Debbie has worked on that project for school lately and as the good dad I am, I helped her search for information on the internet. It was then that we printed the pictures of seagulls that had been victimized by oil leaking out of transport ships.

I have seen the horrified look in my little daughter’s eyes when she softly touched the screen with her fingertips where the wings of the animal hung limp and soaked with the poisonous blackness. We had looked into half closed dark eyes that had given up hope and I’d had to comfort my daughter.

But who is there to comfort me now that I am so vividly reminded of the sad picture of hopelessness?

I hesitate before I touch the glossy black hair, shining as if soaked with oil but softer than I could have imagined. It merges with her black coat over black stockings and the black suit. I can feel her warmth through the fabric but I can’t see her face since it is buried at my shoulder.

She wouldn’t be Miss Parker if she sobbed. She does not. Her shoulder are perfectly still, her body does not move, but I can feel the soft tremble that goes through her. That and her quickened heartbeat are the only outward signs of her distress.

Besides the fact that she clings to me, that is.

I would have never expected her to one day do so. She despises me and if she has any respect for me at all, it could still not give her a reason to touch me if not absolutely unavoidable.

Is it unavoidable this time?

Her legs are folded on the sofa beside her, her arms go around my upper arm. I can feel her long nails that unconsciously scratch through the fabric of my shirt. They are the only splash of color on her outfit.

The black creature she is breathes in deeply, but still not raises her head. I wonder whether she’s ashamed of having fallen apart in front of me.

I have never seen her lose it like this before. After all the disappointments with the fruitless hunt for Jarod, her lover being shot on her frontporch and her trips to the hospital due to her ulcer, it has seemed unlikely that I ever would.

But I do.

Here she is. Weak and limp, completely drained of all the power that has always made her look majestic and absolutely in control.

As my hand finally makes contact with the back of her head, I can hear her inhale sharply like someone who’s being strangled and fighting for oxygen.

She doesn’t move. I have never realized just how fragile her body is.

“Miss Parker”, I whisper, although in the privacy of my living-room, I have no reason to.

The answer comes late, when I almost do not expect it anymore.

“Broots.” Her voice is deep and husky. As if she‘s just woken from sleep. When she lifts her head, I can smell alcohol on her breath. Not much, I think. She’s probably just had a drink or two. Not enough to numb the pain, I guess.

There’s no sign of tears on her face. It’s smooth and pale, almost white with deep burgundy accentuated lips and dark eye make-up, barely smudged.

She looks at me as if she’d never seen me before, as if she didn’t have a clue how she got here and why.

She sits up, I can see that her legs are shaky. She smooths the raven hair back with both hands and I can see her blood-red nails disappear and appear again in its mass.

She does not yell at me this time, neither does she apologize for just coming into my appartment and practically assaulting me with an embrace, clinging to me like a lifeline without a word of explanation.

I can’t help but wonder what has put her into that state.

This morning at work she’s been the same as every day. A little edgy, probably. But nothing out of the usual.

“What is it?” I ask softly.

I expect a sharp reply, maybe even a slap. I really do. What I get, out of her mouth, is more shocking than I would have thought possible.

“I think I’m falling apart”, she states, simply.

I cannot make sense of her words although I can sense that it is something grave.

I freeze, as I look into her eyes.

The ice is gone. She doesn’t look vulnerable either. Not even sad. Just… distracted and very distant.

“Miss Parker…” I don’t know how to put it. “Are you on drugs?” I finally blurt out.

She frowns, then shakes her head.

“No.”

Under normal circumstances she would have told me to shut up and keep my unsubstantial comments to myself.

But today she does not.

I wonder whether it is her at all. Does she have a twin sister I don’t know about?

Everything’s possible at the Centre.

“I think…” she goes on as if I had never said anything. “I can’t take this anymore.”
She looks defeated, but with a certain lightness that surprises me.

It takes me a minute to realize what she reminds me of: Someone who’s lost everything and does not have anything else to lose.

But in her case, it is someone who realizes that he’s never had anything at all.

She stumbles to her feet and looks at me, again, as if she didn’t know what the hell I am doing here.

She walks out on skinny black legs, her body black like a silhouette.

I follow her to the door, grab her arm and look into her face.

I realize that I have never been able to look into these icy-blue eyes for longer than a short moment since she would always react violently to it.

It’s different today, however.

Her somewhat relaxed posture somehow unsettles me. It seems so inappropriate, so inconsistent with her words.

“What are you going to do?” I ask, somehow having run out of breath.

Her reply comes as a long held breath finally being released.

“Leave”, she says, looking dreamy.

“Leave?” I echo, but she doesn’t seem to see me.

When she stormed in ten minutes ago, she looked defeated. I don’t know what keeps her going now. Maybe a determination that exists despite her obvious distress. Maybe a determination that exists because of it. I realize now what has happened to her.

Miss Parker has finally snapped.

“Thanks for holding me”, she says, already on her way to her car that is waiting, one door opened, parked squarely across my frontyard.

She starts the engine -her usual ruthless driving- and very quickly raises her hand before she puts the car into reverse and speeds out onto the street.

When her car disappears behind the next corner I have the sudden devastating but very distinct feeling that I will never see her again.

For me, this is the end. If only I knew what it is for her.

Jarod

„Dr. Dorian?“

I still very much liked the allusion to the TV-series “Scrubs”, which, during a pretty eventless pretend, had become my favourite pastime. I had also dicovered that I shared that with a variety of people who had taken great pleasure in telling me their favourite scenes while I treated them in the ER.

The nurse who had called for me, pointed towards the entrance where the medical staff had just welcomed an ambulance. A stretcher was rolled towards me.

“What is it?” I demanded, pulling fresh medical gloves over my hands.

“Trauma from a severe car crash”, one of the EMTs told me calmly. The man looked tired which was not surprising at four o’clock in the morning. Tonight’s shift had been uneventful until now so I had been able to catch up on some sleep and had actually been about to do some paperwork.

I ran towards the stretcher and helped lift the woman onto the examination table. She was unconscious and her head had rolled to the side, face obscured by a mass of blond hair.

I checked her pulse which was low but steady.

“What happened?” I called to the EMT.

“Her car crashed into a rock”, he reported. “The air bag was useless so she banged her head on the stirring-wheel. She’s been unconscious all the way to the hospital. Hasn’t surfaced even once. Poor thing”, he added, sadly looking down onto the slender frame of the woman.

He was obviously in the mood to talk since he now shrugged.

“Reckless driver, though”, he said in a chatty voice. “There was a guy who’s witnessed the whole thing. Says she lost control over her car which didn’t come as a surprise. That girl was way beyond the speed limit.”

I nodded, picturing the scene in my head.

He then fell silent while I carefully began to smooth the woman’s hair back from her face. There was blood that caused the blond streaks to stick to her face. The nurse handed me a wet cloth so I could wash it away in order to get a closer look at the wound.

It was the blond hair that had kept me from recognizing her right away but as I saw her now, I could not prevent myself from jumping slightly.

“You okay, Dr. Dorian?” the nurse asked, frowning slightly. People told me that she had been in the hospital long before anyone else around here had. As a new doctor you had to earn her respect, and as it seemed, I hadn’t yet.

“Um… It’s fine,” I replied, my eyes still fixed onto the face in front of me.

It was Miss Parker without a doubt. The high cheekbones and the rather prominent nose were unconfusably hers.

The most sensible thing to do would have been to hand her over to somebody else and run, but I couldn’t. She was not much of a threat to me in that state, I told myself but still it felt odd to be treating her, to touch her skin, to examine her injuries…

The head wound was minor. It would probably not even leave a scar.

“This will need stitches”, I told the nurse. “We need to stop the bleeding. And order a CT.”

Half an hour later I had filled out the paperwork, diagnosing her with a concussion. She had been very lucky indeed. Or, as you could also put it: Cats have nine lives.

Cat-like as she was I did not know how many of those she had already lost.

I cast another look at the monitors that showed stable vital signs. She just had to wake up now.

I had to run. I knew it. She would never know I had been there, I tried to tell myself.

But still I stayed, watching her motionless face, softened by unconsciousness. I tried to imagine the usual sneer but failed. She looked almost peaceful now, although the wound across her forehead disturbed the picture.

Why had she driven into that rock? Miss Parker was everything but a careful driver, but she also exerted perfect control about whatever vehicle she was driving. I had been an awed witness to that many times.

There hadn’t been rain that night, the street had been reported to be clear. What had it been that had made her lose control? As ridiculous as it sounded, I had lived up until now with the notion that Miss Parker never lost control. Why had she now?

And what had she been here for? Had she known my location? That was highly unlikeable since I had not sent a lead. Plus I had been very careful in selecting my new job. For once I was not here on a pretend. My wish had been to have a normal job for a few weeks to get a little more distance between me and all the Centre business. All that added up to the conclusion that she could not actually have known.

But here she was.

And the hair. I could not get used to the hair. Where there had once been black hair in a harsh business style, there were now stylishly dishevelled blond streaks that curled around her face and resulted in somehow making it look softer.

The clothes she had worn were also different from her usual attire. Blue jeans, suede boots and a simple black top along with a suede jacket. Not her at all.

I am a genius, you understand, so not being able to make sense of something bothers the hell out of me. Thus staying at her bedside, waiting for her to open her eyes and look at me had nothing to do with any obligation I might have felt towards her.

It was sheer curiosity.

It took her hours to wake up but when she finally did, I instantly wished that she never had. Watching her in her helpless state had made me drop my guard and so I reached out for her hand before I knew it.

The second my skin made contact with hers I drew my hand back as if it had touched hot coals. This woman was to be considered a hazard even in her dazed state.

I brought some physical distance between us although I knew that she was far too weak to do me bodily harm right now.

“Welcome back, Miss Parker”, I greeted her in the icy voice I usually reserve for when I make bad people confess their deeds. I folded my arms over my chest and raised an eyebrow.

“How did you find me?”

She blinked again, obviously unable to answer right away. Her eyelids fluttered several times before she managed to keep them open. Her gaze slowly focused on me and a look of sorrow manifested itself on her features.

I had to lean forward to be able to understand the single question she whispered.

“Who are you?”

Since this did not make any sense to me, I reacted in the only way one can possibly react to anything coming from Miss Parker. I got angry.

“Quit the nonsense, Miss Parker. How did you do it?”

My usual amusement was strangely absent, replaced with irritation about my leave of absense being disturbed.

“Do what?” she slurred, much as she had when I had sent her home from the bar she’d got drunk in after Thomas had died. The picture was vivid in my mind. Her, bent over a table, clutching a glass of whiskey, close to tears. Looking as helpless as she did now.

I wondered briefly whether she was putting up an act, but in fact she looked as if she did not. Her face was unreadable for a second, then the emotion that I had least expected showed: Utter horror.

She ran her hands through her hair, then suddenly sat up straight in bed. When she moaned in agony, my hands had flewn forward to support her before I could stop myself.

She now turned her head towards me and inhaled deeply before she spoke:
”I… I don’t know…” Her voice broke and she ran one hand over her eyes to fight back tears. I could hear from her tone of voice that she was trying to sound firm and professional beside herself.

“I do not know who I am”, she finally stated.

I could almost feel the fear that seemed to radiate from her like light shining from a torch. Was she that good an actress? Had she dyed her hair, bought a set of new clothes and now put up an act to lure me into a sense of false security?

But her injuries were real and very much looked as if they could cause memory loss. Temporary or not, in that case she would not pose a threat to me. If she had no clue who she was, she couldn’t have a clue who she was chasing.

“You don’t remember your name?” I asked although I knew better. I should have run and just assumed that she was staging whatever she was doing.

But my natural curiosity hadn’t ceased. Would she, deprived of her memory, once again be like the little girl I had known? There is a theory that our education and certain events in our lives shape our character. Would Miss Parker be the woman I had always wished she would have stayed? The girl I had loved?

I could still run. I had always outsmarted her and if I needed to, I would do it again this time.

“I don’t remember anything…” she whispered. “Do I know you?”

She looked at me with pleading eyes, as if she desperately hoped for me to present her with her name and her family, to give her back her life.

I hesitated for a moment, then shrugged.

“We’ve met before”, I said carefully. No need to already tell her the fact that she’d been chasing me for the past four years.

She still looked groggy and slightly disoriented. She finally sank back into her pillow and slowly took in the cheerful yellow walls of the hospital room, the linoleum floor, the hospital bed, the wardrobe and the tiny sink in the corner.

She swallowed.

“I’m in a hospital”, she stated quietly. “What happened?”

I decided that it would do no harm to tell her what had happened to her.

“You have a mild concussion since you banged your head on your stirring wheel. Car accident.”

She didn’t seem to really listen to me and as she closed her eyes I was almost sure that she had slipped back into unconsciousness. But then she reopened her eyes like she had before, just sans the fluttering of her eyelids. This movement was very much controlled and much more like the Miss Parker I knew.

“Did I harm anybody else?” she asked, immediatley assuming that the accident had been her fault.

“No. The rock you crashed into seems to be unharmed”, I answered, suddenly desperate to cheer her up and make the gloomy look disappear from her face.

It was that moment that I realized that I had never really seen her without make-up during the last –what?- twenty years?

Her face was pale and the natural color of her lips was closer to a light red than to the deep burgundy lipstick she usually wore. She looked almost vulnerable. But just almost. There still was the way she carried herself as she sat up against the pillows. She was still a fighter, even if she had forgotten why she had become one.

“So you do not remember anything about your past life?” I asked again.

She frowned and shook her head which she regretted immediatley, touching her forehead lightly to ease the pain. Her fingertips brushed the wound I had stitched up and she sighed.

“Do I have to expect a scar?”

Her question almost made me laugh. There she was, suffering from amnesia and her biggest worry was whether there was anything that could possibly diminish her beauty.

I suddenly wondered how much she remembered. She knew what a hospital looked like and she seemed to very vaguely remember that she was one hell of a driver. Did she also know she was beautiful?

“Don’t worry”, I told her. “I was a cosmetic surgeon once. I know how to do things like that without leaving a trace.”

“Good”, she replied and I could feel that I was under scrutiny from the way she looked me up and down.

“You said we’ve met before. Do you know my name?”

Her voice was still hoarse, but I could hear the determination. She would not let me off without a liable explanation. But what was I to tell her?

“We met on business in another state, so I was quite surprised to see you here.”

She sighed. “So I don’t live here? There’s no family waiting?”

“No.”

I didn’t have the heart to tell her, that there wouldn’t be a family waiting if she was in her hometown. Her father would probably have called in, asking about her condition but he would not have bothered to come over to watch over her until she woke up.

“Do you know my name?”

I could see that she sensed that something was wrong, that I was withholding something from her.

“Your name is Michelle”, I answered, feeling the name leave my lips more easily than I would have imagined. It had been such a well kept secret for all these years that I would have never spoken it aloud. It was one of her few wishes I respected although I frequently interrupted her night’s sleep and had done things such as carry a giant rubber troll into her house and disable her car.

To my utter surprise she looked irritated rather than relieved to learn her first name.

“I wasn’t asking for that”, she said impatiently. “I want to know my last name.”
It was amazing how little amnesia –or alleged amnesia in her case, since I still didn’t trust it- hadn’t affected her preferences.

“You would like to be called by your last name?” I asked, just to make sure I hadn’t misunderstood her.

