Accused (Ganzfield) (6 page)

I startled when he opened the door to my cell. For me, this was worse than the pain in the hospital—the images seared into my mind, torturing me from within, making me feel… unclean.

Violated.

His smug look and head full of degrading images made me feel like I wanted to die. “Tell me what I want to know and it won’t have to happen again.”

A blast of killing energy shot from my mind. At that moment, I didn’t care if I gave him proof of my ability—I just knew how much I wanted Hunter dead. The pain hit him hard and he staggered back and slammed the door—cutting off my line-of-sight.
Dammit!
I could feel him out there—still alive—but with a killer headache and an intense desire to hurt me.

Hunter returned to the cell next to mine several times over the next two days. He may have kept coming after that, but my ability had dwindled to the point I no longer sensed his thoughts. By that point, the world had faded to a grey and lifeless thing that I no longer noticed, leaving me with just my nightmares for company.

CHAPTER 5

“Get her cleaned up.” Hunter’s voice barely registered as the female guards each took me by the upper arm. I flinched away from their contact, but I was too weak to put up a fight. They stood me in the shower and one of them even washed my hair. They dressed me in clothing that I vaguely recognized as my own—a short-sleeved shirt and shorts. I think I might’ve packed them for Aruba—back in my previous life—but I no longer remembered. The too-loose shorts threatened to slide off my protruding hip-bones. One of the women tied something between two of the back belt-loops, tightening the waist enough to keep me covered.

I watched the world flash by from inside the prisoner transport. Window bars framed trees that were already changing to vibrant oranges and yellows. I’d forgotten about bright colors. I stared out the window and shivered through the three-hour drive to Boston.

I heard nothing as we drove into the city. Mentally dead—which was kind of ironic for such a college town. How long had I been in that windowless basement cell? It had been several weeks, at least. Maybe months. Trevor and I had gone to the airport in mid-July, so the changing leaves meant it’d been…

They meant I had no clue how long I’d been held prisoner.

The transport vehicle pulled up to the back of the federal court building. Fences and guards kept people away from the prisoner entrance. A salt-tinged breeze wafted off the unseen water as someone opened the door. Guards gripped my upper arms again, making the plastic handcuffs dig into the pasty-pale skin around my wrists.

They left me in a room barely large enough for its small wooden table and chairs. I sat without thinking and stared at the far wall. The sound of the door opening made me bang my knee on the table.

Coleman’s eyebrows rose when he saw me. I had no idea what he was thinking, and trying to hold his gaze seemed like too much effort. He closed the door and took the chair across from me. His hand started for my shoulder, paused, and then dropped to the table with a gentle thud.

“Maddie, I’m going to get you out of here today. We have to go through some of the motions first, though, because I want to make sure double jeopardy will apply. That way, no one will be able to charge you with these crimes again.”

I tried to process what he’d said and gave him a nod. The concepts barely registered and the information he’d given me only moments ago faded into a dull muddle in my mind. Coleman got up and signaled at the door, and two bailiffs came in and removed my handcuffs. They gripped my arms as prisoner-handles again and escorted me into the nearly-empty courtroom.

I heard familiar voices gasp as I was led to the defendant’s table, and then suddenly I was in Trevor’s arms. It was as though sunlight had broken through endless clouds—fingers of light touched my soul. I closed my eyes and took a shuddering breath, drawing in the clean, woodsy scent of him. My arms weakly encircled his waist and I just held him tight, feeling his heartbeat against my cheek. I felt alive for the first time in heaven knew how long.

Trevor pressed his face into my hair. He was shaking. Was he upset? Relieved? Chilly? Without dodecamine, I had no way to tell… and no way to ask. I tilted my face up to see his. Dark circles shadowed his eyes and he looked older, more serious.

Grim.

A hand clasped mine. Even before I saw her, I knew it was my mom. She gasped and gripped harder—painful in her intensity—and I knew she was getting a mental mindful. I tried to frame a thought to her.
Please, don’t say anything
.

“Oh, honey.” Her eyes welled with tears. “Oh, honey, no. Oh, no.”

