“Don’t look so dismayed my dear. It is all for the greater good. The others will become stronger because of your sacrifice.”

“You’re a monster,” I said, not afraid of his anger.

Surprisingly he was not angry, instead he laughed.

“A monster? I don’t think so. I just took back some of the power. There was a flaw in our DNA makeup when we were created and I decided to fix it.”

This was all sickening, I thought. Where did such evil come from?

“They will stop you,” I told him.

“On the contrary, I believe they will look at your deaths as a lesson. In fact, they will embrace me as a father. They have felt lost throughout the years, just as you have, but I will help them realize how special they are and how strong they can become.”

I knew he was wrong, and I felt bad for the others. Soon they would have to face this monster also. Mostly I felt sad for Mark and me. We would never have children, and we would never grow old together. He was stripping our lives away from us just like he had with our parents.

“No more questions?” he asked in a mocking voice.

I was silent. There was nothing else to ask. He was the monster I had imagined him to be. I would give him no more satisfaction.

“Well, I see the last part was a deal breaker,” he said with a small laugh. “Think of your part in this as furthering the lives of the others. I think we can continue with the experiments now,” he said as he turned and walked away.

I wanted to protest, to plead with him not to hurt me anymore, but I didn’t want to give him the satisfaction. I remained silent as they strapped me down to the same table as before, remaining rigid as they fastened my ankles down. Only when the woman approached with the dreaded sensors did I finally respond. A silent tear rolled down my face. I looked around as best I could with my head strapped down and saw everyone busy at various computers, only Bruno was watching me.

The sensors were placed in different locations this time and I eyed them with renewed panic remembering the pain they caused before.

The first jolt sent a flash of fire through my body.

I was too weak to scream like I had the day before, but I did let out a slight moan. The next round was more severe than the previous jolt and I welcomed the darkness as I once again lost consciousness.

When I woke, I was not in my cell. I was still in the laboratory, but someone had moved me to a different table. I wasn’t wet this time, but my hair was damp so once again they must have bathed me. Looking around, I could see that the laboratory was nearly empty with only one grunt over by the computers. I looked around for Bruno, but he was nowhere to be found. I wondered briefly how Russo had managed to get so many others to help him, but I guess evil wasn’t hard to find in the world.

I closed my eyes; at least they hadn’t locked me back in the cell. Maybe they realized I was no longer a threat. I knew the end was close. My guess is that we had been missing for over thirty-six hours now. I had a small nagging feeling that there was something I had wanted to do, but I was too tired to focus on what it could have been.

I continued to lie there, feeling like I was drifting in and out of consciousness.

The next time I opened my eyes there was a considerable amount of activity going on throughout the lab. Several of the people I had seen the last few days were huddled around one of the television monitors.

“Look at him. His strength it is out of this world.” One of them commented. “Mr. Russo was right, her pain makes him stronger. It’s a good thing that door is steel plated. It’s too bad he’s missing this. Where did you say he disappeared to, Amanda?”

“I didn’t, it’s no concern of yours what he chooses to do with his time,” Amanda said in a brittle voice.

I tried shifting to better hear their conversation, hoping that no one would notice and reattach my restraints.

Luckily, no one even looked my way. I was apparently nothing but a lab rat; something insignificant to experiment on and then dispose of. I knew that would come sooner than later.

I started to close my eyes again, but then I finally remembered a previous idea I had forgotten; Mr. Russo’s ability to read my thoughts. Could Mark and I do the same with each other?

I gnawed on this new bit of information. If telepathy was a possibility could I reach Mark and try help save him at least?

I felt it was at least worth a shot.

I closed my eyes to concentrate, fighting the urge to drift off to sleep, which is what my battered and weakened body now craved.

Now was the time to be strong. Concentrate, I chanted to myself.

Mark, I thought. I know this is crazy, but answer me if you hear this.

I tried again, Mark, please answer me if you can hear this. I repeated it over and over again, to no avail. I didn’t want to give up, but the many hours of being separated from him had just taken too great a toll on me. I’ve never experienced the ache that I was feeling now. As I worked to keep my mind focused, I could hear footsteps approaching the table.