Irritation began to show on her face. “Of course”, she said as if it was the most natural thing in the world.

“Miss Parker”, I said through gritted teeth, not sure whether to laugh or to get angry at her arrogant ways that obviously persisted through amnesia.

“I’m sorry”, she suddenly said. “I didn’t mean to sound harsh, it just sort of left my mouth like that… I don’t feel comfortable being called by my first name.”

She frowned again. “That is unusual…” she murmered to herself, as if she was trying to understand a stranger’s character instead of her own.

While she was trying to get to terms with herself, I realized that I already trusted her too much. I was almost convinced that she had really lost her memory. Why was I so sure? Did I once again fall for the old bond that existed between us without a doubt? Did she use it against me? Had she realized that the soft spot I’d had for her had never gone away?

“Do you know my family? Can you call them for me?” she asked and I saw the need for support in her eyes.

“No”, I said. “I don’t know them.”

A lie, but for some weird reason, maybe just a hunch, I decided to not tell her about where she came from and what she was, just yet.

Maybe it was still curiosity, maybe it was sheer vigilance, but I wanted her to stay the way she was. Absolutely clueless.

She looked defeated. The hope that had been shining in her eyes was gone and replaced with poorly disguised fear. She was still trying to be strong but losing your identity is not one of the things that anybody can handle well.

She turned back to me and looked into my eyes until I had the sincere wish to just look away. Her blue eyes seemed to look inside me and read my thoughts, seemed to see that I had been telling lies.

“Are we close?” she now asked, more softly than I had actually ever heard her talk. I could sense that she desperately wanted us to have been close before. That she wanted me to be someone who cared for her. Someone to provide the closeness she desired.

I knew by instinct that I had already made the mistake. I should have never stayed. I should have gone away and left her here. But I also knew about Centre policy. Driver’s licenses and identity cards of all sorts did include fotos and names but all the addresses were made up, leading everywhere but to Blue Cove. Miss Parker would have been lost with no chance to make her way home.

But regarding the fact that her home was the Centre, I would probably have done better if I had just prevented her from ever going back.

But now there was no way to escape this. All I was left to do was picking up the pieces.

Her question still rang in my ears. Are we close?

I looked at her and smiled, suddenly wishing her face would light up, starving for one of her rare but dazzling smiles.

“Well…” I said, wondering when my throat had gone this dry. “Sort of.”

Sydney

Broots wasn’t usually a calm and collected man. One could actually say that he was rather jumpy; esspecially around Miss Parker in whom the object of his affections and his tormentor easily merged into one person.

But on the other hand he wasn’t as fussy and puzzled as Miss Parker often regarded him. In actuality he had a sharp mind and when he was presented with a problem he worked until he was able to solve it.

His current state, however, could only be described as completely off balanced. One minute he gloomily stared into space as if pondering the meaning of the recent events in the Centre, the next minute he was frantically searching databases for any trace of Miss Parker.

I watched him going through a rather depressed phase right now, stirring his coffee in a tired motion that lacked both energy and speed. While he stared at the dark liquid dripping from the spoon I tried to gaze past him at the computer-screen.

“Anything new?” I asked, worried myself but scared to admit it, since I had the distinct feeling that voicing my own worries would send Broots straight into intensive care.

“Nothing”, he replied in an almost bored voice. “It’s like she’s had vanished off the face of the earth.”

I couldn’t help but imagine Miss Parker’s comment in that situation. “Vanished off the face of the earth?” I could hear her mocking voice in my head. “How very Shakespeare, moron. Get over that pathetic attempt to be prosaic and get me some results!”

But reality struck as the room remained quiet, the silence only interrupted by the soft humming of Broots’ computer.

“Have you eaten today?” I asked sternly, but he shook his head.

His usually cheerful, often curious face lacked all animation as he watched the white sugar on the spoon absorbing the coffee to eventually turn a light brown.

It was the wheeze from the door that made him jump. His chair crashed against the wall when he stood, the spoon jingling in the background as it hit the floor.

“Mr… Mr Raines!”

I slowly turned around and folded my arms in front of my chest. Was this about Miss Parker, I wondered?

Raines was his usual creepy and extremely unhealthy looking self as he slowly, almost threateningly approached Broots.

“Would you stop… trying to get into the… mainframe, Broots?” he wheezed. “It is annoying the techs… who have to frequently block your… attempts.”

In every pause that he needed to catch his breath, Broots seemed to draw closer to suffocation.

“O… Okay Mister R… Raines. I’m sorry”, he stuttered and I felt sorry for him. When Miss Parker had her go on him, her words embarassed but did not really frighten him. I suspected that this was down to the fact that he was still happy to have her attention, but faced with Mister Raines he seemed to shrink, to withdraw into himself.

I decided to put him out of his misery.

“We’re missing our Miss Parker”, I told Raines’ back, which caused him to slowly turn around, pulling his oxygen tank behind him in the process.

“Are you?” he asked and even for a trained professional like me, his expression was absolutely unreadable.

“You are supposed to find Jarod. Are we… clear?”

Without waiting for an answer, he headed for the door. The wheels of the oxygen tank, making low shrieking noises that suited his departure pretty well.

When he was gone, Broots sank back into his chair like someone who had just done a ten miles run. Exhaustion and desperation marked his face as he looked up at me.

“He knows something.”

That I did not doubt.

Jarod

I had stood in the hospital shop and twice picked a bunch of flowers then tossed them down again. Me giving Miss Parker flowers was absolutely ridiciulous but still…

Other patients’ rooms were full of them whilst hers remained fairly impersonal. Since I had enough money to do so, I had taken up buying flowers for lonely patients like the old lady in number 174 who did not have any relatives left, or the boy from France who was on holiday without his family and had broken his leg in a skying accident. It just didn’t seem right to be lonely in a hospital and the lack of flowers, in my opinion, was an outward sign for that.

In the end I had opted for a women’s magazine and a box of chocolates instead, because it seemed to be less personal. Also, I told myself, flowers would have probably indicated romantic interest which I did not want Miss Parker to expect from me.

She had fallen asleep after our early morning conversation and so I had asked the nurses to not wake her up for breakfast, just check on her, so she could sleep away the headache.

Now, at three o’clock in the afternoon, she sat up in bed and stared at the TV screen in obvious boredom.

“What are you watching?” I asked, pulling up a chair.

She switched off the screen and moaned. “Nothing in particular. I keep changing the channels but I’ve either seen the shows already or I hate them.”

“So you do remember the TV-shows you’ve seen?”

I bent forward, curious to find out more about the type of amnesia she suffered from.

“Weird, huh?” She shrugged at the irony of it. “I don’t remember my life but I remember fiction.”

“I have asked one of my colleagues who specializes in head trauma to run a few tests on you,” I told her. “There is no common cure for amnesia but maybe he’ll find something that might help us.”

She smiled uneasily. “Thank you.”

We looked at each other for a second, then I finally raised my hand with the chocolate and the magazine.

“I brought you something”, I stated and placed the items onto the covers.

“Well thank you”, she replied and gazed at the magazine cover. “What men really want in bed and this season’s best hairdos,” she read aloud, then her voice dropped with sarcasm. “Sounds like fun. I suppose that they didn’t have anything less intellectual?”

I was so used to her snide remarks that I didn’t as much as raise an eyebrow. To my surprise it was her who was shocked.

“Oh my god. Do I always say what I think?” she asked, looking sincerely embarassed so I couldn’t help but laugh.

“I think so.”

“But that’s awful”, she said. “It was so thoughtful of you to bring me something to read and all I could do was critizise your choice.”

“Don’t worry”, I answered. “I’m sure I can exchange that for The Times.”

“Oh would you?” she asked, relief audible in her voice.

“Sure.”

There was another pause. Then we both spoke at once.

“We can I get out of here?” she asked the same second I started to tell her that she would be released tomorrow.

She smiled and although it never reached her eyes, I appreciated the gesture. It was not as if she had ever tried to be friendly before. And the battle that was going on in front of my eyes very much intrigued me. There was an old instinct that told her to be harsh and sarcastic towards other people but it collided with the unbiassed being of Miss Parker without recollection of the events that had shaped her character into what it was. Truly interesting indeed. And sweet, in a very twisted and Parker-like way.

“Your concussion’s mild if you consider the circumstances”, I explained. “We wanted to keep an eye on you in case there were any internal injuries that we could not diagnose but you seem to be fine.”

She sighed.

“What happened to my car?” she asked.

“Total loss”, I told her what I had learned just a few hours ago.

“I was lucky to survive…” she murmured.

“You were lucky to survive,” I agreed.

We were silent for another moment, then she looked up at me again with tears in her eyes. She choked slightly before she could speak.

“What do I do?” she asked.

I frowned as if I didn’t understand.

“I researched a little.” She vaguely pointed at the phone on the nightstand. “There is an address on my driver’s license. It’s from Delaware but it seems that the house does not exist. I have been told that there was no number 145 on that street. It goes up only until 144.”

Her sharp wit was obviously intact as well. A fact that made me slightly uneasy.

How long would it take for her to realize that we had never met on business? When would she start asking me questions about her profession, her marital status and her old life in general?

It once again became apparent to me that I had in fact maneuvred myself into one of these situations that you had to avoid like the plague if you did not want to be caught by the Centre.

“Maybe there’s a faulty record. It’s possible that the house you live in was newly built and not recorded.”

She looked at me with the same superior glare I had often seen her give Broots. Unlike him I did not shrink at the sight but it still made me uncomfortable.

“Are you kidding?” she asked and her eyes narrowed. “You are trying to get rid of me, Jarod Dorian.”

My fake name sounded weird when spoken by her, I thought. Before I could interject, she had already raised a hand to silence me.

“Who are you trying to fool?” she accused. “We haven’t met on a business meeting! What kind of business meeting should that have been? I don’t remember what my profession is, but I can tell from my knowledge damn well that it was not in the medical field or in the pharmacy business. So what kind of business should the two of us have had with each other?”

It took me a minute to identify what it was that had seeped into her voice.

What kind of business should the two of us have had with each other?

It was very much like Miss Parker to make a perfectly innocent sentence sound like an invitation by means of only one slightly cocked eyebrow and the subtle dropping of her voice. At first I didn’t realize that I was battling desire. When I finally did, I mentally slapped myself.

I should have constructed my lies more carefully esspecially since I was so used to not being honest to people about my education and where I came from. But usually I wasn’t faced with such vigilance and this kind of unchallengeable logic.

“I think your concussion is worse than I expected,” I told her in my calm professional doctor’s voice. “It should be best for you if you slept a little more.”

The first emotion that showed on her face was disbelief, which was very quickly replaced with anger.

“Oh yeah, Jarod. Just run away and leave me here like this! I don’t know you but somehow I feel it’s appropriate.”

I looked into her eyes and was shocked to find anguish shining through the rage.

It just wasn’t right to leave her behind, I thought. She was a human being after all. And she was at her most vulnerable right now.

“I’m sorry”, I said, slowly returning to her beside and once again sitting down on the chair. I carefully picked up her hand and held it between mine.

It was a curious sensation. Miss Parker having soft hands was no surprise on the logical side, but softness would be nothing you’d usually associate with her.

“Why don’t you just tell me who I am?” she asked, voice muffled.

And there it was. That moment that changes everything at once. I had asked her that question so often in the past and she had always given me the same answer.

And that was my way out that I had been searching for.

“I don’t know,” I answered, picturing her old raven-haired self rolling her eyes at the question and repeating the answer once again.

“And what’s that about us being close then?” she rasped while she tried to withdraw her hand, but I held on to it.

“You know how it goes,” I said evasively. “We stayed in the same hotel…” I knew very well that I was confirming what she had already suspected.

“Sort of close?” she asked. “It was just a stupid fling in a hotel and you say we’d been close?”

Her free hand flew up to her head and she rubbed her temples furiously.

“This is a damn hospital! Why don’t I get any painkillers?”

“You got some two hours ago,” I gently reminded her. “Remember?”

She dropped her hand and jerked the other out of my grasp.

“What do you think? Since there’s not much else that I remember… yes I do.”

We stared at each other for a full ten seconds before she exhaled softly.

“There absolutely is nothing you can tell me about me?”

I cleared my thoat. She would hate me for that but I didn’t know what she would do if I told her that she was actually a hopelessly overworked, irritable, lonely woman who took great pleasure in terrorizing her fellow workers and made a living of chasing that only person in the world that she now knew. I was sure that even a Miss Parker wouldn’t be able to handle the truth without suffering a nervous-breakdown.

“No,” I said. “I’m sorry.”

“Quite the coincidence,” she mused. “Me turning up in your ER…”

“Quite the coincidence indeed”, I agreed, this time meaning it.

I rose from my chair.

“My break is over, I guess. There are patients waiting to be treated.”

She nodded and half-heartedly reached for the magazine.

“Don’t bother with The Times. I might just find out how I should wear my hair this season.”

She absent-mindedly twisted a streak of bright blonde hair round her forefinger and inspected it.

“I’m a blonde. That’s a shocker,” she joked but I was pretty sure that she did not remember ever having sported another haircolor.

Suddenly, a thought struck me.

“Do you have any idea what you look like?”

Her gaze was genuinely surprised as she looked up at me.

“I was so busy trying to find out about my past that I never…” she trailed off as I made for the wardrobe.

“There’s a mirror in here,” I explained and handed it to her a moment later.

She very slowly raised it and looked inside. I had seen her look in the mirror before. She had always mustered herself with a cold, distanced gaze, as if she was simply checking for any errors in her make-up or a stray strand of hair.

This time she appeared to be really seeing herself, looked into her own blue eyes, touched her cheekbones and then smiled tentatively.

“Could have been worse,” she said and I could not help but return her smile.

“Much. Dr. Grant will get back to you later for the tests I told you about.”

Willing to grant her some privacy I backed out of the room and walked towards my office. Although she had found out that something was not as it seemed far too early for my liking, this situation had shown me something else. Her irritable ways were enough proof for me that her amnesia was real. Why would anybody in their right mind who wanted to convince me that they were harmless, behave like this?

If she had truly wanted to carry out some elaborate plan to catch me, she would have pretended to be frightened and lost because she knew damn well that it was a very safe way to make me stand by her.

Instead she had lashed out at me and confronted me ruthlessly.

She was either very stupid or actually clueless.

And stupid, I knew very well, she was not.

---

“Thank you, Doctor Dorian,” Simon, the young intern said with sincere gratitude. “If you hadn’t let me in on that surgery I wouldn’t ever have got the chance.”

I smiled. Simon was the classic underappreciated doctor but now that he had been a great help on an emergency sugery on a tumor patient, I knew that he would find his way.

His gaze went past my head over my shoulder and left eyebrow and the corner of his mouth raised simultaneously in appreciation. I turned around to find out what mesmerized him and, too, found myself involuntarily staring.

Miss Parker was dressed in the clothes she’d been found in and her hair, curled slightly, fell over her shoulders. The new look was pretty sexy, I had to admit. Not that the old one hadn’t been, but this was different. With her sharp suits and short skirts she had looked very desirable but completely out of reach. Now she looked younger and more at ease.

The look of determination on her face, however, told me that she was everything but.

Her stride hadn’t changed, her steps were still long and firm as she approached.

