The drive to the facility wasn’t a far one. We took the children to Cora’s office. She rarely used it; she spent most of her time in the lab. It was a spacious office complete with a desk, over
sized chair behind it, two winged-back chairs in front of it, a little sitting area with a large leather couch, a television, and a unique looking coffee table with matching end tables on either side of the couch. She had some animated movie playing on her television and cookies sitting on the coffee table.
The boys seemed to like this treat to come along with us and hang out at the clinic. They had animatedly talked the whole time there. I wanted to question Remy about his caress earlier, but with their constant chatter and their presence, I really couldn’t.
We made sure the boys were settled, and then I headed towards the wing where we kept the woman we had brought in. It was busy in here today. Healers were buzzing around everywhere. Remy gave my hand a little squeeze before heading to the elevators. I knew he was helping Will down in the lab.
Gavin came out of one of the rooms looking harried and drained. “I don’t know what he did to them, but it was a number.”
We had a team of techies and scientists still trying to dissect the implants that the women had, but we weren’t any closer to figuring out what they were made of, the long-term effects of them or how to remove them without harming the patients. Most of the females still acted like they were in a comatose state. They mechanically ate and used the bathroom. They wouldn’t communicate with anyone and seemed like they existed in a world of their own. The only female that was able to resist the implant, didn’t have too many recollections. She did say she felt out of it and trapped in her own body when it had worked, but that’s all she could tell us. She had volunteered to stick around and let us draw her blood for testing.
Ashley Foles had admitted that she was a teenage runaway after she had come into her gift and her parents had kicked her out. She had gone through a downward spiral of sex, drugs, and alcohol. She told us she heard rumors of a facility that gave money for testing drugs for a pharmaceutical company. She hadn’t realized what she had signed up for. The girls she had gone with were never to be seen again, but she had been forced to get clean, then injected with the implant. She had woken in the facility, her mind clear of the drugs she had been hooked on, and pregnant. She was street smart, so she had played the game. She had observed everything.
Every day they were ‘woken’ up, fed breakfast, taken on walks in the yard or on the treadmill, seen by a doctor, fed lunch, went on another walk, rested in their beds, fed dinner, taken on a walk, showered, and then put to bed. Ashley told us that she didn’t know how she got pregnant or by whom. She said she had seen a few females leave when they went into labor, but they never returned.
Every female that we had rescued from that facility had been pregnant. They were in various stages of their pregnancy. All of them seemed to be progressing along nicely up until this point. With the behavior they were exhibiting now, I was assuming that the implants didn’t last long.
“Blake,” Gavin said again. He must have called my name more than once, but I had been lost in my own thoughts.
“Sorry.” I gave him an apologetic smile. “I’ll get right to work.”
I rushed into one of the rooms and saw a woman who was slightly older than me and approximately six or seven months pregnant, yelling and flopping around. Ashley hadn’t been able to tell us any of their names, so we were left in the dark. Their patient charts had them listed as patient one, patient two—so on and so forth.
“No, don’t want to die. I want to go back!” she screamed as she thrashed around.
“Stop,” I said gently as I placed my hands on her. I could feel her fear and her panic. “You’re okay,” I crooned as I placed my hands on her. I pushed feelings of calm and peace into her.
After a few more minutes of pushing my feelings into her, she finally calmed down. “What’s your name?” I asked softly.
“Pam,” she said softly.
“How old are you, Pam?” I asked trying to keep her mind busy.
“19,” she said in a small voice.
As she sat there, I could slowly see the panic recede from her eyes replaced by clarity. She looked around in wonder, like she was just realizing where she was. I could see the moment she realized she was pregnant and her eyes rounded in horror. When she looked like she was going to leap out of the bed, I put my hand on her.
“We found you in a facility. We aren’t the bad guys,” I said urgently. We needed her to believe me. We needed her to find out what Horatio was up to, besides the obvious. I could see the distrust and hysteria in her eyes. “We found you along with eleven other women. You were all implanted with something. We think it had drugs in them. You’ve been here for a couple of weeks now. Do you remember anything that happened there?” I asked as I felt her suspicion and fear recede.
“I needed the money,” fat tears ran down her face. “I’m never going to get high again, I promise,” she said in horror as she looked down at her stomach. “How?! How?!”
I felt her anxiety rising again and I pushed the calm back to her again. “We’re trying to figure that out.” I stroked her hand. “We’re going to help you, we promise.”
“Get it out,” she said despondently.
My heart sank. “You’re afraid and rightfully so, but we can’t do that until you talk to some of our doctors here. We also have crisis counselors and have helped many people just like you. We want to help you.”
“Then kill me,” she said dejectedly.
“No,” I said resolutely. “I know this seems hopeless, but you aren’t giving up yet. You’ve already been through too much not to survive this, too.”
Under all her fear and panic, I could feel the fighter within her. I didn’t know her past, but she had been a fighter once upon a time. We just needed to give her the love and support she needed so she could find another reason to keep fighting.
There was a commotion down the hall when I finally exited Pam’s room. I ran down there to find out what was going on. I hadn’t expected to see a woman in the corner of the room and screaming.
“I want my son, give me back my son,” she was a woman of average height and stature, with beautiful long blond hair. Her features were quirky, but it only added to her unusual beauty.
Gavin was trying to approach her, but she continued to try and throw anything possible his way, but without her hands. Small objects flew from the cabinet doors and from her food tray left uneaten.