Chapter Four

                                                          

“You have to let me in, Alan. I can’t help you if you don’t talk to me.”

Liz leans forward in her plush armchair and places a hand on my knee. Her soft green eyes emanate warmth, and her sharp chin wrinkles as she smiles.

“I can’t…” I mutter. “I can’t put that on you.”

“You’re my brother,” she insists. “If they’re hurting you, I need to know. Are they hurting you, Alan?”

I shrink into the couch and shake my head. She scowls, and the scene shifts. 

My arms are bound to the chair as a body is thrust before me—a young man, maybe twenty years old, with a stab wound in his abdomen. 

“Go ahead, Alan,” purrs Dr. Heart. “Do the ritual.”

They position the man under my cuffed hand so that I can touch his skin. I sob, salty tears pooling under my tongue. They tighten the restraints and I yelp. Sniffing, I swallow my tears and utter the choice words:

“Grant me permission to see—to share in your pain. Allow me into your soul so I might catch the one who did this to you.”

“How dare you!” shouts a woman in the background. It’s Liz being held by Dr. Li in the corner. 

“What do you feel, Alan?” asks Dr. Heart. “Are you scared? Is it you or the victim?”

I writhe and cry, trying to stop the reel of emotions that flicks through my brain—images of Liz mixed with the dead man’s fear, depression, and defeat. 

“You can’t do this,” Liz shouts. “I’ll call the police. You…”

Her voice wavers in and out of focus. The man’s final moments still echo through my body like an electric shock. 

“You can’t,” Dr. Li retorts. “We had a deal. You signed.”

“Screw your deal, you’re torturing my brother!”

“Alan,” Dr. Heart whispers as Liz continues to shout. “Please speak to your sister. She must calm down, or things are going to get complicated.”

“L-Liz,” I managed through my chattering teeth. “It’s okay. Don’t make them angry.”

I can barely see her face as it lingers just out of focus. But she’s shaking her head and trying to wrench herself free. 

“No!” she shouts. “You guys are monsters, you…”

I snap back to the warehouse as quickly as I left. Deja vu strikes harder than a bus as my hands remain bound against a wooden chair. Rachel is next to me, her mouth gagged and eyes wide with fear. 

“You’re back,” muses a familiar voice. Dr. Tyler rises from a small desk. She resembles her photo on the fourth floor—rounded face with piercing blue eyes and short black hair—but with additional age lines, as if carved through her skin with a scalpel. 

“Dr. Tyler?” I ask. “I assume you’re our killer.”

“Killer?” She scoffs. “I am the greatest mind of our generation.”

She drags her chair in front of me and sits so we’re face to face. 

“My, you’ve grown up since those videos,” she says, prodding my cheek with her sharp pencil. 

“Right,” I say. “You had a lot of those on your computer.”

I glance at Rachel again, who looks surprisingly calm. She must trust me to get her out of this. It’s not the prospect of death or being back in the chair again that makes my heart race. It’s her life at risk. 

“I’ve spent a long time studying you,” she says. “The others did the hard work, but their vision died when you left. It was up to me to continue their legacy.”

“And what legacy would that be?” I ask. 

She spreads her arms as if addressing a large crowd. “Fear,” she says. 

She rises from her chair and begins to pace. 

“Is fear really a weakness?” she poses. “Or is it a strength? You work with emotions, Alan, you tell me.”

I’m not in the mood for a psychology lesson, but keeping her talking is the only thing preventing my partner’s death. I remember Lara’s poster: “Fear: Poison or Prosperity.”

“Both,” I say.

“Indeed.” She claps her hands. “Fear is what drives our survival instinct. We needed fear to evolve fight or flight, yes? But what about all that useless fear that still lingers? The anxiety that drives modern society. See, that’s where fear becomes poison. What we need is an antidote.”

She pulls a thin syringe from the breast pocket of her lab coat. I’m so fixated on the instrument that all thoughts of escape drain from my brain.