“Wow, you know her?” Simon whispered, his lips barely moving so she wouldn’t be aware that he was talking about her.

She had crossed the hall more quickly than I would have thought her capable of in her condition and looked up to me.

“I hear that you’re off-duty, now, Dr. Dorian,” she said in a tone of voice that did not allow for objection. It wouldn’t take her long to realize that she had majored in law and business studies, I thought beside my irritation. She would have made a great prosecutor.

“I’m off-duty, too,” Simon replied jokingly. That was probably one of the reasons nobody took him seriously. He flirted with every good-looking woman he could get hold of. I opened my mouth to tell him to leave us alone, but Miss Parker was already taking care of that.

“Glad to hear that. That would give you some time to grow up, neewbie,” she told him just to completely ignore him from that moment on.

While Simon shuffled off, I once again folded my arms in front of my body, being completely aware of the defensiveness the gesture conveyed.

“Where do you live?” she asked me.

“Is this the holy inquisition?” I replied.

“Very funny. I need some place to stay.”

I laughed out loud and immediatley realized that it had been yet another mistake. Her eyes darkened considerably.

“Look, I know that you know something that you keep from me. You could at least have the decency to take a little care of me.”

I frowned at her words.

“I would say that you’re able to take care of yourself.”

Her mood changed as quickly as a traffic-light but without the yellow bulb.

“You said that we were sort of close, you remember?” she asked accusingly and I was left with no other choice than nodding in grudging agreement.

“Did you lie to me on that, too? Because if you and I’d had any kind of relationship in the past you wouldn’t let me down like that now. Even if we just had some fun in a stupid hotel-room.”

I hadn’t expected her to look this hurt and that finally broke my resistance.

“I’m sorry,” I said, helpless at the sight of her despair.

“As far as I know you are the only person I have in this world.”

Her voice had lost its strength and gave me the faintest hint that her usual neurotic self had probably always been set up to disguise the fact that there was a certain vulnerability to her that nobody was supposed to see.

I couldn’t help myself. Letting her down right now was just not an option.

“I should have a spare bedroom for you,” I finally said and put my hand on her shoulder.

She looked up at me her face suddenly unreadable.

“Thank you.” It was more like a long held breath finally being released than an actual sentence, but I understood it anyway.

“Well then, let’s go,” I said and motioned towards the door that led onto the parking-lot.

She walked very close to me as we left the building and when we drove, I caught her looking at me from the corner of my eyes. Weird enough that Miss Parker who kept hanging up on me during calls and whose only aim it had been to get me back to the Centre now clung to me.

With mixed emotions I turned into my driveway ten minutes later. I was curious how she turned out and whether I would be able to discover her true self under the firm wall she once again erected around herself, to finally be sure what was her and was an act.

But I was also worried about what would happen when I’d finally have to tell her just what the nature of our relationship was...

Broots

“I’m not sure we should be doing this, Syd!” I muttered, following the man in the tweed jacket along the corridor. As usual, he sounded rather amused as he turned around to face me.

“Don’t worry, Broots. What do you think is the worst thing that could happen?”

I frowned, knowing this question far too well.

“I am very well aware that this is the kind of question a psychiatrist would ask an angst condition patient,” I growled very unlike myself.

“You got me,” he said rather sheepishly. At least that was one of the rare moments in which he admitted to using his psychiatrist’s skills against me.

I followed him into the living-room and for the first time ever actually dared to inspect my surroundings. On the few occasions that I had spent time with Miss Parker here, she had got straight down to business. Whenever I had tried to catch a glimpse at the interior of the room she had harshly admonished me to focus on the task at hand.

The living-room was surprisingly comfortable. I wasn’t sure what I had expected but it was certainly not the modern, state of the art, clinically tidy environment one could perfectly picture Miss Parker in.

I took in warm colors, tasteful paintings and framed pictures of happier times in her life. They were all black and white. Ancient memories that persisted despite the fact that a lot of time had passed since then.

“She’s unhappy.” Sydney stood next to me and carefully picked up a picture that showed Miss Parker’s mother and her little girl looking at each other with happy smiles. I looked up at him and wondered just how much he knew and how much he guessed.

“Do you think so?”

Had she ever told him about her loneliness? She had certainly not needed to tell me. It was so evident. I fondly thought about Debbie who brought joy into my otherwise dull life. I was so very lucky to have somebody who unconditionally loved me.

“Why else should she cling so desperately to the times that have so long gone?” Sydney asked, sadly replacing the picture on the shelf.

I looked at the rest of the pictures. A young Miss Parker who had just graduated from college standing next to her father. Although he had put an arm around her shoulders the distance between them was almost palpable.

The wedding picture of Brigitte and Mister Parker was nowhere to be seen. While Sydney moved on into the kitchen I remained standing and reached for a picture that stood in the back where it was half hidden by other fotos.

Miss Parker could be seen on it with a perfect smile on her lips. Not the insincere one she used to give people when it was absolutely unavoidable or the cruel one that she had reserved for torturing. This was different. Open, happy.

Her head leaned against Thomas Gates’ shoulder and her fingers were entwined with his. I caught myself wishing that it could be me who could make her smile like this and quickly put the picture back.

Don’t go there, I thought. I was here to find evidence where she had gone.

“Nothing down here,” Sydney stated from the doorway. I snapped out of my thoughts and followed him towards the stairs.

The higher we climbed the stairs, the more the temperature dropped. I could smell the October rain in the fresh cold air that I breathed.

“Strange,” Sydney muttered and opened the first door to the right which seemed to be her bedroom. I had never been up here and I had not thought I ever would be.

But then again I had been holding Miss Parker in my arms. And that had seemed about as likely.

We quickly found the cause for the coldness in the upper rooms: The bedroom window stood wide open. Why would anybody who wanted to leave for good leave the window open? Why would she leave the pictures behind that reminded her of her mother?

“We should check whether anything is missing from the closet,” Sydney said and opened one of the two large wardrobes. The inside was about what I had expected. An incredible amount of designer clothes that must have cost a fortune.

“How are we supposed to find out whether something is missing?” I asked, discouraged. “She’s got so many clothes…”

I looked at the elegant evening-dresses, the lines of suits, sorted by color, the terrifying amount of shoes… (Who was this Manolo Blahnik guy anyway?!)

Sydney chuckled beside himself. “You’re right.”

He pointed towards the suitcase Miss Parker usually carried on business trips. It stood next to its set of bigger companions.

“It doesn’t look as if she’s packed anything,” Sydney stated.

I agreed. A set of pyjamas was flung across the unmade bed, her watch lay on the bedside table and although I could not tell whether she had removed any make-up devices from the dresser, it seemed unlikely.

“Broots!” Sydney’s voice sounded agitated for the first time.

“Yes?” I swirled around finding him staring at a small prescription bottle only half filled with pills. The label read “M. Parker” and listed a few names of medical substances I could not pronounce, let alone understand.

“Probably medication for her ulcer,” I offered, but he shook his head. “That would not be the right active substance.”

He pocketed the bottle and looked around again.

“We need to have this analyzed.”

“Why? It could simply be vitamins,” I objected.

Sydney placed a comforting hand upon my shoulder and led me out of the bedroom.

“I have a guess what it might be, but I need to confirm it,” he told me and from his tone of voice I knew that he would not reveal the theory to me until it was actually confirmed.

I followed him downstairs, still pondering the secret of Miss Parker’s sudden disappearance. One thing was for sure. She had not been planning this.

Jarod

After so many hours of work my lunch usually consisted of a quick frozen pizza or some stuff from take-away but since I was far too wired to be tired anyway, I decided that I might as well cook. Unfortunately I did not have the faintest idea what food Miss Parker liked. There had been very few topics we had ever been able to talk about without ripping each other to shreds; food not being among them. Understandable, since it would have been weird to exchange recipes over solving secrets about our past or simply playing the tired old game of you-run-I-chase.

She was walking around, arms folded over her chest and inspected my home. I had rented the cottage just outside the city from a wealthy divorce-lawyer who spent a few months in Europe so it was very tastefully furnished. She obviously liked the expensive furniture, the huge flatscreen TV and the polished cherrywood floor.

“It’s a beautiful house,” she finally said, walking towards the floor to ceiling windows that overlooked the garden. “And you have a pool,” she added, obviously impressed, pointing towards the pool house that was half hidden by marple trees.

“Yes. It is heated so you can still use it in fall.”

“If only I had a bikini,” she said, only half joking, then turned away from the window and wandered into the kitchen to take a look at the huge refrigerator, the marble countertops and a bar equipped with bar stools.

“Can you do cocktails?” she asked, surprising me greatly.

“Sure,” I replied a little too quickly, but the memory of me mixing cocktails in a fancy bar to make sure the bar owner’s ex-wife got her child-support was still very vivid.

She had noticed my quick answer and smiled.

“Sounds as if you had experience.” Her smile didn’t cease and I was left to stare blankly at her face. She looked so completely different when the sneer was replaced with a smile. A pretty seductive one, I noticed, my stomach twisting into knots.

“Well, I haven’t met a barkeeper who didn’t like the effect that position has on the ladies.”

Her smile got even wider. “And what would be so sexy about a barkeeper?”

“They’re in charge and in control,” I joked. “so it might be the power that draws the women in.”
”They say the same things about doctors,” she mused.

“And do you agree?”, I replied.

We simultaneously noticed that we were flirting. This time it was me who stated the obvious.

“You seem pretty used to this banter,” I said although I knew pretty well that Miss Parker could be one hell of a flirt if she felt like it. Once I had followed her into a bar because I had been worried that she would once again get herself gloriously drunk in order to drink away Thomas’ memory. But that evening had been different. I was still pretty sure that she had not paid for a single drink that evening and when she had gone home –alone- late that night, she had left behind several lovesick puppies who barely remembered that they had once been men dripping with self-confidence.

Instincts, I thought with amusement, did obviously preserve.

“Feel free to look around upstairs,” I told her. “I’ll make us something to eat. Do you like chicken salad?”

“Who doesn’t?” she answered carelessly. She’d never been much of an eater and now she didn’t seem to be very interested in what she ate, either.

“I’ll take a shower if that’s okay. And then I am going to go shopping.”

I turned around and cocked an eyebrow at her. “Shopping?” I echoed, sounding pretty stupid.

“I am a woman! Do you honestly think I’d stay in the same clothes for two days or go another day without make-up?” She laughed. “I was going to ask you whether you were single but I don’t think I have to ask that question anymore.”

I looked after her when she crossed into the hallway, slowly climbing the stairs. If not for her careful movements and the stitches on her forehead that were covered by expertly arranged strands of hair, I would have forgotten that she was still weakened.

I heard the shower run upstairs while I cut chicken and vegetables.

Then suddenly a thought hit me. The Centre did keep track of their employees. Somebody just disappearing was not acceptable. So they would certainly look out for the usage of her credit card. And if she bought clothes now, they would track her down. That, however, was inacceptable for me.

I quickly went towards the bar where she had left her handbag and retrieved her wallett. Its contents consisted of about a hundred dollars in cash, her driver’s license with a pretty unrecognizable picture and two credit cards which I weighed in my hand, but then put back. She would notice if they were gone. I just had to come up with another idea.

When she returned twenty minutes later I had set the table in the dining-room and offered her a seat.

“I was thinking,” I told her after I had made sure that she liked the food.

“You were?” she asked mockingly. “About the barkeeper thing?”

“No. I think I am going to accompany you to the shopping-centre.”

She smiled again now, amusement written all over her face.

“I am not sure you really want that,” she said. “Remember that I don’t have any stuff at all!”

I smiled back. “I am just worried about you,” I finally stated. “You’re in no condition to drive and I want to be there should you experience difficulties with that concussion of yours.”

She snorted, but looked slightly flattered. “You worry about me,” she said. “Well that’s pretty sweet. But beware. I don’t remember my shopping preferences but I have the distinct feeling that the whole thing will take time.”

I decided to have a few coffees after lunch. Just so I would stay awake.

---

I released a deep breath when we stepped back into the house several hours later. She had never noticed me using my credit card instead of hers when I had offered to stand in line of the fancy boutique she had shopped empty. The amount of money I had just spent on her resembled almost a six months salary but I did not care. I was never short of money and if that was the prize I had to pay for the Centre not finding us, I would happily do so.

Somehow I regretted insisting on carrying the bags now that I could not see where I was walking with them obscuring my vision. The afternoon had been more fun than I had expected. Shopping seemed to have a calming influence upon Miss Parker’s temper because she had seemed at ease, almost happy while going through the shelves and buying everything in sight.

I had known her sense of humor only as dark and twisted so far, but now I had learned that she could be very funny in a playful way, too. More than once we had exchanged one or two flirty sentences and I had enjoyed it greatly beside myself.

Having a soft spot for your huntress was something very undesireable, but now that she was just a woman on a shopping spree it seemed less impossible.

“How about those drinks?” Miss Parker asked.

I saluted the way I had learned during my time with the marines.

“I’ll go and change,” she explained and pointed at a spray of bloodstains on the collar of her jacket. “So I can finally forget about that accident.”

“You did already!” I called after her when she carried her new posessions upstairs.

“Do your job!” her muffled voice called from the bathroom.

I smiled to myself and filled ice cubes into two large glasses.

Let the fun begin, I thought to myself. After a few years of being out of captivity I had not really taken up drinking so I still needed to watch myself to not get drunk too quickly.

I mixed two cocktails but did not add any alcohol to either of them. Miss Parker was still on painkillers and alcohol was not exactly what the doctor ordered for patients with concussions.

I accidentally spilled some of the mixture of several fruit juices and grenadine over my hands when she entered the room. She had applied some make-up and was dressed in a considerably short black skirt and a light blue cashmere pullover.

She had noticed my reaction and now grinned at me when she accepted the glass.

“Tell me more about the night we met in that hotel,” she asked me when we had settled down on the sofa, sipping our drinks.

“What would you like to know?” I stalled. Lying to her was still hard although I knew very well that I had every reason to.

“When was that and what was the name of the hotel?” she asked, getting right to the point. I understood now that she had seemed at ease this afternoon but that her thoughts had always been circling around the mystery of where she’d come from despite that.

I thought quickly. I couldn’t lie too much, so I needed to stick closer to the truth. I remembered her and Broots following me to a hotel in Los Angeles three months ago, so I decided to use that. Even if she called the hotel, the Centre wouldn’t have left any traces. False leads were what they spread and they never left any information on where to find their employees.

“It was called the Sunshine Inn in LA,” I told her. “We met in the hotel bar.”

True, I thought. She had seen me there, dropped her Gin and Tonic to the floor and had chased me into the hall where I had been able to shake her off.

“Sounds good,” she sipped her cocktail again. “Do you have anything to go with that?” she raised her glass and I dutifully got up to retrieve a bowl of cherries from the refrigerator in the kitchen.

When I returned, she had leaned back and was obviously enjoying the drink tremendously. I grinned. She had not even once suspected that there was no alcohol in there. The right amount of lemon juice could do wonders…

An hour later I realized that it hadn’t been the lemon juice. Even without her memory, that woman was more twisted than I could have suspected.

I nearly enjoyed the comfortable dizziness that made my head spin, but I also knew that this didn’t result from her enjoyable company only.

“Are you a little drunk?” she asked sweetly.

“No way…” I said. “I didn’t put alcohol into the drinks.”