Trevor’s arms tightened around me as he gave her a questioning look, but she kept her eyes on me and didn’t tell him what she’d felt in my head.

The prosecutor watched our little group from behind the opposite table. He lifted his chin challengingly to Coleman. “I thought this was a closed session.”

“You don’t mind if Ms. Dunn’s family is here, do you?” His voice resonated—it wasn’t really a question. I’d forgotten I could hear charm-voice, even when I was off dodecamine.

“No, I guess I have no objection.” The prosecutor shrugged and went back to his papers.

Someone told us to rise, and then Trevor and my mom took seats directly behind me. Trevor’s invisible hands came up to rest on my shoulders, still and gentle. It was as though I could feel his love coming through them.

Coleman and the prosecutor approached the judge. I gathered that Coleman needed special permission to practice law in Massachusetts, since he was a member of the New York bar. No big deal—getting special permission was
never a problem for Coleman.

I tried—and failed—to follow the court proceedings. I was underwater, occasionally breaking the surface and hearing a few details, but then submerging again into a place where I heard only garbled, Charlie-Brown-teacher language that made no sense. I kept trying, though, since this discussion would pretty much define the course of my life. The prosecutor went on for a good bit about me being a “suspiciously wealthy” emancipated minor who’d killed three boys in New Jersey and who’d received the final email sent from the account of former Congressman Isaiah Lerner, who was now presumed dead.

Coleman let the prosecutor talk for a little, and then slid his chair back as he stood. “I request a sidebar, Your Honor.” He and the prosecutor went up to talk off the record with the judge for a minute, and then Coleman came back to stand next to me. “Your Honor, I make a motion to dismiss all charges against this innocent, disabled teenager. She has clearly been the target of a delusional witch hunt.” He waxed eloquent for the record. “There is no evidence to support the allegations that Ms. Dunn had any means to commit the crimes for which she has been charged. Records indicate that Isaiah Lerner died years ago, not this past spring as the prosecution alleges. Furthermore, Ms. Dunn has been held at an undisclosed location since July without access to counsel, a clear and gross violation of habeas corpus.”

Both the judge and the prosecutor nodded along.

“Case dismissed, with the apologies of the court to Ms. Dunn.” The judge smacked his gavel down on a little round block.

“No! You can’t do that! You don’t know what she is!” Everyone turned as an irate Colonel Hunter jumped up from the last row of the courtroom. I hadn’t noticed him come in. Now he bore down on us with eyes full of righteous indignation. The sight of him made my entire body feel weak and broken. The chair pressed up against me as gravity started to pull me underground.

Trevor moved in, positioning himself between Hunter and me.

“Stop. Right. There.” Coleman’s voice resonated.

Colonel Hunter tripped to a sudden halt. He glared at Coleman with a hiss of cold hate. “You’re one of them.”

Bailiffs grabbed Hunter and restrained him, not noticing that he’d stopped short at the sound of Coleman’s voice. The judge started throwing around stern words about “contempt of court.”

“Your Honor, this man is clearly mentally unstable.” Coleman’s charm-voice was strong. “He should be committed for psychiatric observation and care.” He looked at the bailiffs and the other court officers as he added, “And you all think that is the proper course of action.”

The officers nodded back.

The judge gestured to the bailiffs and suddenly Hunter was restrained and on his way to a state mental hospital and I was being released. Huh. That seemed fair.

Karmic or something.

Trevor kept two sets of arms around me as we left the courthouse. My mom pulled out a cell phone and made a quick call. Greg Guchlu, Williamson’s driver, materialized at the curb less than a minute later. We were suddenly in Williamson’s town car, heading north to Ganzfield.

Heading home.

In the rearview mirror, Greg gave me a sympathetic look.

I curled into Trevor’s embrace. A sense of peace wrapped around me.

Safe.

I unfolded one arm from my defensive fetal ball and clung to him. I didn’t even care if my mom saw us like this—I needed him right now.

My mom kept trying to get a hand on me. It was probably out of a need for maternal reassurance—
my baby is really here
—as much a desire to read more than she’d gotten from that initial flash in the courtroom to find out what’d happened to me. But I shook my head and waved her hand away. I didn’t want her to know the terrible things in my head.

