Captivated

She didn’t want to fall apart and yet, it was happening. Pieces of her fell through her fingers like sand. The darkness lurked in her head. She dipped her head and rocked slightly as she huffed the air, trying to calm down.

  She knew she was about to pass out, knew the signs and yet she couldn’t seem to stop.

  Julian watched her fall away, lose her grip, and he moved the doctor aside and lay on the bed, pulling her to him. “On the other side, Vin. She needs touch.”

  Vincenz followed, snuggling up to her on the other side as they held her between them. Her heaving breaths and stuttered sobs slowed.

  Between them she seemed so small and fragile, this woman who was beyond strong. Julian buried his face in her hair. “Stay with us, Hannah. Here with Vincenz and me. You can let go for now, but we’re here to catch you.”

  Her whimper and full body shiver brought his gaze to Vincenz’s. She clutched at his shirt, burrowing into him and they held her tighter. The doctor nodded, encouraging them.

  They held her like that for some time until she finally went lax and her breathing smoothed, going deep and slow.

  “Don’t go too far.” Vincenz looked back through the doorway to watch her sleep. “I don’t want her to wake up alone.”

  “I’m sorry I was so angry. Before.” Julian looked to the doctor, who’d been standing there the whole time. “Should we use something to help her stay sleeping?”

  “Her body is working overtime to heal. She’ll be out awhile. In fact, expect her to sleep a lot the first days she’s back. Maybe even a month. Her internal sense of time will be out of synch. Given her reaction to my even suggesting a more comprehensive exam, I feel using any sedatives on her without her knowledge and consent would only hinder any trust we’ve created.”

  Julian nodded. “That makes sense. I just hate seeing her suffer this way. I want to help her.”

  “I know that. She knows that or she wouldn’t have been able to get past her fear to defend and protect you the way she did.” Dr. Pesch looked at his notes. “I’d like some of your time if you have it to spare.”

  “We need to check in. May as well be now.” Vincenz indicated the worktable in the middle of the room. They’d debriefed in part the evening before after … Julian looked over to Vincenz and hid a smile … after they’d exhausted themselves.

  “I’ve read the testing journals Vincenz brought back from Parron and did some investigation myself.” The doctor took a seat at the nearby worktable where Vincenz and Julian joined him. They’d meet with him while they waited for everyone to get connected back on Ravena.

  “Hannah Black was at the top of her class. A brilliant doctor and scientist studying disease out on the Edge. Her mother is … was from the Imperium. The daughter of a trader. It’s how Ms. Black got involved with them to begin with. The program they took her from was a cross border initiative created to deliver health care and study fast-moving viruses among the frontier ’Verses. They killed four at the labs she had established. Several have disappeared and we fear … well, it’s obvious what we fear.”

  Vincenz heaved a sigh. “Not thrilled to have to tell her what’s happened to her parents. I want to make her smile, not shed more tears.” Julian nodded, feeling the same.

  “We’ll tell her together.”

  “That will be good, I think. She seems to trust you two. Just make it brief and straightforward. She’s going to need a lot of uncomfortable truth, but it has to be given to her. She deserves that.” Dr. Pesch consulted his notes again. “They very rarely spoke to her or touched her over her time there. Except.” He paused. “There’s a note. They tried to take a blanket from her. She tore the man’s eye out to keep it. They had to gas the room to get him out. They did it just to see how she’d react. They never wanted the blanket in the first place. After that though, it appears they doubled the amount of sedative in her food and water to keep her more subservient.”

  Julian growled, the rage eating at his belly. “I hope he wears those scars forever for his sins. I’d rip his other eye out if I ever met him.”

  Vincenz paled and Julian knew it was guilt. Guilt over something he had nothing to do with, but felt nonetheless. Because he was the man his father only wished he could have been.

  Pesch continued. “She was beaten at random. Starved. They caught her keeping track of time in her room and made her stop with … severe punishments.”