Whoops. I wasn’t too good with secrets.

“Ah well, but I did. The second liquor cabinet in the living room is pretty useful”, she said lightly, sipping her own third drink. I looked at my empty glass and sighed.

“When did you do that?”

She counted at her long fingers. “The first shot when you got the cherries, the second when you got me water and I spiked the third one when the phone rang.”

I snorted, far too amused to actually be cross with her. Plus I liked the heat that had crept into my cheeks and the light feeling that seemed to lift all the worries I’d had.

Miss Parker didn’t look drunk at all which was probably down to her regular nightcap that had obviously served to make her pretty much immune to the effects of alcohol.

Not completely immune, but a lot more immune than I was.

“So we met how… exactly?” she asked, returning to the topic I had been trying to avoid for the last two hours.

How did we meet? How would I stay close to the truth and still not tell her anything?

“You know… boy meets girl. Boy is interested in girl and doesn’t know how to tell her, girl kisses boy…”

I still very vividly remembered our first kiss a long long time ago in the Centre sublevels and it seemed strangely appropriate to tell that tale.

“I kissed you?” she asked, amused, but didn’t comment further.

We remained in silence for a moment, then she set her empty glass down onto the table. She swayed slightly when she got up. Aha, she wasn’t as immune after all. Or maybe the painkillers had done their work. Never mix tablets with alcohol, I thought. She would have a hell of a hangover in the morning. And so would I.

I stood, too. Just so I could catch her, should she fall.

“How very sweet of you,” she remarked sarcastically, which made me realize with a start that I had spoken my thoughts aloud.

“Why did you pay for my clothes?” she suddenly asked, her voice sharp and inquisitive again.

“You… You noticed?” I asked, alarmed.

“I lost my memory not my eyesight. So?”

This thing was getting out of hand and realizing that caused me to sober up a bit.

She would not accept any evasive statements so I had to come up with something better. It was just that I was already so tired of this game.

It would be better to keep her past from her until her injuries had completely healed, I told myself. Better for her safety and for her health. And still I knew that this was what I made myself believe to be the reason for my actions. Somewhere deep down I knew, however, that evenings like today had been exactly what I’d really wanted. Meeting Miss Parker in a relaxed atmosphere, without her always trying to outsmart and capture me. It was so much better like this. I just wanted to hold on to this peaceful status for a little bit longer.

But I had to face reality: It was impossible.

“I’m sorry,” I finally tried. “I mean… we don’t know whether you have money at all and I felt like I had to make up to you for being such an ass back in the hospital. I shouldn’t have treated you like that. Well… I should have been more helpful.”

There was a weird expression in her eyes that told me that there was a severe battle going on at the inside. I understood that she wanted to believe me and that she was unsure whether she should trust me or not.

I wanted to believe that our growing friendship was real and she wanted to believe that she could trust me. Why didn’t we just arrange ourselves with each other and both pretended that everything was the way we wanted it to be?

“What you said to me at the hospital…” she tried for the last time. “When I woke up… You shouted at me and asked me how I’d found you.”

Oh my god. She remembered that semi-conscious moment. How was I supposed to get out of that one?

I sighed. Denial was good. “If you don’t trust me at all, why did you come to my house to stay with me?” I asked instead of answering her question.

Her gaze lingered on me for a moment, then she turned away, arms wrapped around her upper body as if she was cold.

“I came because I don’t have anywhere else to go,” she finally whispered.

Although I did my best to battle the feeling, I felt sorry for her. She was completely lost. But still she was the woman that had been chasing me for the past four years. But could you hold somebody responsible for deeds they did not remember? A life that they would probably be horrified to have led? How could that troubled woman in front of me possibly be compared to Miss Parker- the ice-queen of ice-queens?

“Don’t worry,” I said and approached her, gently wrapping my arms around her.

“Everything will be fine.”

She did not object and did not demand an answer to her questions. Even a Miss Parker was willing to believe what she wanted to believe so badly for her own sake.

She didn’t answer, just rested her head against my chest for a moment, then freed herself from my embrace. I caught myself only reluctantly letting her go.

“I’m so tired. I should go to bed now.”

She gingerly walked towards the door and turned around for the last time in the doorway, her hand resting against the frame as if she expected me to say something.

I met her gaze and tried to put all the warmth I suddenly felt towards her into one single look.

“We’ll find your family,” I assured her.

Only when her bedroom door had closed upstairs I added quietly:

“I just don’t want them to find you.”

Mister Parker

I stared down at the picture of my beautiful daughter that I held in my hands. It showed her the way I liked her. No smile disrupting her perfect features, pale complexion contrasting against red lips, a superior, almost arrogant look in her eyes that was emphasized by the slightly raised corner of her mouth.

She looked so strong in this picture. So pulled-together, so in control, so very Parker. That was the way I wanted her. The way she had been supposed to become.

Most fathers secretly wish for their daughters to stay all child and innocent so they can protect them and prevent them from seeing the evil of the world. My daughter had seen evil very early in her life and although it had hurt me at first, I had very soon realized that it had been the best that could have happened to her. She had grown up so fast. Had become that stunning presence so quickly.

She had seen the evil of the world so now she could protect me.

And that was the way it had to be.

DSA- Two months prior to Miss Parker’s disappearance

Mister Parker is standing opposite Mister Raines, his eyebrows creased with determination.

“The Centre is not what is has been,” Mister Raines wheezes, holding on to his oxygen-tank while Mister Parker clutches the edge of his desk.

“Your daughter is failing. Her team is failing. You know as well as I do that we cannot tolerate that any longer.”

He waits for a reply but does not receive one. After a short pause he goes on, even more insistent this time.

“We have to make that one work.”

He gestures towards the file that is laying on the desk. It is opened to the last page, obviously having been studied by Mister Parker already.

“This is just what we need,” Raines says, stepping forward, his eyes bulging out of his skull in an almost manical way.

Mister Parker finally lets go of the desk and folds his hands.

“I understand,” he says, the reluctance suddenly gone. “And I will take appropriate measures.”

Raines looks satisfied but not yet relieved.

“You will carry out the plan.”

“I assure you that.”

Mister Parker tenses as a thought suddenly seems to hit him.

“We’ll have to let her go for that.”

Raines, already on his way to the door, turns around menancingly.

“Let her go,” he emphasizes, giving the words a very different meaning without changing a syllable. “Yes.”
Mister Parker raises the corner of his mouth in disgust as Raines slowly walks out, the shrill sound of wheels accompanying his every step.

He closes his eyes when the door falls shut.

Jarod

I awoke to the warm October sun filtering through the leaves of the trees in front of my bedroom window. Blinking against the light I caught a glimpse at my alarm-clock and was satisfied to find that it was only seven o’clock.

Since I was on day shift today, I had expected to not be able to be sleeping off my hangover completely. The aftereffects of the previous night’s drinking, however, weren’t half as bad as I had expected. That was probably the reason why I was awake even before my alarm went off.

I threw back the covers and walked towards the door.

Pausing in the doorway I inhaled the scent of the trees that came in through the open window in the hall, enjoying the morningly silence.

Walking towards the study I decided to catch up on some paperwork until Miss Parker would get up. From experience I knew that she could sleep until noon if she was left alone.

I frowned as I realized that the door of the study stood half open although I remembered closing it. I gently laid my hand against the wood and pushed the door fully open.

The study was my favourite room in the house. I had always suspected that the house had been designed around it since the lawyer I had rented it from was a very hard-working man, single and basically married to his work. Due to that fact the study was the largest room in the house, floor to ceiling windows overlooking the garden that was divided from the beach only by means of a fence. The walls were of a light yellow and decorated with tasteful modern paintings. One wall was completely covered in bookcases in front of which stood a cream leather couch.

I liked to keep everything tidy so that the only thing that was not where it belonged was Miss Parker who sat on the couch, dressed in pyjama trousers and a t-shirt. She was completely engrossed in a book that she held between her hands like a treasure.

“Miss Parker?” I asked softly, but she still winced, startled.

When she looked up I recognized a look of fascination in her eyes. Her smile was careful, as if she wasn’t sure whether to be happy or frightened.

“What is it?” I asked, approaching her, trying to read the book’s cover.

“This seems so familiar,” she replied, flipping through the pages.

“What is this?” I asked.

She raised the cover for my inspection.

“A textbook on business law?” I asked, slightly amused beside myself. “I guess you were bored and couldn’t find anything else to read?”

The spark of agitation died in her eyes.

“I had trouble sleeping,” she said.

“Nightmares?”

“Not quite.” She carefully closed the book and put it next to her on the couch. “I dreamed that I was chasing somebody and just couldn’t catch him. I woke up to that feeling of…” She raised her hands in a gesture of defeat. “… absolute dissatisfaction. I felt like I wanted to cry and didn’t know why.”

She snapped out of her reminiscence when she realized that I had not yet responded to what she’d said. Her gaze lingered on me for a second before she obviously decided to drop the topic.

She gave me a tentative smile and pointed towards the window.

“I hope you didn’t mind me just walking into the room. I couldn’t go back to sleep and it just caught me, you know…”

She dreamily looked out of the window, gaze directed at where the beach was visible in the distance. “I think I might go for a walk on the beach later today,” she said. “Somehow I feel like I love the beach.”

I watched her in that perfectly innocent posture, arms slung around her bent legs, chin propped upon her knees. She turned her head back to me and rested her cheek against her thigh.

“I called my credit card company this morning. They say the card wasn’t valid. It seems that my name is not in the database.”

Small wonder. The Centre had their employee’s credit cards running via their accounts so they could keep track of them if necessary. To avoid any trouble, the credit cards usually bore the logo of some credit card company.

“That’s weird,” I said. “But I am sure that there’s a good explanation for that. It’s probably expired or something.”

She shrugged. “Somehow I feel like whoever I was didn’t want to be able to be tracked down.”

She smiled sadly. “It’s like being thrown into an episode of the X-Files.”

“The X-Files?” I echoed, weighing the unfamiliar term on my tongue.

“Seriously? You don’t know the X-Files?” she asked, smiling widely. “You don’t seem to know a lot of things. I mean it wasn’t so bad that you didn’t have any idea who Karl Lagerfeld was but I would have thought Dior to be popular enough for you to know.”

I shifted uneasily, quite eager to avoid that topic with her, but she did not seem to suspect anything out of the ordinary.

“I guess it’s that doctor-thing,” I finally said. “So much work… such a limited amount of free time.”

Very convincing, I told myself sarcastically but she didn’t seem to have a reason not to buy it.

She carefully touched her head-wound with her fingertips.
”When will those come off?” she asked.

“Let me see,” I told her and gently shoved the strands of honey-colored hair back from her forehead to get a better look at the stitches.

“Looks okay,” I told her. “But I would advice for them to stay put a while longer.”

Her eyes were closed while I’d examined the wound and since they remained so, I did not see a fit reason to remove my gaze from her face.

Her lips were parted slightly, her expression almost completely relaxed. I couldn’t imagine another scenario in which she’d been so trusting towards me.

I was a second too slow in looking away as she reopened her eyes. Her gaze focused on me and she smiled yet again.

The amount of smiles I’d received from her during the last 48 eight hours couldn’t equal the amount of sneers she’d given me over the years, but coming from her, it was actually quite impressive already.

“Jarod,” she said oddly softly.

The genius I was I didn’t realize what was about to happen until her lips brushed mine. Her eyelids fluttered as if about to close and I could feel her warm breath on my skin.

She jerked back before I could.

“That would be very stupid,” she stated in a hollow voice that pulled my wandering mind back into reality. She was absolutely right.

“Yeah,” I replied, not quite able to not sound breathless.

She got up quickly and wrapped her arms around her upper body.

“I need a shower,” she said. “Could you give me the hotel’s addressn later?” She smiled uneasily. “Just so I won’t have to take avantage of your hospitality for an unnecessarily long amount of time.”

“Don’t worry,” I said. “You are welcome to stay as long as you want, Miss Parker.”

She looked more relieved than I would have expected.

“Do you really mean that?” she asked.

“I do.”

And I did.

Sydney

I had long ago realized that Broots was not to be told everything. I had been at the Centre for so many years that I was capable of facing most facts with a reasonable amount of self-control. He was not.

He was probably not even aware himself that he was harboring feelings for Miss Parker but if he’d known what I knew, those would have been his undoing.

It might still have been an assumption in his eyes, but I knew for a fact that there was something very disturbing that surrounded Miss Parker’s disappearance.

I was not sure how her visit at Broots’ place was connected to all of this, but I would find out eventually. Even the Centre’s secrets tended to be found out about sooner or later.

I stared down at the substance report I had received earlier, trying to connect the dots. I could only hope that the solution to this puzzle was not the one that had begun to form in my mind. But why would she have been on that particular medication if she had not…

I rubbed my forehead in exasperation. I just wished it was as impossible as I felt it to be. But it wasn’t.

I just had to get accustomed to the fact that Miss Parker was not the person she had been. She, too, had changed over the years.

The scene I had witnessed a few weeks ago was still so vivid in my mind that I could play it like as DSA. Miss Parker, dressed as carefully as she usually did when scheduled for a rare meeting with her father, was looking as perfect as could be but her face told a different story.

She had just been about to leave her father’s office, a horrified look gleaming in her eyes when he had called her back.

I hadn’t meant to eavesdrop and I hadn’t been able to understand what her father had said to her, but I had been able to read what had been written on her face. She did not like whatever he’d been telling her, but she also knew that she did not have another choice.

“Don’t make me do that, Daddy,” she had almost pleaded with him, but I knew her so well that I had been able to tell from the look in her eyes, that she would do whatever he told her.

I remembered the exact thing that had come to my mind when I had watched her nod obediently and then walk away, not even half as briskly as usual.

Poor little girl, still starving for her father’s approval. How long would it take her to understand that, whatever she did, she would never gain it? But more importantly: How far would she go for the illusion of his love?

I sighed and looked back at the report.

There it was. The final part of the puzzle. Right in front of me.

The last piece of evidence for the ultimate betrayal.

Jarod

When I returned from a short eight hours shift at the hospital I found Miss Parker at the kitchen table, a glass in front of her, a half empty bottle of vodka next to her.

I sighed inwardly, more wary than shocked at the sight since I should have expected something like this to happen. I was dealing with Miss Parker after all.

“Hi Jarod,” she slurred, then added. “I’m sorry for drinking all of your… vodka.”
She smiled, then giggled and eventually bit her lip.

I sat down across from her and rested my elbows onto the tabletop.

“You shouldn’t be drinking,” I said casually. “Your body is in no state to deal with it.”

“I’m sorry…” she repeated, now sounding like she was. Well, she’d certainly be in the morning.

I could see anguish in her eyes yet again as she fully looked at me for the first time.

“I did everything I could think of,” she said, her voice unsteady from the effects of both alcohol and tears that were welling up in her eyes. She counted at her fingers whose nails I noticed to be bright red once again. There was something about the way she moved her fingers that fascinated me.

“I called the hotel and drew a blank,” she closed her eyes and opened them again. “I called every damn registration office in Delaware and the surrounding states… and drew a blank.” She raised her hands in defeat. “The only thing that I found out about myself is that I am very skilled with nail-polish…” Her raised eyebrow told me that she had noticed my staring at her hands. “… and…” she held the Vodka bottle out towards me. “… that I speak Vodka.”
She giggled once again, her despair obviously forgotten in her alcohol induced dazed state. She pointed at the bottle’s label that was in Russian and translated it apparently without any effort. She then replaced the bottle on the table with a considerable amount of noise and reached for her glass.

