"Do you work for the Centre?"
"Keep driving." The woman's voice had grown more clipped with every order she'd barked at him in the last hour. In the dim glow of the car's panel lighting, Sydney caught her glance out the window once again at the passenger side mirror. Her gun, now switched over to her right hand, remained pointed at his abdomen just out of the sightline of other drivers. Not that there were many along this stretch of back road she'd directed him to, not at this time of night. By his estimation, Sydney would guess they were just west of the Maryland-Delaware border; but the convoluted route which she had provided gave no indication as to its final stop.
"You said you knew Jarod. That he needed my help!" Sydney didn't bother to keep the agitation out of his voice. The pretender's name had been dropped only once by the woman since this nightmarish road-trip had begun. A threat and a bribe to ensure his continued cooperation. She looked back over at him, an implacable expression stretched across her face.
If asked, Sydney might estimate her age to be roughly between mid-twenties and early thirties; her soft facial features weighing heavily towards the youthful end of that range. They belied the sharp intellect and experience she required to single-handedly complete an operation like this. Physically, he knew she was tall for a woman, easily matching Miss Parker's height in heels flat-footed, and athletically built beneath the long dark sweats she wore. Her chestnut brown hair was pulled back tightly from her face into a short but efficient ponytail, potentially a subconscious attempt to hone her appearance into something more mature looking.
"I did." She replied, her tone politer than before. "Or, more specifically, I need your help with Jarod…Wha- Hey! What are you-? What are you doing?!"
With. With Jarod. The words echoed through Sydney's system immediately seizing him with a recklessness he had not felt since Nicholas' kidnapping or his failed attempt at murdering Mr. Raines. Furious, primitive anger barreled its way past any barrier of common sense within him as he gripped the steering wheel tightly between his hands. A hard jerk to the right had the car careening towards the road's thin, graveled shoulder. Ignoring the woman's shout of alarm, he slammed the brakes, forcing the vehicle to a stop that tossed both occupants forward in their seats. Sydney slammed the gear into park, not bothering to kill the engine as he turned to face his kidnapper. He found the woman's gun leveled towards his head.
"Are you crazy?" She snarled, eyes flashing with a rage almost equal to his own. "You could have gotten us killed!"
"We're not going anywhere until you tell me who you are and where Jarod is."
The click of the turned off safety echoed in the sedan's small interior. "I am not in the mood to play games, doctor!" The emphasis on his title prodded at something in the back of Sydney's mind. "Now get back on the road."
It was Sydney's turn to look implacable. His attention moving from the gun to its owner, he simply said, "If you think this is the first time I've had a gun pointed at my face, you'll be sadly disappointed."
Her eyes narrowed. Her mouth opened as if she were about to speak and then closed again when no words came. Deadning silence filled the space between them as their stalemate stretched over seconds that felt like years. Finally, an aggravated snarl ended with a barely audible, "Fine. Three questions. That's it."
"Who are you?"
"My name is Laura." She snapped, sliding the gun into a hidden holster at her side. "Beyond that, you don't need to know. I don't work for the Centre, but I have worked for people just like them. People who are currently hunting Jarod as we speak."
Sydney's brow crinkled in confusion. "What are you talking about? No one outside the Centre even knows Jarod exists." The foolishness of the statement, after an almost three-year global cat-and-mouse chase, hit him a second later. He amended. "At least not in the capacity of research subject.'
She snorted. "Well, they do now, Doc. So, if you want to keep him safe -" Another furtive glance to the passenger side mirror. "I suggest we get back on the road."
Sydney wouldn't budge. "First, I want to know where we are going?"
"A cabin. Not far outside Millington. It was the safest place I could leave him to come and collect you."
A hundred scenarios flashed through Sydney's mind at once. Each collectively worse than the last. Jarod in various states of harm or distress. Jarod lying comatose on an old mattress alone in an abandoned woods lodge. Jarod dead.
"Please," This time he didn't bother to hide the waver in his voice, especially not after the last image. "Please, tell me what's happened."
Sympathy warred with frustration in the woman – Laura's – face. It was as if she could already see the worst of Sydney's imaginings but didn't know the words to scale them back properly for him. Loosing a deep sigh, she nodded.
"I don't have time to go into specifics here." She raised her hand, anticipating his outcry. "I will give them to you. But not here. All I can say is Jarod ran into some very…very bad people and it took a while for me to get him away from them. The problem is, they know me. Know my patterns. Know the usual places I go to ground. The cabin is secure for now –" She raised her other hand open-palmed. The gesture placating and demanding all at the same time. "But it won't be for long."