  Julian scratched the beard on his chin. “Why would they kidnap her just to torture her? She’s a useful target.”

  “Something we don’t know yet. It’s why it’s so important we debrief her.”

  “Hal, you’ve seen her. She’s in absolutely no shape to be taken to Ravena to be questioned by soldiers in a military compound. Much less hooked up to a brain scan.” Vincenz leaned forward, intense. Julian rarely saw him this way. But he understood it. For whatever reason, Hannah was important to them. Important to protect. She had no one but them and that would be enough.

  “I agree. She’s stronger than you’re giving her credit for. I think if we can manage to do it here, we should. I wouldn’t voice support for any plan that removed her. Not unless she was getting in the way here. Are you two all right with her presence?”

  Both men nodded. “Yes, yes, of course. We can keep her safe. We have the room and the access to medical care for her.” And Julian would feel better knowing she was there where they could keep an eye on her.

  “I’m going to return tomorrow. Give her a chance to rest and recover from today. I’ll make my official recommendation that she stay here with you. If and when you have to go out on missions, it may be complicated. I just wanted to get that out there. But if she grows to feel secure here, she may be fine when you’re both gone.”

  He stood and shook hands with them.

  “Thank you. For coming out here.” Vincenz was a little pale but he’d regained most of his composure.

  “Of course. There’s something about your Ms. Black.”

  Yes.

  They connected with Ravena and waited for all the parties to get hooked in. Vincenz looked in her direction from time to time. Her door was open so he could see the rise and fall of her body. She tended to sleep bundled up in all her bedding. Tenderness skittered through him at the thought.

  Ellis spoke without any preamble. “Vincenz, we’re going to need you to appear at a corps meeting in four standard hours. Holo in. Julian, Ash Walker is on his way to you. I want you to brief him on the results of the interrogations on Ceres.”

  Julian took notes to keep from thinking too closely about Ceres.

  “Andrei will stay here for the time being to coordinate next steps so be prepared for daily briefings.” Daniel Haws, Wil Ellis’s right-hand man, nodded in Andrei’s direction. “How are we coming on the data you brought back from Parron, Vincenz?”

  “I worked up a program that will spike every time certain parameters in the data are breached. I’ll start with the anomalies.”

  Julian was proud of how intelligent and resourceful Vincenz was. If there wasn’t a program to do what they needed, he simply created one. Brilliant.

  On the screens, Ellis nodded, satisfied for the moment at least.

  “We’ve raised security levels. Travel will be restricted for the time being.”

  “I saw the footage.” Julian had watched the tapes of the Federated Universes’ response to what Fardelle had done. He’d known then that the Federation would have to restrict travel and raise security presence on the streets. To ease the citizens’ fears and to underline that they would be prepared if the Imperium got far enough through the portals to end up in a position to do them any further harm.

  “Rank and file will leave you alone. You’ve all got the clearance. They don’t need to know anything about what you’re doing there.”

  As if he was freshly minted or something.

  His annoyance must have shown on his face because Daniel snorted. “Oh, get that look off your face. I know you understand. But let’s move along.?
??

  Chapter 4

  “Why did they not just kill her? She’s a high-value target, isn’t she?” Daniel paced.

  Vincenz watched as his friend worked through the problem. A problem he and Julian had discussed with Dr. Pesch just a few days earlier. Back then Ravena had agreed to table the issue, but it had to be discussed and Vincenz knew it couldn’t be avoided any longer.

  “They had her for almost a year. Why did they take her to start with?”

  “All we know is that she was taken from the program she was granted to work with. Several others were also taken that day.”

  They’d been discussing Hannah for the last several minutes and it made him defensive. He knew they’d have to question her about her time in that cell, but she was fragile. Just barely making it through each hour; the idea of pushing her recovery back even further to debrief her was untenable. But he knew it had to be done.

  “What does she say about it?” Ellis asked.