I caught it before she could and got up to empy it into the sink while she remained seated, looking after me with a sulky look in her eyes.

“Don’t take my only friend from me,” she said, then laughed quietly. “Oh, I lost so many memories already. I hope I can remember any of this in the morning.”

“I think you will,” I replied dryly. As far as I could estimate she wasn’ that drunk. “We just have to make sure that you have something to eat and enough water, then you’ll be okay.” I opened the fridge to take out everything I needed to make her a sandwich while she silently poured herself a glass of water.

“Why do I speak Russian?” she asked. “Do you think I am a Russian speaking lawyer? Or maybe I am a Russian speaking manicurist who knows a lot about law, or I am a Russian woman married to a rich lawyer who is so bored that she reads his textbooks and spends her days painting her nails.”

I wasn’t quite sure whether she was very drunk or whether she was just cultivating a different sense of humor. Miss Parker had never been one to show much self-irony but people changed…

She stepped next to me and stole a bit of lettuce, ripping it with her fingers and stuffing bits into her mouth.

“Hey, about this morning…” she tried to catch my eye and, when I refused to look up, raised my chin with her fingertips. “I wondered whether one of us was married when we first met.”
Unable to maintain my silence, I frowned. “What would make you think that?”

She shrugged in a motion that looked like that of an absolutely careless child.

“I don’t know… it’s just… I really felt like kissing you this morning, but I just…” the last three words blurred into each other so she repeated them, more clearly this time. “.. but I just felt like it would be horribly wrong.”
I handed her one of the sandwiches and took a bite of the other to prevent having to give her an answer. It wouldn’t have been necessary since she was perfectly content going on herself.

“So I thought that it would be a marriage thing… since my instincts also tell me to trust you.”

“Do you think you can trust your instincts?” I asked without actually meaning to. The words had simply tumbled out of my mouth.

“Guess so,” she munched, her clouded mind already off the topic again. “Great sandwich, though.”

“Thanks,” I said because I really wasn’t sure what else to say.

“I can feel the alcohol lift off me,” she announced and I didn’t believe her one word.

She’d found out about being able to speak Russian by accident. How long would it take her to find out that she was fluent in Japanese and French, too? She knew that she’d obviously always been caring about her appearance, she was rediscovering her tastes in beverages, food and clothes but would she ever be able to piece together her life from all this?

In a way she reminded me of myself when I had first got out of the Centre. There had been so many new things to discover but none of these discoveries that had felt so spectacular at first, had been sufficient to give me my family back.

Maybe that was what she felt like. She was taking slow steps but wasn’t able to retrace the old ones. She was heading one way, unable to follow the one she knew she had come from.

I had never been one for drinking, but since she had, I could almost understand why she would try to drink the despair away. It didn’t mean that I approved of it, but it served to make me sad for her.

“Do you remember anything else?” I asked her and watched as she took small bites of the sandwich I had made for her.

She swallowed, then shrugged.

“I don’t remember much of anything. I just find out things. Like the law stuff. It’s like a big puzzle coming together.”
A big puzzle I would have been able to solve for her in a heartbeat. It was just that I had already grown to love that new side of Miss Parker, that had gradually begun to show and became more apparent with her growing confidence in me.

When she leaned back and closed her eyes it was not only the hands that I couldn’t take my eyes off.

Mister Lyle

There wasn’t usually much in this place that could confuse me. The sudden disappearance of my sister, however, was one of those rare occurences that really made me wonder.

When she hadn’t been showing up for work for a full week, I confronted Sydney about it. Everybody’s favourite shrink was not amused at all. One could actually say that he looked rather grumpy as I casually dropped her name.

His hostile stare screamed “none of your business” at me but I’d never been a person to be disturbed by such open displays of animosity. Since people stare at me like that all the time that would be quite the disadvantage.

Casually dropping her name didn’t return any results so I had to be more direct.

“Where the hell is she, Sydney?” I asked, thoroughly annoyed by his lack of helpfulness. “Did she get herself another boyfriend?”

I remembered her taking days off at annoyingly regular intervals when she had been with the Gates guy.

Sydney remained unhelpful and I couldn’t get him to utter a single useful sentence, so I left him to his files and marched into my father’s office.

He regarded my questions concerning Sis with furrowed brows. His expression once again reminded me why I was so desperate to find out where she’d gone.

I wasn’t really worried about her. If any girl was able to take her of herself, it was my sister, but it got to me that nobody let me in on secrets. I would always be the odd one out since I’d had the misfortune on not having grown up in the Centre, but this was a little too much even for me.

“Well, where has she vanished to?” I asked, wondering whether he would buy my act of concern for my twin.

“Don’t you worry about her,” he said. “She will be fine.”
Great.

"Do you know where she is?" I asked, trying to make sense of the strange look in his eyes. He hadn't killed her and got rid of the corpse, had he?

"I always do."

I tried to get something out of him for a little longer, but since he got annoyed with me and pointed out that he had a lot of work to do, I left without any results.

So I was left with my questions: Where had she gone? What had she got herself into again? And most importantly: What had she done to piss Sydney off that tremendously?

Jarod

Over the next few days we settled into some sort of routine. Without Miss Parker’s knowledge I had cut down on my shifts at the hospital to be able to spend more time with her.

She was still trying to find out about her past, but seemed to have halfway arranged herself with living in ignorance. Her demeanour wasn’t as dark as before and I found myself marvelling at the way she handled things. It was fascinating to watch how she got to know herself like you get to know a new friend.

She found out that she had no idea how to cook, that she preferred thrillers to romantic movies, that she had a soft spot for rabbits, that she easily got bored with television, that gardening did not interest her at all and that she was very easily irritated with people whose wits weren’t quite as sharp as hers.

It amused me greatly that she could only gradually get used to her own way of treating people and that she once actually regretted scaring a little boy at the supermarket so much that she bought him a chocolate bar to make up.

It was funny to see how she reacted to situations the way she would have before her amnesia, but then realized what she had just done, leaving her at a loss.

Still, as much as I enjoyed her company as the one of a beaufiful, intelligent and humourous woman, her close proximity got to me.

With her pursuit of me and reacting only with fury or plain rejection to my presence it hadn’t been difficult at all to convince myself of the fact that my attraction for her was nothing more than some memory from our childhood. But this woman was nothing like the little girl I had known, as I had hoped at first. But still I didn’t find myself disappointed at all. She was interesting the way she was and her edginess made her even more desireable.

Whenever I caught myself thinking like that, I tried to talk myself out of it, but I always knew that denial wouldn’t make the attraction go away.

We had just returned from the hospital where she’d once again been examined and declared healthy and Miss Parker stood in front of the mirror in the hall, inspecting her wound that was no longer stitched up when the phone rang.

I picked it up. “Jarod Dorian?”

“Hey Jarod, this is Michael.”

Michael Grant, the collegue I had asked to have a look at Miss Parker’s concussion.

“Sorry I didn’t get back to your patient earlier, Jarod,” he said apologetically. “My daughter was getting married and my wife had the whole family fly to Florida for the ceremony.”

“Never mind,” I said, having already forgotten about it.

“Well, I had a look at the test results. Doesn’t look too bad, actually. You said that she was suffering from a memory loss?”

I carried the phone into the kitchen and closed the door behind me.

“Yes,” I said. “She doesn’t remember who she is.”

There was a short silence at the other end of the line.

“Weird”, he said. “It doesn’t really look as if the part of her brain that’s responsible for long-term memory could be affected. I was pretty sure that she wouldn’t remember the circumstances surrounding that car-crash, but a complete amnesia seems really unlikely.”

A cold hand seemed to squeeze my heart numb.

"Are you sure?" I asked, my heart beating furiously now.

"Pretty much so. I mean if she doesn't remember, she doesn't remember, but it's a little strange anyway. There's always the possibility that the amnesia resulted from something else. A psychological thing, you know. Something like that."

“Thank you,” I said, thoughts swirling in my head.

When I had ended the call I stared out of the window for a moment.

Unlikeliness of amnesia didn’t mean that it couldn’t have happened.

But what if it didn’t? What if Miss Parker was playing some twisted game with me?

The door opened and she walked in, freezing in place as she saw the look in my eyes.

“What’s wrong?” she asked.

Everything was.

My head snapped up as I heard the door close softly behind the person who had just entered the room.

“Are you looking for anything in particular?” Sydney’s calm voice asked me with a note of disdain I had never heard from him before.

I felt guilt welling up inside me, but knew that I had to stand my ground for once.

In a rather poor imitation of Miss Parker’s intimidating stance I raised the two sheets of paper that I had found half-hidden under a file.

“Why didn’t you tell me about this, Sydney?” I managed to not sound as afraid as I was at the prospect of him scolding me over going through his things without permission.

“Broots…” he started to explain, his expression softening which gave a sudden unexpected rise to my own anger.

“I am going crazy about Miss Parker’s disappearance over here and you know it! Why didn’t you inform me about this report?“

Finally channeling all my fears and worries into an angry rant helped considerably.

“I bet you think it’s just stupid little Broots who doesn’t understand anything…”

I trailed off in the middle of my sentence when I realized that Sydney was holding up a hand.

“Broots”, he said, his voice almost soothing, as if he was talking to an angry child.

I raised the substance report in my hand and dropped it onto the cluttered desk in front of Sydney where he picked the pages up.

“Explain that to me. What kind of medication was she taking?” I demanded to know, unable to make sense of all the long words and numbers in the lab-report.

Sydney stated a name in a hollow voice, but he could have spoken Chinese for all I knew.

“So?” I asked, my mouth dry and my hands sweaty.

What was I about to hear? That she was suffering from a terminal disease? What did you use that stuff for? Cancer treatment maybe? Even thinking about that possibility made my stomach turn with concern for her.

“It’s a fertility drug.”

I didn’t realize that my mouth had fallen open until I attempted to speak again, which was only several moments later.

“What?” I finally managed, my voice so hoarse that I could barely hear myself.

Of all things this was what I would have least expected. Why on earth would Miss Parker be on fertility drugs? As far as I knew bringing a child into this world was at the bottom of her priority-list, well, probably not even on it. And who could blame her? With her job, it wasn’t the most sensible thing to do.

“It has a pretty high success rate,” Sydney explained with a frown creasing his forehead. He looked as if he had aged during the last seconds, wrinkles around his eyes more obvious than usual. I had always assumed them to be laughter lines but now I understood that they were quite the opposite.

“I wasn’t aware that she…” I trailed off. What? That she was trying to conceive? That there was a new man in her life? That she had suddenly stopped detesting children?

“Well, how can we be sure that she has been taking those? Maybe it was a wrong prescription that she didn’t return or something like that,” I tried.

“I don’t think so.” Sydney seemed to be convinced that she had actually been on that medication. “I’ve researched a little bit about its side-effects.”

I swallowed, remembering Miss Parker being not only unusually quiet prior to her disappearance but also not feeling well.

“That would be nausea, dizziness, headaches… to name a few.”

Symptoms I had all seen in her. Fractures of scenes that I had regarded to be of no great importance at the time flew back to my memory.

Miss Parker grabbing my shoulder to steady herself. Miss Parker yelling at me that my new aftershave made her sick. Miss Parker rubbing her temples in angry frustration. Miss Parker asking me for painkillers.

Oh my god. Fertility drugs.

I didn’t care about this being Sydney’s office and thus Sydney’s office chair I feebly sank into.

It took me a moment to organize my thoughts, then I looked up into Sydney’s patient face, waiting for me to ask the inevitable question.

“Why?”

I could not recall having ever seen Sydney like that. Miss Parker’s ourbursts usually didn’t bother him, sometimes even caused amusement with him and he frequently ignored her curtness and her comments that ranged from plain sarcastic to intimidating or even offensive, but this time she seemed to have finally crossed the line.

His jaw-muscles were working while he spoke through gritted teeth.

“Just think, Broots.”

If even Sydney didn’t want to voice it, it had to be bad.

“Do you think she went off to find Jarod and…” I fell silent, fully intentional this time.

His nod came as no surprise, but still felt like a blow to the head, seeing stars and feeling pain included.

“Oh my god. She wouldn’t do such a thing, would she?” I asked and rambled on, as I did not receive a response. “I mean… It’s still her baby… She wouldn’t give her own child up to the Centre, would she?”

Sydney slammed his hand down onto the desk, crushing the sheets of paper flat onto its surface as if wanting to inflict pain on them.

“She would and she will.”

“Jarod will never allow this…” I said. “He would come for that baby.”

Sydney’s eyes remained closed as if he needed all his concentration not to lose it in front of me. His pain was almost palpable that very moment, the fact that he was torn between his loyalties very much apparent.

“Miss Parker is smart and the Centre is powerful. If she doesn’t want him to know, he never will.”

As reality sank in, I felt like I had to vomit.

“Do you think she’ll get him to sleep with her? Just like that? After all that’s happened?”

Sydney opened his eyes again, focusing on me with a frighteningly intense gaze.

“She is a very attractive woman, Broots. And she can be one hell of an actress.”

“Drop the act,” I commanded, wondering whether I should reach for a weapon or just make another great escape. I felt like a wounded animal, because although I was not physically hurt, she had served to damage my pride considerably.

I would have really expected her to give it up and just assault me now, but to my surprise, she didn’t. Her mere reaction consisted of an irritated look.

“I can’t follow you,” she finally said.

“My colleague just called to tell me that the nature of your head injuries is unlikely to have caused complete amnesia. I should have known it. Miss Parker, even you should know that there’s a point of no return.”

The sound of my cold voice seemed to startle her. At first, fear flashed in her eyes and I could see her muscles tense, but then she folded her arms in front of her chest. Her gaze steeled and she looked up at me with an unexpected determination.

“I think you have just arrived at that point,” she said, her voice very low and very menancing. It was just now that I realized that I hadn’t heard her speak like that even a single time since she had turned up in my hospital.

“I have no idea what just went wrong, but…”

“Miss Parker. I don’t know why you pretend to not know who you are, but I know damn well that this is a trap. Any attempts to convince me otherwise would be completely futile, okay? So stop acting and tell me the truth.”

Her reaction came quickly and violently.

“Damn it!” she burst out. “I told you I had no idea what you’re talking about! If you told me what the hell you’re suspecting me of, I could at least try to defend myself and convince you otherwise!”

I had always known Miss Parker to be persistent, but she usually knew when to give up.

“Miss Parker. Why don’t you just stop it and admit to it! You know very well who you are and why you are here! I’m not used to this rafinesse though...” I was surprised at how cruel my mocking voice suddenly sounded. “I hate you trying to capture me, but at least you’ve been straightforward until now.”

The rage welled up inside me, being fueled by the fact that I couldn’t help myself but realize just how damn good she looked standing there like that, all angry determination.

“We were equals in a game and now you broke all the rules.”

At first I was almost shocked to see that she was trembling, but then I embraced the fact that she was not frightened but angry. Very angry.

“How often do I have to tell you? I don’t know about any games! Tell me the rules and I’ll decide for myself whether I broke them or not!”

