Chapter 13

Chapter 13

Blackness, and Dark.  That was all Alexia could see or feel.  It was a truly horrible thing to experience.  She felt like she was just floating in the darkness.  Not really being asleep, but not awake enough to come out of the blackness.  But she was starting to feel.  She was beginning to feel her fingers and toes, where before she almost forgot that they were there.  She was just beginning to feel through the blackness that engulfed her.

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Jada had one hand lying softly on Cheater’s shoulder.  Her eyes sparkled with unshed tears.  She gently slid down the wall to sit on the floor next to him.  She didn’t say a word, but she didn’t need to.  Her actions spoke for her.  Cheater tried to smile but she shook her head.  He dropped the smile and she nodded silently.  She didn’t want him to act strong about this in front of her.  He realized that she may only be eleven, but she’s been though more than the rest of them put together.

“I’ll see if I can see what’s going on OK?”  He asked her quietly.  She nodded quickly back; she needed to know this just as much as he did.

Cheater took a deep breath to prepare himself for what he might see or hear.  He closed his eyes and linked minds with Dillenwater, who he was sure was in the room with Alexia.  He saw a white lab room, with Alexia lying on the stretcher in the middle, unconscious.  Two scientists were leaning over her.  One was putting in an IV; the other was checking her blood pressure.

“Blood pressure normal.”  The scientist who had been checking Alexia’s blood pressure said.

“The IV is in.”  The other scientist said.  Dillenwater nodded.  Another scientist walked up to Alexia and prepared to draw blood from her.  Dillenwater turned his head and Cheater could no longer see Alexia.

“Breathing?”  Dillenwater asked quietly.

“Normal.”  A man replied.

“Heart rate?”  Dillenwater asked again.

“Normal as well.”  The same man who had answered the earlier question replied.  Dillenwater nodded.

“So, any ideas as to why this would happen?”  He asked, his voice thundering throughout the quiet room.  No one answered.  “WELL?” He yelled even louder, his voice rattling the walls and making everyone in the room shudder. Cheater shuddered as well even though he wasn’t in the room.

“No Sir, the only idea that we have is stress.  But it could be anything.”  A female courageous scientist replied.  Cheater could sense Dillenwater’s anger flaring.

“Well why would she have more stress than any of the other subjects?”  He yelled yet again.

“Well Sir, we did induce powers on her body that it was not ready for.  This might be her body’s way of catching up with them.”  The female scientist said again.  Dillenwater’s anger was running out when understanding set in.  Cheater reasoned that it must have been an understandable theory.

“Well, is there anything we can do to wake her up then?”  Dillenwater asked.  Cheater was wondering the exact same thing.  The woman looked sad for some reason.

“No Sir, there’s nothing we can do to wake her up.  It’s kind of like she’s in a coma, except we do know that she will eventually wake up.  We just don’t know when that’s going to happen.  We’re really kind of flabbergasted about this.”  She said, slowly shrinking back from Dillenwater’s glare.  In a way Cheater almost felt bad for her, and then he remembered what her job was and forgot his sympathy.

“So what are you saying?  All we can do is wait and hope for the best?”  Dillenwater said, barely holding in his anger.  The woman noticed and spoke calmly and surely.

“Yes Sir, all that we can do is keep giving her the IV and keep watching her.  But as you said what we can do is wait and hope for the best.”  She said, remaining standing even under Dillenwater’s intensely cold glare.  Cheater felt like yelling at him that it wasn’t her fault, but he couldn’t.  It was just like how he couldn’t control anyone.  He was just an observer in everything.  That was one of the worst feelings for a person, having no control what so ever.  Cheater decided to stop thinking about it and go back to listening to Dillenwater.

“I hate waiting!”  Dillenwater yelled into the woman’s face.  Cheater thought that she must have worked there a while for her not to flinch at that.  “I hate hope too!”  He yelled again.

Cheater wanted to punch him.  Dillenwater acted like a big tough guy but now it looked like he was throwing a tantrum.  ‘The big baby.’ Cheater thought.  One minute he was yelling and the next he was whining.  It was like he was pregnant or on menopause, like his hormones were out of whack.

Dillenwater was still throwing his tantrum.  “I need her to be awake!  We need to do more experiments on her!”  He was yelling again.  Cheater couldn’t see the man’s face, but he knew through his telepathy that the man’s anger was on the rise, and that his face was turning red.

“Sir, even if she was awake, experiments could be disastrous.  They could completely overrun her body and literally kill her if she doesn’t get enough rest in between.”  The woman said in a rush of anger, but even then her voice was still even.

“What about experiment C?  When do you think that we will be able to proceed with that?” Dillenwater asked.  Cheater tried to find out what ‘experiment C’ was, but Dillenwater had his mind too closed up.  So did the woman.  Everyone else in the room was just as clueless as he was.  That meant that they must have trained themselves to hide certain things from him.  Cheater thought that he had an idea of what experiment C was, but he was hoping and praying that he was wrong.