  “She still can’t keep her time straight. She has a difficult time speaking and keeping track of her thoughts. When she’s alone she talks to herself. For hours. She retreats to a corner and wraps one of Julian’s shirts around herself. This happens less the longer she’s with us, but she’s not ready to be debriefed.” Vincenz wanted to make that totally clear. “She’s barely holding on. To push her to relive her time there, right now, could be detrimental to her overall health.”

  Ellis nodded, a shadow crossing his features. “It is not my intention to harm the woman, Operative Cuomo.”

  “But the fact is, we need the information. She’s been with you a week already.” Daniel tapped his pen against the table. “They took her for a reason. They kept her alive for a reason and if they just wanted to torture someone to experiment on them, why not do it in their own territory where it’s safer? They chose her for a reason, and there’s no getting around the fact that the why of it could very well be integral to what we’re doing.”

  “Dr. Hal Pesch would like to address our group. He’s the person who’s been working with Hannah. He’s got level four clearance and I ran him again earlier today.” Vincenz shifted, hoping they’d let Hal speak. He’d be a powerful advocate for Hannah, and she needed all the help she could get.

  “Yes, yes.” Daniel looked over the data on his comm to verify this information. “Patch him in.”

  In short order, Pesch’s face was on a screen at the conference table in Ravena. Pesch was an unassuming person. He wasn’t too anything. Just the right height, average weight. His voice was calm and measured. Vincenz liked the man a great deal, especially after he’d observed just how patient and kind he’d been with Hannah.

  “Dr. Pesch, I’m Daniel Haws. Tell me, when can we expect to debrief Ms. Black? We helped her escape and certainly have no plans to do her any further injury. But we need to know what she knows.”

  “Hannah Black is suffering not uncommon results of having been held without any other human contact for months on end. She’s exemplary on many levels. Many others in her place would not have survived. Not without having lost their minds. She needs time to get better. Time to process. Time to figure out her own internal clock, which is damaged. She’s sleeping a lot, which is also common. Her kidneys are damaged, but that can be fixed.”

  “How much time? If you’ll forgive my impatience, there’s a war on. I need what’s in her head.”

  Pesch paused for long moments. “There’s an experimental treatment.”

  Vincenz knew he was shaking his head vehemently. No fucking way was anyone going to experiment on Hannah ever again.

  “Tell me about it.” Daniel looked to the hologram that was Vincenz, sitting in a room across the Universe while his body was back in Mirage. “Get over it, Vincenz. Everyone has to make sacrifices. Including Hannah.”

  The words he held back were bitter. But it was his job to shut his mouth just then and so he did. But there was simply no way at all he’d let them use any treatments on her without her complete and total acceptance. Period. She was in Mirage, halfway across the Known Universes. In his house where she would continue to be safe.

  “I don’t know if I agree with that, Operative Haws. This young woman has been held captive, abused, tortured, beaten and starved already. That’s not enough for you?” Dr. Pesch cocked his head and Vincenz wanted to hug him. “If this is to be what she experienced in that lab under the hands of the Imperium and you’d wish me to replicate that, I’m going to have to refuse. That woman has done her part and more. If you’d like to hear about this treatment and if she decides of her own free will to undertake it, I’m happy to do so. If she refuses, well, I took an oath when I became a medical doctor. I will not participate in any experiments or treatment that is given against the will of, or that would be a detriment to, any of my patients.”

  Daniel sighed and scrubbed his hands over his face. “Tell me about the treatment, Doctor. I have no plans to experiment on this young woman for my pleasure. But people are dying every single day and it’s my job to stop it.”

  “What Ms. Black has suffered has physical consequences. Obviously. She has some impaired kidney function as I mentioned. I’ve already begun treatment for that and I expect in a month or two she’ll be recovered. Dehydration, which again, has been treated. Other problems like poorly healed wounds.” He shrugged. “She’ll have scars for the rest of her life though she won’t be physically impaired by them.

  “But she’s also suffering from mental and emotional damage. Studies on long-term isolation are one of the many reasons we don’t use solitary confinement in our corrections systems except in the very worst cases. To be blunt, her brain has suffered some damage and that’s not as easy to treat. Not quickly.”