“What do you mean, antidote?” I ask. 

“Haven’t you wondered what you felt when you touched Lara Henderson? I figured that you wouldn’t understand. If you did, you may have put it together faster.” She flicks the empty syringe. 

The terror re-enters my mind—a sensation of being dragged through the worst moments of her life all at once, just like the memories I experienced only moments ago. 

“You’re making a vaccine,” I manage. “Forcing people to re-live the worst moments of their lives, then harvesting their fear.”

“Look at you.” She grins. Her icy eyes dance like marionettes in the moonlight. “They said you were smart. Yes, I believe that a microdose of liquid terror would help our bodies cure themselves of fear once and for all. Humans will become limitless.”

“But why me?” I ask. “Your notes said I was the final piece. Why?”

“I thought that was the most obvious part,” she says. “From the start, I’ve been laying clues, Alan. After the terror gave Lara a heart attack, I wouldn’t have left her body in the street if I didn’t want your attention. I needed you here because you are the key. Your fear is unique because of all the outside emotions you’ve experienced. When I extract it from you, it will be the catalyst for my reaction.” She flicks the syringe again. “If you don’t mind, of course.” Tyler giggles at her joke, making my stomach churn. 

My mind works overtime trying to figure out a way around the end. Once she pricks me with that needle, we’ve served our purpose. I think I have a way, but it requires time. 

“This wasn’t your idea, though,” I say, slowly rubbing my wrist against the ropes. 

“What do you mean?” she snaps. 

“Wasn’t it Lara’s? I saw her poster. Seemed like excellent work.”

Dr. Tyler snarls and storms back to her desk. “Lara had no clue what she was talking about,” she says. “She was working under me. They were my ideas.”
“So, why’d you kill her?”

“I didn’t kill her. Well, I guess I committed the act, but her ridiculous passion got her killed. She went digging where she wasn’t supposed to—learned about my plan, and you. So, I used her for my experiment.”

“Have there been others?” I ask. “Other people you’ve killed? Victims who died of fear?”

She nods. “A scientist with one subject isn’t bound to succeed. Lara was simply made public as my beckon to you.”

I keep sawing at my bonds, hoping Dr. Tyler remains at her desk. But the purpose of her trip becomes apparent when she snatches a note and marches back, shoving it in my face. 

“Proof,” she says, “that it was my idea first.”

I don’t bother reading the theories or scribbled formulas. Dr. Tyler just gave me all the information I need to widdle out of this. 

“Okay, sure, it’s you now,” I say. “But you weren’t there when I was being researched. You didn’t actually witness my abilities; you watched them on a TV screen. If anything, the other three doctors are at least equal in the discovery.”

As suspected, her pride gets the better of her. She growls and punches me in the face. I feel blood trickle from my nose. The metallic taste graces my tongue. 

“You really want them to get credit?” she snarls. “After what they did to your sister.”

I hear Rachel struggle as the doctor hits me again. I avoid my friend’s eyes. I don’t want to see how scared she is or how disappointed I didn’t tell her about Liz. 

“I have an answer for you,” I say through a mouthful of blood. “About fear. It’s not poison. Liz was scared for me, and that’s what made her so kind. I was terrified of those doctors, but I use that fear now to do good. I use it as a reminder of my responsibility to help people, even though I couldn’t help her. You would know what kind of person I am if you’d been there.”

She leans in, her eyes dark with rage. 

“You would also know that they bound my hands every night,” I say. “You think I’d go that long without learning a few tricks?” I grin and spew blood into her open eyes. As she stumbles back, I flip my chair onto its side. I grit my teeth in preparation for the pain. Then, I apply pressure and feel my thumb snap. I wrench my hand free just as Tyler bounds towards me. In one hand is the syringe, in the other, a thin blade. She pins me to the floor, knife to my throat. 

“Do you feel the fear?” she hisses. “Let me take it from you.”