I didn’t want anyone to know.

I’d figured out a plan. If I ever found myself back at Ganzfield, I’d have Zack charm out all of those obscene memories and the emotional damage. I’d find him as soon as I returned, get him to help me before I got dodecamine, and get back to normal before anyone heard my thoughts. I hadn’t let him charm me the last time, but now… now my soul felt like dirty clothes and I badly needed a mental dry-cleaning. I couldn’t let anyone see me this way.

Especially Trevor.

My mom stopped trying to read my mind after Trevor gently but firmly put an invisible barrier around me. She filled the nearly four-hour drive with a chattering monologue of everything that’d happened while I’d been gone. “None of the RVs have been able to get a proper vision of Belinda’s location. She really did wipe their memories of her—she didn’t just suppress them—and no one’s been able to figure out how she did that. Seth’s been able to establish how she and Isaiah Lerner stayed in contact. He found more videos and files stored in an online account, but he was able to erase them. We’ve been tightening security since Trevor, Seth, and Drew’s first trip to find you in Maine.”

First trip? They’d come back?

“—under federal surveillance now, but there haven’t been any further problems or arrests. Jon didn’t want anyone coming to your hearing today; he didn’t want more of our people at risk. He thought that everyone in the courtroom could’ve been detained by Homeland Security or the Defense Department. If someone’s name even ended up in connection to yours, people like that Colonel Hunter might decide to target them next. But we convinced him that the government already knew I was your mother, and Trevor… was with you when they arrested you.”

Great. I have “known associates.”
I shook my head. They shouldn’t have risked it. Not for me.

“—and Coleman’s been trying for weeks to get them to bring you into a courtroom. That base has an automated security system of some sort, in addition to all the guards. There wasn’t a way for a charm to get through it—at least, not without getting a security clearance. Coleman actually looked into that, too, but it seemed too risky to have more data in the system.”

I rested my head on Trevor’s chest, feeling his closeness—his realness. My lungs seemed to re-inflate.

“—still looking for a replacement charm instructor. It’s so hard to keep them there since charming pays so much better in the corporate world. Jon’s planning to—”

My heart was beating again. I was sure it’d pumped blood the whole time I’d been detained, but I hadn’t noticed. It felt like I was on my way back from the dead.

“—and we need to stop and get you some food, honey. You’re so thin.” She said it in a way that made it clear it wasn’t a compliment.

I shook my head and clung more tightly to Trevor. I didn’t want to get out of the car—nothing in here tried to hurt me.

“Honey, you really need to eat something.”

Trevor’s voice rumbled beneath my cheek. “Nina, why don’t we get her something from a drive-thru?” It was hoarse, as though he had a cold.

The food tasted strange and unreal—greasy and heavy. Moving my jaw caused an aching pain that spread across my skull, but I forced myself to chew and swallow a few bites. Even that small amount left me feeling uncomfortably full.

Trevor sat silently for most of the trip, holding me close. What was he thinking? What was he feeling? Occasionally, either a physical or invisible hand would stroke my hair, as though Trevor was reassuring himself that I was real, too.

My mom chattered on. She might’ve been filling the silence just to make herself feel better. She mentioned it was the last week of September. I did the math—the middle of July to the end of September—I’d been held for more than two months.

It felt longer.

Personally, I was bone-tired. I would’ve liked silence so I could’ve gotten some sleep.

We reached North Conway at some point in the afternoon. Time had ceased to have meaning for me during the past months, and it would take some adjustment for the details of normal life to make sense again.

Driving up the nearly-empty road to the front gate of Ganzfield felt surreal. It had been almost a year since I’d first made this trip. Traumatic memories had been rattling around in my brain that time, too. Greg stopped at the barrier and the wind tossed a bright yellow leaf through his window as he keyed in his code. More leaves swirled along the open area outside the brick wall. The gate rolled open and Seth stepped out of the little guardhouse just inside the wall. He met my eyes through Greg’s open window and visibly winced. I framed a thought to him, knowing he’d pick it out of my head even though I couldn’t project thoughts anymore.
Don’t say a word. Not to anyone.