  Vincenz wanted to look over toward her room to assure himself she was all right, but the holo meant he couldn’t. He trusted Julian and the doctor would do that if she awakened.

  “She’s … for lack of a better word, she’s broken. Neural pathways are disrupted. She’s angry. Resentful. Fearful. Worried she’ll be sent off to a Federation facility and away from this small place of solace she’s found. This is the sort of thing I’d treat with a combination of chemical adjustment and talk therapy. Over a long time. The brain is amazing. We discover new data all the time, even after all our history. So over weeks, months and years, she’ll be all right again, though I doubt she’ll ever be totally free of the shadows of what she’s experienced.”

  Ellis made the scariest, angriest sound Vincenz had ever heard from the man. Who was already pretty scary. “I promise you, Vincenz, we will help this woman. It is not my aim nor the aim of the Federated Universes to perpetrate more harm. We will make those who did this to her, and to tens of thousands of others they’ve harmed and killed, pay. But we don’t have months and years.”

  “This therapy works specifically on brain tissue and brain chemistry. The treatment is given daily in multiple segments. With Hannah, I’d suggest three times a day. Each will work to speed the healing of the damage to her neural pathways. It won’t cure her. But it should ratchet back the worst of her symptoms. Her time issues should smooth out. Speech centers of the brain will also be affected and if it works correctly, while not totally healed, it should enable her to be debriefed. Give me three sessions a day for this next week and I think we can move her forward several months. Enough that she can do daily tasks without panic attacks and sleep regularly.”

  “You said it was experimental. Why?” Daniel asked.

  “It’s not fully accredited and approved by the Federation Medical Consortium. It hasn’t been tested long-term. In some very rare cases it has caused irreparable brain damage. In all fairness, that was in the very beginning. And I hasten to add I’ve administered this treatment four times now and have never had any negative results. I’m one of the doctors who pioneered this treatment and I believe in it. Not for all cases, certainly. But this is not a usual scenario.”

  Vincenz had been in meetings all day. She’d done he
r very best to stay in the background and not make any noise or distractions for him. Though the doctor had brought a calendar in and she could see it had only been ten days since she’d arrived, she missed Vincenz if she didn’t see him.

  He had taken to working at the table just outside her room. It had soothed her fear of being left alone while letting her also be away from all the noise and chaos of the main parts of the house.

  Sometimes it had felt as if she were wading back into a real life. Dipping her toe in and letting herself get used to it again.

  Julian was out training people or doing something similar. He didn’t say a whole lot but always made an effort for her. He was intense and hard, but smiled at her. His smile lit his eyes and softened the sadness lining his face. She liked him and wondered just what put the pain in his features. It felt safe when he was around.

  “I thought I’d bring this in here.” Vincenz poked his head into the room after knocking. He gave her a look as he carried a soft, comfortable-looking chair over and placed it in front of the window.

  She’d been in the corner. She knew it was bad. Knew it was silly and made her look crazy, but it seemed to be something she did automatically.

  He held a hand out. “No need to hide in the corner, beautiful Hannah. I brought you a chair so you could sit in the sunlight. Dr. Pesch says it’s good for you.”

  She took his hand and allowed him to help her to her feet. “I’m sorry.”

  Vincenz shook his head and tucked her hair behind her ear. “Don’t apologize. I don’t want you to feel bad. I just want you to feel safe enough not to huddle in the corner. No one can hurt you in this house. You know that, right?”

  What she knew and what she felt weren’t always in accord.

  “Now I’m the one who’s sorry.” He gathered her to his body and hugged her. Just the way she needed and hadn’t even known it. She burrowed into his chest, breathing him in.

  “Would you like to break for some food?” He held her back and looked into her face, taking careful notes. She was tired of careful notes. “Julian is free and we thought we could all eat together and talk a little. Dr. Pesch is also here.”