She plows the syringe into my arm. In my desperation, I reach into her pocket to find the pencil she flicked me with. With no other option, I jam it into her neck. I close my eyes as the weight of her limp body sags on my weak shoulder. As the life leaves her, her skin presses against my broken hand and I can’t help but recite the sacred words, as I absorb her final moments.

***

“You okay, Alan?”

Rachel shoves through the crowd of officers who have been showering me with questions about how I killed Dr. Tyler. Even though my abilities didn’t save me, I’m still their magician putting on a good show. They disperse when my partner arrives and wraps me in a hug tight enough to suffocate a large bear. 

“I’m good,” I say. “How are you?”

“Alive.” She chuckles and squeezes me tighter. “Jesus, Alan. I’m sorry.”

“Sorry for what?”

“Everything that’s happened to you. I never knew.”

She releases me, a look of guilt and grief in her eyes, like I’m a wounded animal she doesn’t know how to address.

“I didn’t want to burden you,” I say. “Last time I did that, it was to my sister. And that didn’t end well.”

“What happened?” Rachel asks. “You promised to tell.”

I sigh. “When I was fourteen, our family was struggling. The doctors wanted to research my abilities, so the government set up a confidential contract allowing their experiments for compensation.”

“That can’t have been allowed,” says Rachel. 

I shake my head. “The original contract was never meant to include any of the experiments they ran down the line. The compensation wasn’t enough. When my parents passed, and it was just me and Liz, we needed the money. So, when the doctors offered an under-the-table deal, we took it. That’s when the torture began.”

“God, Alan,” she whispers. “I can’t even imagine…”

“I’m not done,” I say. “I was so scared of the doctors. I never told Liz what they were doing because I knew she would get upset. We needed the money, and I was also afraid they’d hurt her if she confronted them. But one day, I gave in and I explained how they forced dead bodies upon me like meals, and made me re-live their final moments and…” I trail off and clear my throat. “Anyway, one day, they brought Liz to the lab for a special test. They wanted to see how my body would react to my own fear—seeing Liz in danger while experiencing someone else’s, a dead man’s. Liz lost her mind. I was told I needed to calm her down before she breached the contract. I tried, but I couldn’t do it. I was so scared I could barely talk. And when I woke up, Liz was gone.”

“G-gone?” Rachel squeaks. 

“The doctors said a fire broke out in all the chaos.” I shrug. “But I think the truth is pretty obvious. I told them I’d never go back—that I’d call the police if they ever came near me again. I was the greatest scientific discovery of the decade. They weren’t about to kill me. I wish I realized that sooner.” I lean against a police car and massage my aching temples. “I felt her body, you know—Liz. I went through her final moments. She was so scared and angry. But beyond all, there was a sense of loyalty I’ve felt in no other victim. So, that’s when I accepted my responsibility. I spent the next fifteen years becoming who I am today. And I swore that no one would ever see me afraid again.”

“And that’s why you never told me,” says Rachel. 

I nod. 

“Alan, I…”

I hold up a hand and allow myself a smile. She looks so much like Liz in this moment—her rageful eyes and proud posture, like she’s ready to take on the world for me. I clap her on the shoulder. 

“Don’t apologize,” I say. “It’s in the past.”

She rolls her eyes and smiles back. “You really take no pity, Alan. Won’t even let me be sorry for you.”

“Nope.”

We laugh, and the joy in her eyes is enough to tell me I did the right thing. 

“At least let me be there for you,” she says. “Promise you’ll talk to me from now on.”

“Okay,” I say. “You’ve earned that. Coffee?”

She snorts and looks up at the moon. “Sure, why not? Can I ask you something first?”

“Go ahead.”

She shifts on her heels, the purple bruises on her cheek shining in the white glow of the night. 

“Did you feel Tyler’s final moments?” she asks.

I incline my head. 

“And?”

I follow her gaze to the moon and stars above—the same stars I cursed every night I was dragged to the lab. The sky I screamed at when Liz was taken, and poured my fear into after every case since. 

“She was scared.”