Amanda stood over me, attaching more sensors for yet another round of torture.

I had no strength left to protest, instead only to lie and accept my fate. Strangely though, I felt nothing but soft vibrations. Was this the end? Maybe I was too far gone to even feel the pain anymore.

My thoughts began to dissipate and I slowly drifted off.

This time Mark was already waiting on the beach for me. My heart sped up as I spotted him. I struggled toward him, but the lethargic feeling had followed me into the dream. I reached the still invisible wall that separated us to see Mark looking at me in horror. He raised his hand as if to touch my face.

I watched as his concern was replaced with anger. His fist clenched and struck the wall sending invisible ripples vibrating up from the ground.

I stepped closer and placed my hand on the barrier to comfort him. His frustration was evident by his heavy chested breathing. He placed his hand to mine on the barrier and looked into my eyes.

Not knowing how much time we would have together, I tried to tell Mark everything that had happened; the truth about his dad, about our parent’s death, the others, and about ‘Guides’ and ‘Protectors.’ It was a lot of information to take in.

“Plus, I think it’s possible for us to read each other’s minds,” I said, finally winding down from my longwinded speech.

“Why do you think that?” he asked.

“Because your dad was able to read mine, I just don’t know how he did it yet.”

“I think the key is to open our minds…” my voice trailed off as the wall separating us evaporated.

“How did you do that?” Mark asked in amazement.

“I told you, I think that we are all connected through our minds. I haven’t pieced it all together, but I am slowly beginning to figure all kinds of things out.”

I looked at our hands that were now touching.

Our fingers were intertwined and I relished the familiar heat of his touch. I reached up and softly stroked his face as he kissed the middle of my palm. In the next instant I was pulled strongly into his arms. The ache that had followed me into the dream loosened, just by the touch of his embrace. I sighed as he put his hands on my waist and pulled me close for a heartbreaking kiss. I clung to his shoulders, molding my lips firmly to his; I could feel his warmth spreading throughout my body. I moved my hands up to his head greedily taking what he was offering. The ache eased and as I pulled away, I could feel the air feeding my hungry lungs.

His soothing touch gave me instant relief, at least here in the dream.

Mark pulled me down to sit on the sand with him. He tugged on my hand and settled me between his jean clad legs, wrapping his arms around me, pulling me tightly against his hard chest. I rested back against him as he took one of my hands into his.

“I have missed you so much,” he said. “It’s been impossible to control my rage, plus they’ve told me nothing.”

“Well just before I fell asleep, they were discussing your strength increases. It seems the more pain they inflict on me the stronger you become.”

Mark tensed at my words. I forgot I had glossed over the shock treatments on my earlier explanation.

“What do you mean they inflict pain on you?”

“They’ve been shocking me with jolts of electricity, obviously testing to see how far your strength will go. Your dad wants to see how far we can be pushed. He survived your mom’s death and I think that’s his ultimate goal for the other Protectors. His real problem is the fact that the Protector’s life depends on someone he thinks is weak,” I said trying to clarify the source of Russo’s madness.

“I just can’t believe my father is capable of this kind of evil.”

I grabbed his hands and twined my fingers through his. “Neither did the others,” I said.

I kept expecting to be ripped away from him at any moment.

He obviously felt the same, because as the time passed, he wrapped his arms more firmly around me as if anchoring himself to my body. I had a more pressing thought on my mind, but was trying to avoid bringing it up.

“Are going to get out of this alive?” I asked softly.

Mark made no comment at first. I angled my head so I could look up at him to see what he was thinking. He leaned forward and brushed a brief kiss on my lips. “I don’t know,” he said a breath away from me. He leaned down and pressed his lips more urgently to mine.

My heart broke into a million pieces. This could be the last time we would see each other. I felt a hot tear burn its way down my cheek. Mark stroked it away with the pad of his thumb. We did not talk again and when I woke I could still feel the heat of his touch.

I opened my eyes and looked around to find the lab was once again deserted. I scanned the room as my eyes adjusted to the dim light. Sitting up, I expected to be too weak to move, but I felt surprisingly alert. My body still ached, but the feeling of heaviness had receded.