“I thought that you were waiting until the other experiments were over.”  The woman asked.  The other two men in the room were still taking care of Alexia, Cheater noticed.

“We have quite a few tests to run, but only a few experiments.  Will she be ready when we are?”  Dillenwater asked.

“Yes Sir, she should be.  That is as long as you let her rest in between experiments.  As long as you give her body time to catch up you will be fine.”  She said.  Cheater could feel his blood boiling and it almost made him lose his focus before he caught himself.  They were talking down about Alexia like she was just a common lab rat.  They should care about her mental health as well as her physical health!

“Good.  After she wakes up from this I’m giving her one day of rest before we proceed with the next experiment.  We only have three more until we can start experiment C.”  Dillenwater said, smiling.  Cheater couldn’t see it, but he could feel it.  Dillenwater’s happiness just made him want to punch him.

“Ok Sir.  I will keep you undated on her condition.”  The woman said, sounding like a nurse, but then again nurses were nice.  This woman couldn’t be nice if she was working for the ‘School.’  Nobody working for the school could be nice, it just wasn’t possible.

“Thank you.  Keep someone watching her at all times.  I want to be informed of any changes.”  Dillenwater said.  The woman nodded.

“I will personally make a schedule for people to watch her Sir.  It will be taken care of.”  She said, grabbing a clipboard.

“Ok. I am going to get everything ready for the next experiment.”  Dillenwater said. He turned and walked through the door, Cheater still looking through his eyes.

Dillenwater opened the door and started walking down the hallway.  After he went a few feet he stopped.  “Cheater, you may leave my mind now.  You know what happened to Alexia.  That, and now I know how to block you out.”  Dillenwater said.

After a minute passed and Cheater was still invading Dillenwater’s mind, the man sighed.  “OK Cheater.  I’m kicking you out.  But I will be nice and keep you updated on her OK?”  Dillenwater said as blackness engulfed Cheater’s vision.  He opened his eyes and found that his conscious self was back in his body.  He groaned and slumped further down the wall.  His head was killing him from concentrating that hard.  Jada was looking at him in concern.

He tried to force a smile, but it didn’t work.  He sighed.  “I’m ok, just exhausted.  Concentrating that hard takes a lot out of a person.  They think that they know what happened to Alexia.”  Jada’s eyes widened in surprise, then in suspicion.  Suspicion of what they did to her no doubt.  “Believe it or not, they did nothing to her, well not directly at least.”  He explained all that he heard to Jada.  She sighed, the first sound he had heard from her in years.

“They are keeping watch over her as we speak, but Dillenwater said that they had three more experiments before they start experiment C.  Whatever that is.” Cheater concluded. He still had a vague idea of what it might be, but he wasn’t willing to share that with anyone because it would really freak them out.  He felt the anger rising back up but pushed it back.  He didn’t want Jada to retreat further into the shell that she was just now coming out of.

Jada sent a calming smile toward him.  She nodded at him to continue.  He grimaced and said “That’s all that I know right now.  I’m going to keep listening in as much as I can without exhausting myself.”  He said softly.  He had noticed a while ago that everyone else was listening as well.  Trixie came up to him.

“Is Alexia going to be OK?”  She asked him quietly with tears in her eyes.

“I honestly don’t know.  She’s OK now, right now she’s in a comatose state.  At least I think that’s what they called it.  But they think that she’ll be out of it in a couple of days.  He smiled tightly.  Then the smile dropped and he sighed.  “After she wakes up they’re going to wait a day and then start experiments on her again.”  He purposefully left out the part about ‘experiment C.’  He didn’t want to worry anyone but Jada.  He had only told her because she looked so worried already.  It wouldn’t have helped to hide information from her, that and when he had started talking he just couldn’t get himself to stop, and he had to tell someone about it.  It might even bring Jada closer to both Cheater and Alexia as well.

“Poor Alexia.” Jared said softly, summing up what they all felt.  Cheater looked at all the kids in the room.  Adam looked like he was going to cry, he was the youngest kid so he was naturally taking it the hardest.  Damon on the other hand looked blank.  Cheater didn’t know if Damon was just in shock or if he just didn’t care.  Either way Cheater just wanted to punch him for his lack of expression, but he knew that he wasn’t thinking clearly right then.  Alexia would be really angry if he hurt Damon while she wasn’t there, so he didn’t act on his crazy impulse.

The group slowly diminished one by one.  Damon went to his room, then Trixie, then Jared, then Adam.  Then it was just Jada and Cheater sitting next to the wall.  Cheater grimaced.  It would probably be with him and Jada like this every day for a while, at least until Alexia was back.  They would probably be spending their days sitting by that very door, hoping on Alexia’s return.  That meant that they both had to get their rest.  He mentioned that thought to Jada.  She nodded back at him.

“Goodnight. See you tomorrow?”  He said quietly.  She nodded at him and smiled slightly.  He watched as she walked to her apartment and went inside.  He turned and went inside his own apartment.  He was so exhausted that he didn’t even go to his room.  He just kicked off his shoes and plopped down on the coach.  He was out like a light in less than an minute.