That left me speechless. Couldn’t she just admit to everything so we could return to common ground? What the hell was she trying to do?

Her left eyebrow shot up and she raised her hands into the air in a gesture of annoyance.

“I take it that you lied to me about us meeting in a hotel, then?” she asked, eyebrows raised, sounding deeply offended.

She seemed to take my silence as confirmation. She really was a good actress, I thought grimly. I could almost watch the facts sink in. Had she been an actress, she would have surely won more Academy Awards than she could display.

“Great,” she finally said, her rage still boiling, but voice lowered still. “Who’s playing the game now? If you know me, tell me who I am at once, and I’ll leave you alone for good.”
I shook my head in angry perplexity.

“I want to know why you’re here!” I once again demanded, almost yelling at her now.

There was no way I could have foreseen her next step. She practically flung herself at me and grabbed my upper arm so hard that I groaned painfully.

“Can’t you just shut up!” she almost screamed at me, her voice at breaking-point.

I grabbed her, too, to prevent her from hurting me but had underestimated just how strong she was. She wrestled her left arm free and frantically tried to free herself.

“Let me go!” she demanded, angry tears brimming in her eyes. “You might be the only person I know, but I’d rather be without you than have you insulting me like that!”

The gleam in her eyes should have warned me but I was way beyond caring right now.

“Yes, you better leave and go back to the Centre and tell them that you’ve failed once again. Another damn failure!”

The word failure seemed to trigger a kind of wrath inside her, that I had never witnessed before. She had been annoyed so often that I had lost count, but this was different.

“You never dare to call me a failure again!” she said, her voice suddenly so dangerously low that it sent a chill down my spine. Her eyes were gleaming with emotion but her self-control was suddenly firmly back, making her appear almost cold-blooded.

She gave me an unexpected shove so I tumbled backwards against the kitchen counter.

“Do not call me that,” she repeated, her voice softer now, sounding at the verge of tears. “Do not insult me that way and tell me who I am!”

She was almost pleading with me now.

“If you think that it was so easy to make me believe you, you are wrong,” I told her. She let go of me so suddenly that my arms dropped at my sides.

“I thought I could trust you,” she said. “But all you’ve given me were lies and deceit.”

She took a step backwards. “Whatever the reason why I was chasing you, it must have been a good one.”

Although I had ended up being the one with my back to the wall, she looked defeated as she turned away from me.

I just remained frozen in place, staring at her while at a loss for words.

I had been right about Broots being better off unaware of the turn of events, but since he had found the report I’d so carelessly left on my desk, it would have been impossible to keep him in the dark any longer.

We had agreed to go to a restaurant for lunch so we could discuss our findings without the prying eyes and ears of the Centre. So we sat at a table in some Chinese place just outside Blue Cove when a pretty waitress served us two plates of fried chicken.

When she had gone, Broots started picking his food aimlessly.

“She doesn’t know what she’s doing, does she?” he asked, hope shining in his eyes. He wanted to believe that Miss Parker wasn’t capable of such a heartless deed as much as I did.

“I think she is,” I replied, at the same time feeling sorry to have to deprive him of the rest of his faith in her.

Broots was silent for a moment.

“If only there was a way to warn Jarod before he… you know.”

He looked thoroughly uncomfortable with the topic, but still couldn’t let go.

“There is no way to contact him,” I said and let the fork sink back to the plate as I had realized that same moment that I wasn’t hungry at all.

When I looked up, Broots looked so drained of energy that I felt sorry for him.

So I reached over the table and patted his arm.

“Maybe Jarod’ll contact us in time. Otherwise we can only hope that she’ll not succeed.”

It is pretty scary how our instincts sometimes just seem to switch our brain off. One moment I was leaning against the counter, watching Miss Parker’s retreating back, almost relieved that she was about to leave, the next I called her back.

I didn’t know why I had just done that, but when she turned back around, I found myself unable to keep my bad attitude.

“Are you crying?” I asked, willing myself to shut up or plain sent her away.

“You will never see me cry,” she growled but her voice trembled and the tears gradually began to fill her eyes.

Maybe it was my attraction to her or maybe it was some instinct that told me to believe her against the odds and every logical consideration.

“Please,” she said. “Trust me and I’ll trust you. I am not lying to you, I promise, Jarod.”

I was torn inside. My brain told me to keep my distance, the rest of me wanted nothing more than to approach her and wrap my arms around her.

As if she had foreseen that my brain would be defeated in that fight that was going on my head, she was already awaiting me when I closed the remaining distance between us with one fierce step.

My arms went around her that same second she slung hers around me in an embrace. It was her who raised her hand to reach for my cheek and in a last attempt to prevent the unavoidable, the rational part of me made me catch her hand before it could touch me.

Miss Parker looked at our joined hands, then lifted her gaze and locked it with mine.

She did not pause to wait for my consent but kissed me right away.

Her lips tasted salty from the tears she had denied to have cried. I knew it was wrong to be doing this. I knew it very well but that couldn’t prevent me from playing along. Nothing could.

Her body felt perfect against mine and my last conscious thought was how I just didn’t care what assignment she was on that moment.

Even if she caught me this time, this would be worth it.

Or so I thought.

Centre Surveillance System

Four weeks prior to Miss Parker’s disappearance

Miss Parker sits behind her desk, a full bottle of pills in her hand. She reads the label then reaches for a glass of water. She puts the pill into her mouth and swallows the water.

Afterwards she stares into space for a moment, then rubs her forehead in exasperation. She jumps, startled, when her cellphone begins to ring.

Flipping it open, she growls an irritated “What?!” at whoever is calling.

She listens to the voice at the other end for a moment, then bites her bottom lip in pain. She quickly reaches for the bottle of ulcer medication that sits on desk next to her laptop, cap already unscrewed.

She gulps the medication down and it is evident that the dose must be too high.

She inhales deeply before she speaks for the first time: “I am not in the mood to talk to you, Jarod,” she tells him and hangs up before he can reply.

She switches the phone off and tosses it back onto the table.

Don’t get me wrong. I really like Chinese restaurants for the food. If you know what I mean… Today, however, I got more than I’d bargained for. And since I usually want everything, this happens only ever so often.

While I’d been sipping my wine and had been trying my best to break open that brick stone of a fortune cookie, I’d suddenly heard familiar voices. Quite familiar and so I didn’t have to look to be sure that they were Sydney’s and Broots’.

Interesting enough, I thought, leaning back on the bench in the booth that I sat in to be able to listen to them through the various plants that divided my table from theirs.

At the beginning it was hard to make out what they were saying, but it didn’t take them long to get so agitated that they were foolish enough to raise their voices.

I didn’t mind in the slightest, though. But I would certainly never let them in on one of my more important projects since they definetly lacked the ability to provide secrecy.

I could feel my eyebrow shoot up involuntarily when it finally dawned on me what exactly it was that they were discussing.

That was one way to buy freedom from the Centre for herself! I made a mental note to whistle my approval the next time I’d see my sister.

That was why our father had been so calm about his little Angel’s disappearance. The girl was on a mission that would most likely prove to be very profitable for the Centre.

It was very nice of the shrink and the tech to fill me in on the newest developments, but that didn’t mean that I would tell them about what they didn’t suspect.

I didn’t mind about Broots being so single-minded but with Sydney’s experience with the Centre I would have expected him to be aware of the fact, that the Centre wouldn’t have gone to such lengths if it had just been about creating their own Pretender or getting hold of Jarod.

They usually had a hidden agenda that they had probably not even told my sister about. I neatly folded my napkin and finally succeeded in cracking the fortune cookie open.

Quickly walking out with my back to the still agitatedly talking fools who would never realize who had just witnessed their exchange, I walked towards the door.

Work at the Centre was fairly boring lately and it had been a long time since I’d been faced with a good challenge, I thought when I sat down behind the wheel of my Mercedes. Besides, I was pretty curious what they had come up with again and who knew, maybe there was some profit in there for me, too.

Before I turned the key in the ignition I straightened the piece of paper I had extracted from the cookie and read what it said.

“You will soon find out that not everything is what it seems.”

I smiled to myself. Very approriate indeed.

I awoke to the sound of Miss Parker’s deep breathing. Her hand rested on my bare chest, her face nestled against it, relaxed with sleep. I brought my hand up to softly touch her hair that spilled over my shoulder in long tangled strands. Asleep but not oblivious to my touch she snuggled closer to me and gave a soft snort.

I glanced at the alarm-clock and was surprised to find it was already ten o’clock in the morning. I wasn’t usually one to sleep in and Miss Parker had been up quite early every day due to her unsettling dreams. Today, however, we’d had both enjoyed several hours of uninterrupted sleep.

Now that the drowsiness was slowly lifting, the memories came back. Not how I had spent the night but the events leading up to it. It was like I was looking at two separate lives. I recalled our fight, the overwhelming disappointment that she’d been betraying me. Then came the transition when I had dried her tears, when she’d asked me to trust her and we’d started kissing.

With my judgement not only clouded but absolutely erased it hadn’t taken us long to end up where we were now. In bed.

Now my sense of responsibility had reawakened. How could I have been so stupid? Trusting her was the last thing on earth that I should be doing. But still, while dwelling on all these thoughts, I found myself absently playing with her hair.

This illusion was just too pleasant to chase it away, I decided.

I thought back to what Michael Grant had said. He’d not said that amnesia due to head trauma was impossible in her case. Just that it wasn’t very likely. And really: Miss Parker wouldn’t pretend to suffer from amnesia if there wasn’t anything in there for her, would she? And what would she possibly get of it? We’d been living together for over a week now. If she hadn’t called the Sweepers on me before, why would she now?

Moreover, as I had pointed out to her the previous evening: Up until now, running for four years, there had always been rules to our little game. She had been chasing me, yes, but when push came to shove, we’d always been able to work together. Miss Parker appeared cold-blooded, but in reality, she wasn’t. She did have a heart and it went out to those who needed it. The question was whether she was capable of this betrayal. Was she willing to deceive me like that? Would she got to such lengths to make me believe in some stupid amnesia?

It seemed unlikely... As unlikely as the head trauma causing amnesia?

There were a few strong reasons to trust her, but just as many against it.

My common sense told me to flee, but my heart told me to stay. If she really didn’t remember, she was truly lost without me and I didn’t want to leave her alone like that. Nobody deserved a life in uncertainty and loneliness.

From whatever angle I looked at it, everything came down to just one question: Did I believe her or not? But that, I couldn’t say.

How could I trust her if I couldn’t even trust myself?

Interrupting my musings, her hand suddenly came up to my face and pulled me down to her.

“Good morning,” she murmured, blinking against the sunlight, then softly started to kiss me. Unfortunately it had the same effect as the night before and my thoughts considering a possible betrayal were chased away by the desire to enjoy the moment.

I’d never expected denial to be so efficient. Denying the possibility that she was deceiving me worked perfectly, making me almost forget that I had ever doubted her. I knew that it was wrong and I hated myself for that weakness, but it just wouldn’t go away.

With all the self-control I could muster, I had banned Miss Parker from my thoughts. I managed to divert my attention from the topic of her whereabouts pretty well when I was at work. Sydney avoiding the topic, too, made it considerably easier.

With Miss Parker gone and Jarod obviously vanished from every Centre radar, too, we had been temporarily assigned to different projects. Sydney was doing some research and I was provided with a complete check of the Centre’s security software which was a lot of work, but at least kept me steadily occupied.

At home, however, it was more difficult.

Everytime I looked at Debbie, I felt my throat tighten. I reminisced about the time when I had found Miss Parker and Debbie getting along so well after she had taken her in for a few days. I also knew that Miss Parker deeply cared for my daughter and always had her best in mind.

How could the same woman even consider the possibilty to conceive a baby and then deliver not only its father but also the child itself to an organization she knew to be thoroughly evil? How could she be so heartless?

Miss Parker had been missing for almost six weeks now. Six weeks in which we had heard neither from her nor from Jarod. Three weeks in which Sydney had become unusually distant, the reassuring quietude completely disappeared from his eyes and replaced with a constant look of heartfelt anguish.

Although he did not voice it, the whole situation probably hurt him even more deeply than it did me. We were both offended, but he had lost his whole faith in her. I often caught myself thinking that he had only met her behaviour with such stoicism because deep down he had known that she wasn’t actually like that. That beyond the surface lay a more feeling, warm persona with moral values more complex than she showed to the outside world.

Now he had lost the confidence in that and the result was a deep depression that was coming on.

At the end of the sixth week of her disappearance I came home to my daughter and for the first time since Miss Parker had sobbed at my shoulder, didn’t feel completely lost. It felt almost as if I’d overcome the worst of it all.

A little ray of sunshine beamed beyond the dark field my life had become when my daughter welcomed me with a hug and a kiss and proudly showed me her attempts at cooking.

We sat down for dinner and I realized, touched, that she had even lit candles. She, too, had sensed my sorrow and this was her way to reassure me that I was not alone.

We chatted lightly during the whole dinner and it was only when she served the dessert, consisting of lemon ice-cream, that she mentioned Miss Parker.

“We might invite Miss Parker next time,” she said. “She likes lemon ice-cream a lot. When I stayed with her, she made bowls for the two of us! You know, she doesn’t really eat a lot but she even got a second one.”

Her beaming smile usually served to make me happy, but this time, it cut through my heart like a knife.

The images I had conjured up and tormented myself with came back with flourish and swept over me like a wave that threatened to drown me.

“Daddy? What’s wrong?” The words barely penetrated the clouds that seemed to have formed around my head.

If the mere mentioning of Miss Parker got me into this state… what would happen when she’d come back.
And she would. Eventually.

I usually don’t bother with the petty research jobs, you know. Looking for information I normally leave to people who have sufficient time and patience.
I like to have the results clearly in order so I can decide how to use them to my own advantage, but with this thing I didn’t trust anybody else.

Not after I’d seen how easily a secret can leak if two morons feel safe.

Due to that fact it was me myself who roamed the offices of the more important Centre-operatives, who charmed the secretaries into oblivion and made them believe that I was there only to see their stupid little faces on whose cheeks I usually caused a flattered blush.

And this time I was patient. I would find out what was going on. Even if it would take me weeks.

And then I’d make sure that it would work to my advantage. Much as anything did these days.

I smiled at my father’s secretary and produced a single yellow tulip I had carelessly ripped from a bunch in the hall. She smiled widely at me and I merely lifted a suggestive corner of my mouth in response.

This was almost too easy.

I looked up from the patient-files I had been working on and watched Miss Parker turn the page of the paperback-novel she was reading, eagerly concentrating on the words. Since she was completely absorbed in the thriller I could look at her without her being annoyed at me.

The wound on her forehead had healed, leaving only a light scar that would fade with time, her hair fell freely over her shoulders and she had curled up on her side slightly, one hand holding the book, the other one always waiting to quickly turn the page.

Our blossoming relationship had taken away the edge of her need to find out about her past and although I knew that she was still suspecting that I knew more than I told her, she had stopped asking. It was some kind of silent agreement that we had committed to. I trusted her on her alleged amnesia and she postponed her questions to a later point in time.

We both knew that this wouldn’t go on forever, but it had worked during the last weeks and I found myself growing more and more attached to her every day.

I had always known that she was capable of being my perdition, I just wouldn’t have expected it to happen this way.