I lay back on the table as I heard someone enter the lab. It obviously wouldn’t be good for me if they found out I had regained some of my strength, another round of torture would be brutal. I couldn’t help wondering though if maybe it was the injection Russo had given me that had me feeling a little stronger.

I remained as still as possible quietly listening to the movements of the person who had entered the lab. I heard the rapping of computer keys and then the shuffle of feet as they moved from one computer to the next. A few moments later I heard the familiar tapping of Amanda’s heels on the polished cement floor. I was worried that Russo would arrive considering he would be able to pick through my mind and know that I wasn’t as weak as I appeared, hopefully he was still away from the lab like I had heard the previous night.

I kept my eyes closed realizing this made my other senses stronger. I could smell the coffee in the machine across the room as it began to drip in the waiting pot below and the overpowering perfume that clung to Amanda in a nauseating way. It wasn’t just my nose that seemed stronger; my ears were picking up many noises around the room, like the impatient tapping of a woman’s fingernails as she waited for the coffee to finish brewing.

Finally, I heard the sound of multiple feet as they entered the room. Amanda passed out daily instructions, which led me to believe that Russo was indeed gone for the day. I kept my eyes firmly closed and willed my body to remain lifeless as someone raised my arm to check my pulse. I remained spaghetti-like allowing my arm to hit the table with a heavy thud when they finished. My cover was nearly blown when a cold metal stethoscope was pressed to my chest causing me to wince slightly. Thankfully the worker was too preoccupied with another conversation to notice. After a few moments the stethoscope was removed and I could feel a blood pressure cup being applied to my upper right arm, with a few pumps the band constricted tightly around my arm. Once completed, I heard the scratch of a pen on paper as the person jotted down my statistics.

“Her stats are still running high, but her body seems to be depleted of all strength. She remained unconscious through the simple exam, I believe she doesn’t have much longer,” the voice said.

I lay there, quietly contemplating what I should do next. They were obviously waiting for me to pass away. How long would they wait before they decided to take matters into their own hands? I knew I would have to act the next time they left me alone, if my strength remained.

The lab was noisy with activity as everyone worked at their stations. I passed the time by trying to connect to Mark, but no matter how hard I concentrated I was not able to make my mind respond the way it needed to. I could feel that I was close, but I didn’t know how to bridge the gap. Every few hours someone would come over and go through the routine of taking my stats. Each time I would will my body to remain limp. I was amazed that I continued to get stronger as the morning progressed. I soon felt that if I wanted to, I was capable of movement. I believe that the time I spent with Mark in the dream had made me much stronger. Lying on the table for so long though, I became acutely aware of the fact that my body was dehydrated and my stomach was empty. The thirst I could ignore, but I laid there in fear that my stomach would betray my half dead state. I played mind games in my head trying to remain alert, wanting to be sharp incase I had to move quickly.

Finally, when I thought I would go stir crazy from lying on the table for hours, I heard someone say it was lunch time. There was steady noise throughout the room as everyone closed up their stations and headed to lunch. The room slowly emptied and was soon quite, but I remained still and decided to wait a few moments before I moved.

My heart almost stopped when I heard someone approach my table. I laid there, barely breathing feeling the person’s eyes on me. I kept my eyes closed and tried to even out my breathing.

After what seemed like an eternity, the person finally walked away. I forced myself to wait a few more minutes before I dared to open my eyes.

I blinked in the light as my eyes adjusted to being open. I was definitely alone. This was the opportunity I needed; I was going find Mark and get us out of this mess.

I sat up and was taken aback by how lightheaded I felt; I needed to find food fast. After a few moments to clear my foggy head, I swung myself off the table and stood on shaky legs using the table for balance. My first steps were tentative as my body betrayed my determination, but I made my way to the coffee pot where I found leftover muffins.

The pot was empty, but I was pleased to see a left over muffin in the basket. I grabbed it quickly and gulped it down. It was dry from sitting out unwrapped all morning and the last bite got stuck in my already dry throat. I scanned the room and my eyes lit up when I spotted a half filled bottle of water sitting at one of the work stations.

The water helped the last of the muffin go down and I felt better with something in my stomach.