"How long will we have?"
"A day. Maybe two tops. Just keep following this road. The turnoff we're looking for should be available in about fifteen minutes. You'll see him at the end of it."
It hadn't missed the psychiatrist's observation she'd allowed him more than the three questions originally granted. Her answers, however, had only inspired more questions. Realizing she still held the advantage; Sydney sat back in his seat and yanked the throttle into drive. Years of working at the Centre had taught him it was safer to wait before picking his battle. Not even bothering to check if the way was clear, he merged back onto the road, racing to what he could only hope was Jarod's current location.
Laura proved true to her word. Less than fifteen minutes from their standoff, she directed him down an almost hidden dirt path, extending deep into the oak forest surrounding them. A path which wounds its way to an empty gravel plot beside a moderately sized hunter's cabin. A small storage garage sat on the far end of the property, visible only in the car's headlights.
"I know your first instinct will be to rush in there," Laura said as Sydney turned off the engine. "But, please, let me go in first."
Sydney nodded. A tight, wrenching knot of dread had begun to twist in his stomach the last leg of this bizarre journey. Thoughts, both rational and irrational, tried to make sense of the information he'd been given if only to formulate a plan in how best to get the pretender away from the stranger sitting beside him. One of the more disturbing, irrational ones considered the possibility this was all just one of Jarod's pranks. A thought quickly pushed aside for its rampant cruelty. It took Sydney a moment to realize that Laura was watching him expectantly.
"After you."
The gravel crunched beneath their feet as the pair approached the cabin. The front door sat at the far-left corner of the structure when facing the building; a moderate-sized window set in the same wall parallel to it. Dim light streamed through the cracks of the window's thick curtains, highlighting the chipped red paint of the porch's banister. Gently, Laura twisted the knob and nudged the door open a crack.
"Jarod." She called out, seeming to scan the room beyond for sign of him. "I'm back. I brought a friend. Someone to see you. I brought Sydney."
Pain clenched somewhere deep inside Sydney's chest. Nothing physical. Nothing so easily catalogued, measured, or analyzed despite decades of his very attempts to do so. It was the subtle shift in Laura's posture, uncertainty replacing the confidence of all her previous actions, which told the psychiatrist everything he needed to know. Whatever had happened to Jarod these last six months, she clearly wished not to make it worse. She motioned him to follow, stepping gingerly across the threshold. Sydney released the breath he hadn't realized he'd been holding and obeyed.
The cabin was roomier than its exterior implied. A kitchenette lined the wall to his right, complete with a small table beneath one of the room's three hanging lights and large enough for two people to eat together comfortably. The door to the main bedroom stood fully opened at the center of the wall opposite him. Across from the kitchen table, a blue-brown tartan upholstered sofa and sage green armchair sat around a moderately sized fireplace. But it was the figure huddled on the floor, knees drawn to his chest in front of the sofa, who drew Sydney's immediate attention.
"Jarod!"
Laura's arm shot out defensively, catching him mid-rush towards the younger man. A hiss of warning died on her lips as the pretender's head lifted at the sound, attention turning towards the source of his own name. As they made eye contact, a chill ran down Sydney's spine.
Predictably, if Laura was to be believed and Sydney was beginning to, Jarod had lost some muscle mass since their last encounter. Not as much as Sydney feared, but the gray t-shirt the pretender wore hung just this side of noticeably loose over likewise baggy blue sweatpants. A few days' growth of beard and fly-away strands of hair, also longer than the last time he had seen him, suggested little effort had recently been made at maintaining personal grooming. Jarod's bare feet, a detail unconsciously noticed, consolidated the image, making the younger man appear more vulnerable somehow. While there were no clear marks of violence apparent on him, it was Jarod's eyes that threatened to draw all the breath out of Sydney's lungs. In all the years he'd worked with – raised – Jarod, never once had he seen him look so…haunted. Before he could even acknowledge his presence, Jarod turned back to face the empty fireplace.
Horrible silence followed. Punctuated only when Laura cleared her throat to tentatively asked, "Aren't you going to say anything, Jarod?"
It struck Sydney in that moment, in her own way, the young woman was flying through this situation just as blindly as he was. He stared at her incredulously until a muted baritone replied, "That's not Sydney. You and I both know Sydney's gone."