When had I started being ready to forget about all my questions and set my suspicions aside for the sole purpose of being able to just be with her?

It was a trashy outlook that I had on our relationship but I just couldn’t help it. I had been in love before, but not like that. The other women I had been with, had temporarily stirred feelings inside me, but they had never reached this intensity.

“Are you staring at me again?” She asked, her voice as razor-sharp as usual.

“Sorry,” I said, quickly returning to my papers, but not quite able to keep the smirk from my face.

This could have been a picture book romance if it hadn’t been for a mountain of unresolved issues from our past that would one day stirr up and have to be dealt with again.

She set the book aside and straightened up.

“You’re such a hopeless romantic,” she said with a note of disgust in her voice, that was contradicted by her mocking smile.

“I don’t like it either,” I replied honestly. Loving her this way made me uneasy and I still woke up at night, finding her sleeping next to me and wondering whether I should just get up and leave. Every so often I set my foot out of bed where it touched the floor but then she moved or made a sound and I couldn’t pretend to be able to leave anymore.

Still I knew that all of this was only temporary. I would have to move on, she would probably regain her memory and with my feelings for her that didn’t consist of sole desire anymore, it became more and more difficult for me to withhold her past from her every day.

She got up and walked over to me where she placed a kiss onto my cheek.

“I’ll go downstairs and make dinner,” she announced.

“You mean you’re going to put the lasagna into the microwave,” I pointed out to her. “Don’t forget to remove the polythene sheet this time.”
”Shut up!” she told me while walking out the door.

I grinned. She was a complete failure in the kitchen. Interestingly enough, she made fun of herself when it came to her cooking abilities but would still not allow me to use the particular word “failure” to describe it.

I had tried it out several times out of pure curiosity. Whatever mood she was in, whatever topic we were discussing, she would not allow me to refer to her as a failure even if it was obvious that I was just making fun of her.

It was one thing that was odd and helped me not drop my guard too much. But there were other traces that kept resurfacing and didn’t seem to match the rest of the situation.

There was, for example, the fact that she wouldn’t listen to me when I told her that she’d look great with black hair, but harshly told me not to be stupid. I was quite sure that she was not irritated with me because I tried to interfere with her handling of her own appearance, it was some very weird aversion to her old hairstyle that I could absolutely not make any sense of.

A few minutes later I got up and walked down the stairs. No shattering of plates, no minor explosions… everything seemed to be okay in the cooking department today.

I smiled to myself when I thought back to her forgetting a pizza in the oven which had resulted in a black cloud of smoke emerging that’d had both of us in coughing-fits when we’d entered the kitchen.

The smile of amusement died on my lips when I found her on the floor.

“Miss Parker!” I yelled, lurching forward, ready to kneel down beside her. Her eyes were closed, her body slumped on its side. She was quite obviously unconscious. I stroked her forehead and felt her skin burning hot under my fingertips.

“Parker?” I repeated, this time mercifully receiving a reaction. Her eyelids fluttered, her gaze slowly focused on me. Her hand flew to her stomach as she struggled to sit up but collapsed backwards again. She swallowed deeply, face distorted with pain, before she spoke softly: “Pain…” she managed, then let out a slow moan.

She was suddenly pale, sweat breaking on her face.

“Where?” I asked, reaching for her so she could take my hand and guide it the source of pain. I recognized at once what was happening when I felt her tightened stomach muscles.

Afraid to worry her too much with the revelation I was about to make, I carefully started to slide my arms under her body then lifted her into my arms.

“What’s happening?” she asked, her voice distant again.

“Have you been in pain before?” I asked her while I made for the door, grabbing the car keys from the board with some difficulty.

She nodded weakly. “Stomach-aches,” she replied, then smiled faintly. “Thought it was because of my food.”
”Have you been feeling dizzy and nauseous?” I asked, all Doctor again.

“Little bit…”

I should have thought of this earlier, I scolded myself, suddenly so angry with myself that I had failed to recognize her agony earlier.

“What’s wrong with me?” she asked, her voice trailing off towards the end of the sentence. I carefully set her down on the passenger’s seat of my car and slid behind the wheel next to her. Her head had rolled back against the headrest and her eyes looked feverish.

“Don’t worry,” I told her. “You have a stomach ulcer.”

I watched her eyes widen despite her dazed state.

“Ulcer?” she rasped, horrified. “How can you tell?”

I directed my gaze at the street in front of us, hesitating before I answered. In restrospect I am quite sure that that was the reason I did not realize that we had a car following us.

“We ran some tests in the ER when you were first admitted.”

She gasped with pain, pressed her hand against her stomach and doubled over. That was the position she was still in when I pulled up in front of the hospital.

Centre Surveillance System

That same morning

Mister Parker is sitting at his desk, hands lying flat onto its shiny surface. In front of him, Sam, Miss Parker’s Sweeper is standing, hands clasped behind his back.

“It seems that she has chosen to make Jarod believe that she suffered from amnesia. I don’t know how she managed to stage that car-crash, but I think she is doing pretty well.”

Mister Parker nodds in silent appreciation, then bows his head slightly.

“That is my angel,” he says, approval audible in his voice. “She really is as smart as I thought she was.”

Sam looks uncomfortable, awaiting the next question.

“How is she progressing. I mean, when can we expect her to be back?”

Sam swallows, his discomfort increases visibly.

“I think she is doing well, Sir. She seems to have won his trust very quickly and thoroughly.”

Mister Parker nodds again, then gestures towards the door.

“I need to have that confirmed by her.”

“You want me to contact her, Sir?” Sam asks politely.

“Yes.”

Parker’s answer is short and harsh and Sam seems to understand that his appointment is over.

“Yes, Sir,” he says, then ushers out.

Mister Parker remains with an unreadable expression in his eyes.

Miss Parker extended her hand towards me immediately when I entered the room and I grabbed it firmly, holding it between mine for a second.

“Don’t you worry too much, Dr. Dorian,” the attending nurse said with a tone of voice that spoke of dismay concerning my overreaction. It seemed that nurse Wilson still did not consider me a valuable member of the medical staff, but that very moment I couldn’t have cared less.

“Oh don’t be too friendly!” Miss Parker groaned at her, her voice hoarse but definetly strong enough to sound ironic. I had to stiffle a laugh when I saw Wilson’s eyes narrow at Parker’s comment.

“You should really sleep a little, Miss,” she snorted, knowing that insulting patients would be tolerated even from an established member of the hospital personell.

Miss Parker smiled weakly at me as I once again sat down at her bedside.

“I’m glad you’re here,” she said. “At least a familiar face for me to wake up to this time.”
I placed a kiss onto her hand and was glad to feel the skin not hot anymore, but warm and soft under my fingertips.

“What did they say?” I asked her.

“Not much yet. They gave me medicine and told me to rest. That’s about it. You know the drill… they’re running all kinds of tests to check out whether I’m going to live.” Her speech was a bit slurred but otherwise she seemed to be okay.

“We’ll just have to wait for Doctor Hopkins,” I explained, gently caressing her arm to which she reacted with a smile.

“Jarod…” she said softly, making me look up into her eyes. “Thank you for being here.” She paused briefly, as if looking for confirmation in my eyes, then went on. “I guess it is kind of stupid, but…”

Whatever she had been about to say was lost in the noises Dr. Hopkins caused when she opened the door and had it slam shut behind her.

“Sorry,” she said, a little embarassed, but then had to smile at the look of our startled faces. I liked Dr. Hopkins. She was a great doctor and a very nice woman. When I’d been new to the hospital, she’d introduced me to the bars where the staff hung out after work so I could get to know people. Very nice of her, since she was married and had two kids she couldn’t wait to get home to as soon as her shift ended.

She smiled at Miss Parker and approached the bed.

“Sorry to interrupt the love-birds,” she sang, good humor in place although she’d been on duty for quite some time now. She was carrying a chart that she now flipped open. “I don’t have the results of the tests yet, Miss Parker,” she explained. “But that’s actually a formality.” She scribbled on the paper with a pencil and smiled up at us over her framed glasses that sat on the tip of her pointed nose. I smiled as I always had to when faced with her. One time you smiled at her jokes, the other time her clumsiness amused you. She was always good fun to be around and I felt the strain lifting from me. Miss Parker would be okay. Kate Hopkins would take care of that.

“So,” Kate said. “Looks like that ulcer of yours was pretty upset, but it’s good that you could tell us a bit of medical history on that. Made us get straight to the point without wasting any time on trying to diagnose anything else.”

She flipped the chart over with flourish and smiled reassuringly at Parker.

“You’re on painkillers right now and we’ve also given you something to calm that ulcer of yours.”

She tilted her head slightly. “So much for the good news.”

“Couldn’t you have told me the bad news first?” Miss Parker asked. “Would have spared me some false hopes I guess.”

She arrogantly raised her eyebrow and was greeted with only a shrug coming from Kate. She looked oblivious to Miss Parker’s hostile stare, but I was pretty sure that she was actually just confident enough to ignore it.

“The bad news is that I am pretty sure that you will have to listen to the lecture I am about to give you for a few more times during the next days since you’re living with Dr. Dorian here.”
Miss Parker sighed and rolled her eyes.

“Well… cut down on any alcoholic beverages you might be indulging. Be careful to stick to the diet I’m going to advise you and don’t overexert yourself in the first few days. If you do that, there’ll be no need for surgery but if you don’t, the ulcer might deteriorate and that will be a messy thing.”

Miss Parker nodded obediently. “Okay. I think I got it.”

I chuckled, earning myself a dark gaze.

“When will you let me out of here?” she asked.

“Tomorrow morning,” Kate answered. “Just for safety purposes.”

Miss Parker growled. “Don’t you think that I have spent enough time in this hospital lately?”

“Not quite enough.” Kate flipped the sheets of paper back over the chart with a beaming smile. “Have a good night, Michelle.”

“Don’t call me that,” Miss Parker snapped after her.

“Stop acting like that,” I told her when the door had closed behind Kate, once again hitting her in the back. “I like you better when you’re all sweet.”

She smiled a twisted smile. “You really have to earn that sweetness.”

“And she didn’t?”

“Can’t you just shut up and kiss me instead?” she asked to which I rolled my eyes and bent forward. Her moan was one of pleasure this time as I gently laid my arms around her shoulders and pulled her a little closer.

Since we didn’t have much else to do, we went on like that until a cough from behind made us break the kiss. Startled, I looked up at Nurse Wilson who hadn’t had the courtesy to make a little noise as she’d entered the room.

“Well, I see that you are busy, Doctor Dorian,” she said in a voice of steel, that would have sent me into fits of laughter hadn’t I been that embarassed. “But nonetheless I have a question for your companion.”

She said the word “companion” as if she’d actually had a more insulting expression in mind. There she stood, all grey curls and bony face, glaring at us.

“Fire right away, darling,” Miss Parker said in a saccarine voice, that served to darken Nurse Wilson’s expression considerably.

She held out Miss Parker’s chart, pen poised.

“I just need to know whether you remember the date of your last ulcer-surgery.”

Miss Parker raised both eyebrows. “I remember it as well as my date of birth or the first name of my mother. Not at all.”

She pointed at her head as if Wilson was a little kid she had to explain her condition to and said: “Complete amnesia! Remember?”

I didn’t exactly like Nurse Wilson but I completely understood her reaction as she slammed the chart down in front of Miss Parker.

“It says here that the admitting physician has been told about ulcer-surgery. Who would have informed them? Santa Clause?”

I hadn’t seen this coming. Sometimes shock makes you come up with a thousand excuses at once, but this time all I could do was remain completely silent.

“Jarod?” Miss Parker asked, pointedly, tilting her head in expectation.

“I…,” I began, my throat suddenly oddly constricted. “I noticed the typical scar while I examined you when you first turned up in my ER.”

The tension grew when I suddenly noticed an evil smile appear on Nurse Wilson’s face. She had sensed my discomfort, knew that I was hiding something and although my explanation sounded quite convincing, it took her just an innocent question to rip it apart.

“You must be confusing something, Dr. Dorian,” she said, barely looking up from the chart she held. “Since I was present and do not recall you performing a full body exam.”

Her smile was so sweet that it would have sent a diabetic straight into unconsciousness. Miss Parker’s facial expression, however, was one of utter vigilance.

“Would you be so kind to leave us alone for a moment?” she curtly asked the nurse without looking at her.

“Of course, dear.” Nurse Wilson walked out and beamed at me from the door. Old witch.

“I’ll see you later, Dr. Dorian.”

My reply consisted of an unintelligible “hmpf”.

When the door had closed once again, Miss Parker struggled to sit up straight.

“What is that supposed to mean?” she asked, her voice suddenly sharp and clear.

“Parker, I…”
She held up a hand to stop my ramblings. “Stop it, Jarod. Stop it for my sake.”

Her eyes narrowed. “Just tell me what you know.”
I closed my eyes briefly, willing her to just give it up.

“Tell me,” she ordered, making it very clear that she wouldn’t take no for an answer.

“I don’t know where to begin…” I said.

“What’s so difficult about it?” she snapped angrily. “How do you know all about my illness and why didn’t you bother with telling me? Would have spared me quite some pain, wouldn’t it?”

She looked accusingly into my eyes.

“I… I just forgot.” I told her, earning a raised eyebrow and a snort.

“You forgot?”

Yes I did, I thought, filled with disbelief. It seemed that the ulcer had belonged to the old Miss Parker, to the self-torturing, neurotic, cold person that had walked around hating her life and everybody around her. I had simply not considered the possibility that it would come back to haunt her. I hadn’t even given a single thought to it. But how could I tell her that?

“Jarod, please.”

Faced with my long silence, she was growing impatient with me.

“We… we have known each other for a long time,” I began, shakily.

“How long?” Yes, she would have definetly been a great prosecutor.

“Since we were kids.”

Her eyes widened. “Then why didn’t you tell me?”

“Because of what happened in the meantime.”

“And what was that?”

I would have felt really stupid telling her that she worked for an evil cooperation called the Centre to get me, a fugitive, back. It sounded like the climax of a trashy paperback-novel or the plot of a fast-lived B-movie. Still…

“We had… difficulties.”

“Difficulties?” Her voice had dropped and was dripping with irony now. Maybe it was that familiar tone that triggered my own aggression.

“Come on! We’ve played this game long enough, don’t you think?”

“So you still don’t believe me,” she said in a suddenly very cold voice. There was no anger left, she was obviously forcing the emotion out of her voice with just a trace of disappointment remaining.

“No.”

I could almost see her gaze cloud over. She was the master of disguising her emotions after all. She averted her gaze and turned away, at the same time throwing back the covers.

“What do you think you are doing, Miss Parker?” I asked.

“I am leaving. I’ve really had enough.”

She was unsteady on her legs for a second but then gripped the edge of the bed and reached for her clothes. I watched as she dressed, unsure what to do next. I wasn’t really a doctor, but even when just pretending to be one it was actually my responsibility to prevent a patient from harming herself.

Still, I was unable to move. This was just too convincing. Although I had just told her otherwise, I did believe her. But I was simply too afraid to cause my capture by means of my own stupidity.

She adjusted her jacket around her shoulders and shot me a last glare before she walked out of the door which slammed shut behind her. It was that noise that it took to make me finally realize what had just happened.

She had really left. For good… For good?

