to trigger any specific memories for the moment. "In most of the flashbacks, you start clenching your fists and pulling against something. I suspect it's a restraint."

Steve's eyes widened. "I do that?"

"Usually," Kim said, but she also recalled how Steve had crouched against the pylon on the pier at one of their early sessions. That was not a reaction she had been able to tie to anything he had told her yet. "It's not really that big of a deal though, and if you warn Kayla, I'm sure she'll be able to handle things. Look . . . I can't tell you what to do with Kayla. It has to be your decision, Steve." Kim smiled. "Listen, maybe we should just let things go for today."

"No." Steve shook his head. "There's something I've been wanting to tell you about."

Kim watched him, noticing that he was shaking a little. "It's okay, Steve. Why don't you go ahead?" She debated suggesting he sit down, but she knew he would decline. There were times when Steve was a ball of frenetic energy that kept him constantly in motion. This was one of those times.

"All right . . . I know we talked about some of the places they took me to early on - you know, where they tested the virus on me. It's just I've been thinking about the last place."

"The last place Lawrence's people took you?" Kim asked.

Steve nodded. "Yeah, it was in Egypt. At least that's what Shane and Deakins said."

"Who's Deakins?"

"He's one of the soldiers that pulled me out of that hellhole." Steve took a deep breath and Kim could tell he was working on calming himself. It was a technique she had showed him to combat the flashbacks. Take deep breaths and count to 20. "Anyway, he told me it was Egypt. . . . I'd been there for a while. Several weeks, I guess. It was a little different than the other places, because I was moved around a lot. They didn't just keep me in a locked room."

Kim listened carefully. "Where did they keep you?"

"In a storage closet," Steve said, seeming almost embarrassed. "They'd pull me out of it when they needed me for testing."

"Testing? More of the virus?"

With a shake of his head, Steve said, "I don't think so. Least, not the same virus. This stuff was different. They'd take me to this building in the center of the camp and. . . ." He paused and took a few more deep breaths. ". . . restrain me. But not tied down on a bed. They'd tie my hands behind my back and a couple of the guards would hold me up - keep me standing." He paused as he remembered. "First, they'd put this mask over my face, but I don't think anything ever happened. At least, I don't think so. I could hear yelling from the other side of a wall, so I assume they were watching and expecting something to happen."

Kim listened, but did not prod him. Steve seemed okay and she did not want to interrupt his memories.

Steve continued. "Anyway. . . when the mask thing didn't work, some guy in a white coat would come in and he'd give me a cup of this red stuff. The guards held me while they poured that crap down my throat." He paused again, taking some more deep breaths. "Don't know what it was, just that it was bad. At first, it just made me really weak and I had that weird feeling like when your foot falls asleep - you know that 'pins and needles' feeling - but it wasn't just in my feet. It was all over and it kept spreading. Then my vision got all blurry. I remember shaking all over, but it was a little more, stronger than just shaking."

"Like a convulsion?" Kim asked.

"Yeah . . . maybe that's what it was. After a few minutes, I got all sweaty and I tried to tell them to stop it, but I couldn't really talk. I know this sounds weird, but it's like my tongue got really heavy and I couldn't say anything. Oh, and, a couple of times, it got so hard to breathe; my chest got like really tight." As he spoke, Steve's chest started to heave and he gasped for breath.

"It's okay," Kim said, trying to soothe him. It seemed to have some effect, because he took a few quick breaths and then began breathing deeply.

Steve nodded. "I . . . I'm okay . . . That didn't always happen. There were times when I didn't feel that at all. And other times, I'd get so weak that I couldn't stay up and those damn guards . . . they'd just laugh at me when I fell. And I'd just stay there. Couldn't move a muscle."

He fell silent for awhile as Kim watched. Steve showed no signs of slipping into a flashback, so she just waited until he felt comfortable talking again.

"That's all that really happened there," he said. "After awhile - maybe when I didn't die - they'd come and pour something else down my throat and then drag me back to the closet to sleep it off."

After Steve finished, he looked at her and waited. When she said nothing, he asked, "So? No comment from the peanut gallery?"

Kim carefully pondered her answer. "I appreciate your telling me about this, but I do have a question."

"Ask away."

"Why did you want to tell me about this?" Kim asked. "We could've skipped the session or you could've let me ask you about some other things. But you wanted to tell me about that camp and that testing. Why?"

Steve shrugged. "I'm not sure. Maybe 'cause I think it's probably important. We could've spent the next two months discussing the virus, but it's been cured. That stuff - the red stuff - that's what Alamain's people were working on just a few weeks ago. With this stuff about Andrew, it just seemed we should cut to the chase." He paused again and looked away, out at the garden. "And maybe I wanted to test myself. . . . See if I could talk about it without losing it."

"You did a very good job with that," Kim said. "There were a couple of times, but you recognized them, didn't you?"

"Yeah . . . . I remembered what you said to do." Steve grew pensive. "Guess if I could talk about that, I can probably talk about other things. . . ."

Kim could have pushed him to reveal more, but she decided against it. The session had been very productive. There was just one more thing. "Steve-"

He cut her off. "You want to tell Donovan what I told you, don't you?" He heaved a sigh. "I guess you've gotta do it."

"If you're right and Lawrence is creating something new, it's probably for the best," Kim said. "The ISA probably's in the best position to figure out what he's planning. But I'll only tell him about what it did to you and, I guess, how they gave it to you. That's probably going to be a huge help to them." Silently, Kim thought her telling Shane about these tests also might help Steve. If she could pass along something important from their sessions, it would prove they were making progress, and the ISA might drop its threat to lock Steve up. But that was something she would raise with Shane. Right now, Steve needed some assurances. "I'll just tell him about the symptoms only. Everything else is just between you and me."

Steve paced around for a minute, thinking. Finally, he gave her a curt nod. "I appreciate that. . . . Okay, go ahead and tell him." Steve stomped around a little more, clearly agitated, then said, "I guess Shane and Andrew'll be back soon. If you don't mind. . . ."

Kim understood. It was okay for Shane to know Steve was meeting with her, but it would be quite different for Shane to see them. "Fine," she said, coming up with a convenient reason for Steve to leave. "I'm sure you probably want to get back to Stephanie."

"Yeah . . . that's right," Steve said. "We'll . . . um . . . we'll figure out another time - and place."

As Steve left, Kim pulled out a notepad and wrote down everything Steve had told her about the drug he had been given. Or poison. Or whatever it was. Just the thought that a sociopath like Lawrence Alamain was testing something that could hurt people in the manner Steve described chilled her to her very core. Finishing her notes, she stood up, still shivering a bit, and headed for the house. She would wait inside for Shane and give him her report as soon as he arrived back.

Kim just prayed that Shane and the ISA would figure out what Lawrence was planning and would stop him before he could hurt anyone else that she loved.