She was in no condition to leave the hospital. Where would she go? She didn’t even have her credit-card with her. I couldn’t let her go like that! Alarmed, I lurched forward, pushed the door open almost violently and ran down the hall.

It was only at the exit that I caught up with her. She had just got rid of Kate who had obviously tried to talk her out of leaving, but had not succeeded.

Suddenly I froze in place, staring down the hall at the person who had just approached Miss Parker and was talking to her now. Kate was coming my way but it felt like I was seeing through her, staring at a Centre Sweeper who was now holding Miss Parker by the shoulder to steady her.

Sam.

The wave of dizziness that overcame me was so strong that I had to hold on to the wall next to me. This wasn’t possible. This just wasn’t possible.

Miss Parker was apparently oblivious to my presence and just nodded as Sam gestured towards the door and slid his arm around her waist to help her to the black car that was waiting in front of the ER entrance.

I had never in my life felt so close to fainting, my stomach seemed to twist into knots, my legs nearly buckled under me.

I watched her through the window, getting into the car and leaning back inside. The backlights of the car vanished into the grey Decembre evening as I heavily sank down onto a bench in the hall.

Kate’s hand came up to my shoulder.

“Are you okay, Jarod?” she asked, concern clearly evident in her voice.

“She lied to me all the time…” I murmured quietly, but Kate understood me anyway.

“She’s just said the same thing about you,” she said and stroked my shoulder in a gesture of comfort that I could very well imagine her employing with her kids as well.

“I… I almost believed her…” I said and when my head gradually began to clear, I understood that I had to run. Maybe they had already called the other Sweepers on me. It would just be a matter of time until they came to get me. I scrambled to my feet and looked at Kate, almost sorry to have to leave a new friend behind.

“I have to go…” I said, my voice hollow and bare of all strength.

“Wait…” Kate held on to my arm to which I turned around and looked at her, feeling the urgency to leave and irritation at being held back.

“You better find her.” Kate said and elaborated as I frowned. “I just got the results from the bloodtests. She’s pregnant.”

“You should go back to your room!” The annoyingly cheerful doctor said and was ready to grab me by the arm.

“Don’t you dare touch me,” I snapped and stepped aside, which sent a fresh wave of dizziness through me.

“Try to be a little more sensible, Michelle!” she said sternly.

“How many times do I have to tell you that you are not allowed to call me that!” I almost yelled at her, resulting in a severe shortness of breath that I tried to counteract by inhaling the stale hospital air deeply and desperately.

“I was actually on my way to you, Miss Parker,” she emphasized. “I was going to tell you…”

“What?” I snapped.

“That you are pregnant.”

“I thought that this was about my ulcer!” I hissed impatiently, unable to force the strength to return to my voice, unwilling to let the piece of information actually reach me.

“It is. But you’re not very far along in your pregnancy, Miss Parker. You should go back and rest for the sake of your baby.”

“There’s no way I will go back. Jarod’s been lying to me all along.”

My head was swirling as I pushed her aside. Suddenly a man’s hand touched my elbow and I turned around, ready to tell Jarod to go to hell, when I looked into a face I had never seen before.

“Miss Parker,” the man said, holding on to my shoulder to steady me, who I hadn’t realized myself that I was swaying.

“What?” I croaked, unable to make sense of the turn of events. I felt dizziness come up with such force that his face was blurring in front of my eyes.

“I overheard your conversation with the doc. I think it’s time to go home.”

Home. Home sounded good. I just wanted to go home.

I took a step towards the exit but felt myself stagger slightly. It was him who caught me and gently slid his arm around my waist. I felt like leaning onto his shoulder. Cold air hissed into my face as we stepped out onto the parking-look. Drizzle of rain sprayed my face and I buried it on his arm.

He opened the door for me and helped me into the car.

“What…?” I managed while my surroundings slowly came into focus again. He was a big man with a friendly face that I thought I should know from somewhere, I just couldn’t recall where I’d seen him before. In passing, maybe?

I slowly came back to my senses and suddenly jerked fully awake with a start.

“Let me go!” I told him. “I have no idea who you are!”

He smiled uneasily. “It’s me. Miss Parker: Sam.”

I stared at him in disbelief. I had tried so hard to track everybody down to no avail and now my old life just came back to get me? Just like that?

“Sam?” I whispered. “I don’t know anybody named Sam.”

It was his turn to stare now as something seemed to dawn upon him.

“Oh my god, Miss Parker...”

I couldn’t speak, just felt my heart beat furiously inside my chest.

“You really have amnesia?” he asked, flabbergasted.

“Yes! Damn it!” I exploded at him. “Why is it that nobody will believe me?!”

He shrugged, obviously trying to calm my temper.

“I thought… you were just pretending to have lost your memory!”

I stared at him in disbelief.

“Why on earth should I do that?!”

I was walking along one of the upper hallways that were lit by the sunlight that came streaming in through the windows, positioned high up near the ceiling. Whenever I entered the building in the mornings, I marvelled at the beauty of this place that at the same time struck me as very inappropriate. This was what visitors, successful businessmen and powerful allies, saw. This was what represented the Centre to the outside world- a wealthy cooperation with a good taste in furniture.

Who would have suspected that the truth was so much more sinister?

As usual I headed for the elevator, clutching my battered briefcase to my chest. I would now head down to the sublevel where my office was, lit only by a dim lamp and the screen of my computer. Depressing, really.

While I was waiting for the elevator to descend I looked around to watch the few people that were passing by this early in the morning. I was still at the system checks and they had proved to be far more extensive than I had expected. Secretly, I guessed that whoever had assigned me to that particular task had known that and was very eager to keep me busy. But that didn’t change the deadline. The Centre didn’t allow for delays.

“This is beautiful.”

I would have turned around at the sound of that sentence anyway, for it was very seldom that those words were uttered inside this building, but what really made me gasp was the voice that was speaking them.

It was her.

I had been waiting for her to miraculously reappear but I hadn’t expected it to be just now. For some things you are never prepared, even if you have been eagerly awaiting them. Like your wife going into labour. I had been too shocked to move and Miss Parker’s appearance had the same impact on me.

I was left staring at her while she crossed the hall, rather slowly, as I noticed beside myself, a look of wonder in her eyes, that matched neither her personality nor her relationship to this place. What the hell was wrong with her?

And why on earth had she dyed her hair blond?!

Sam was walking on her right side, another Sweeper on her left. The latter was holding on to her elbow as if he was supporting her in a subtile way. Strange, I thought. The Miss Parker I knew would have already broken his arm. Twice.

They came past me and immediatley picked up their pace as Sam laid eyes on me.

“We are in a hurry, Miss Parker,” he whispered, but I understood him anyway.

She just nodded, still looking at her surroundings as if she’d never seen them before.

She was probably happy to be home, I thought with a jolt of sarcasm. Mission accomplished, I added grimly.

It was Sydney who had silently approached me from the opening elevator, who put it in just the right words: “Now she’s finally sold her soul.”

Sam guided me into an elevator and watched me while the floors were sliding by. During the drive in the car and our trip to another ER where I’d been prescribed more ulcer medication and a lot of rest, we had started talking to each other.

I had voiced my concerns on how stupid I was to willingly come along with him since I had no idea whether he wasn’t some psychotic killer who had somehow learned about my helpless state. He had acknowledged that and assured me that he wouldn’t hurt me.

And did I have another choice than to trust him?

At some point our conversation had slowed to a halt and while he’d been concentrating on the road, my thoughts had wandered back to what had happened in the hospital.

The ultrasound there had confirmed Dr. Hopkins’ findings and I suddenly found myself not only on my way home but also a mother to be. How to deal with that particular piece of information, I had no idea.

I was barely six weeks along, a beaming young doctor, probably some intern, had told me, pointing at a screen that showed only a washed up picture of white moving inside dark grey. Sam had remained silent at the sight of it, then had left to make a phone-call.

The doctor had handed me the sonogram picture, placed it inside my palm as if it was some treasure to behold. I had been far too shocked to look at it properly so it had remained a blurry black and white mess to me.

Then we had been back on our way, Sam concentrating on the street, me staring out at the first flakes of snow swirling by, pulling the coat he had lent me tighter around my body. What a mess, I’d thought. I had run away from the man I could just not make any sense of but loved regardless and was carrying his child.

What an irony! It seemed like fate took great pleasure in kicking me in the ass.

Esspecially since I had actually been taking contraceptives. They had been in my handbag, clearly labelled as such. How on earth had I managed to get pregnant despite that? Of course there were failures… but why me?

Although everybody seemed to congratulate me on that baby, I couldn’t view it as a blessing, but rather as a burden.

The elevator doors opened and its sound made me snap out of my reverie.

I was going to meet my father now, the only living relative besides a twin brother and that made me nervous.

Sam led me towards a set of double doors that he held open for me to step through. Suddenly I felt horribly exposed, wearing only casual slacks and a burgundy sweater I had put on this morning. Everybody around here was so neatly dressed in suits and I felt like everyone was staring at my tousled hair and worn off make-up.

The door closed behind me and I found myself faced with a heavy oak desk and a white haired man behind it.

He got up to greet me and gave me a smile.

“Angel,” his voice boomed and his arms came up around my body in a brief and somewhat awkward embrace. “We’ve been missing you.”

I tried to read his face but there wasn’t much concern there. I would have expected a worn look in his eyes, fatigue and lines around the eyes that spoke of a lack of sleep caused by his daughter being missing. But on the contrary, he looked quite rested and content. Far more than I did, actually.

“Would you like to sit?” he asked me, guiding me towards the couch where my legs finally gave way and had me sink into the pillows. “That’s better,” he sat, pouring a glass of water for me. “Pregnant ladies shouldn’t overexert themselves.”
I stared at him.

“You know?” My voice came out all husky and tired. I really needed some sleep.

“Of course. Sam told me about it.”

He never mentioned my ulcer-condition as he went on about how happy he was to become a grandfather and that everyone would take good care of me, but the words didn’t really register with me. It was the way he wasn’t touching me, the way his eyes seemed to flicker away from my gaze whenever I tried to look at him and the tone of his voice that betrayed the happiness he kept talking about.

I felt myself shiver as I realized that everything about this man was cold. And he didn’t even once ask about my opinion, obviously didn’t care whether I wanted this baby. I felt my throat tighten, suddenly felt nauseous thinking of the imposing building I was in.

I will never get out if they don’t want me to.

Now he took my hand and patted it slightly.

“You must be tired, Angel.”

“I am,” I finally managed and he nodded in acknowledgement.

“Sam is going to drive you home,” he said.

“No, wait…” I trailed off, didn’t even know what I called my own father.

“Please…” I began once again. “Do I have any family? Do I have other children or a husband?”

He waved dismissively. “You live on your own.”

I felt a stab of disappointment at his words. Not that I cared much about children or a man other than Jarod, but I wished for some warmth. Not the business-like manner this man acted on. Someone who was sincerely happy to have me back. Not an empty house full of memories that I couldn’t grasp.

I felt on the verge of tears as he guided me towards the door.

“Wait! Don’t you want to know where I was and what I have been doing during the last two months?”

He smiled, a real smile for the first time and I felt myself relax a little despite myself.

“It doesn’t matter as long as you are back, Angel,” he said. “I understand that you are suffering from amnesia and do not remember a thing. It is going to be a slow process but you will remember eventually.”

He placed his hand on my shoulder and repeated the smile- more automatic this time.

“Just go home and rest to make sure that my grandchild will be fine.”

“I don’t even know whether I want to be a mother at this point in my life!” I blurted out, but felt like I was crashing into a brick wall. His gaze changed and his eyebrows seemed to hover closer to his eyes, casting a shadow over them.

“Of course you will be,” he said.

It was almost six o’clock in the morning and although I hadn’t slept for a long time, I didn’t feel tired at all.

Jarod had left a long time ago but I was still staring at two different blood-tests and a third page of results. I drained the cup of coffee that stood next to me on the nightstand of the on call-room and then shook my head in confusion.

The first sheet of results from the blood-tests was the tox-screen Jarod had ordered when Miss Parker had been admitted after the car-crash. No alcohol, no drugs, no medication of any kind but fertility drugs, hormons. We hadn’t pursued that lead since fertility drugs weren’t likely to cause a woman to crash her car. In fact, Jarod hadn’t even seen these results since he had been far too occupied with the woman herself.

And it wasn’t unusual after all. There was still the possibility that Miss Parker had tried to conceive a baby with whatever man she was involved with in her old life.

What I didn’t understand was that those fertility drugs still showed up on the latest blood-test I had done. That one had confirmed a pregnancy, too. I hadn’t expected her to be pregnant, really, but the pregnancy test was standart when we were considering the option of surgery.

All of those findings wouldn’t have confused me if not for one thing. I stared at the third page of results until the numbers began to blurr in front of my tired eyes.

Jarod had returned to the hospital after his first hurried departure and had brought along pills recovered from Miss Parker's handbag, that he’d wanted me to have analyzed. The label had said it to be contraceptives, but they had been quite the opposite: Fertility drugs that clearly explained the high hormon levels in all of her blood tests.

What scared me about this business was Jarod’s reaction to these results. It wasn’t easy to understand why he had turned sheet-white at my announcement, but I had come up with a theory. You just had to connect a pretended amnesia and fertility drugs disguised as contraceptives.

She had been playing one vicious game with him, I thought. I so much as guessed that they had met before their encounter in the ER and I wondered what bound them together.

It was the utter rage in Jarod’s eyes that kept me up. What would he do? He had stormed out of my office, had slammed the door behind him and I had been able to hear his tiles screach on the ground of the parking-lot even through the closed window.

I hung my head, propping my chin up on my fists. What the hell was going on here? And who was a danger to whom? I sighed. With both of them gone, I would most likely never find out.

I opened Miss Parker’s chart and put the two blood tests back in, then closed the folder. For good.

Sis looked tired but definetly hot when I spotted her being led towards the parking-lot by Sweeper Sam. I quickened my pace until I had caught up with them and smiled at her.

“Hello, Sis. I’ve been told that you don’t remember your life,” I opened the conversation casually and felt Sam’s irritated gaze on me. Time to get rid of him, I decided.

“You’ve been driving all night,” I told him in the most friendly voice I was capable of producing. “Why don’t you just leave and let me take my sister home?”

He looked reluctant to leave but a very pointed gaze of mine had him scurry away, although not without touching Parker’s shoulder in a gesture of farewell.

Touching, I thought. Looks like she’s suddenly getting along with people.

“Then you are my brother?” she asked and I nodded, placing my hand onto the small of her back to lead her towards my car.

“My name is Lyle,” I said and held the passenger-door open for her. “And I am glad you are back. I have been so worried.”

She looked at me and I was amused to see gratitude in her eyes. Very nice, for a change.

I put the car into gear and watched her look at the Centre’s ghastly reflection in the window. She looked almost scared. Very vulnerable, very sweet, I thought with a sudden surge of something I could not quite identify.

“Do I live close by?” she asked, studying my face, probably looking for resemblances.

“It’s not far,” I replied. “How are you feeling? Don’t you remember anything at all?”

She seemed to fall for my friendly ways and at the end of the drive I congratulated myself on winning her trust so easily.

“Would you like me to accompany you inside?” I asked politely and at the same time wondered whether we had ever talked so civilly.

“That would be nice.”

She looked at the dark windows with an almost frightened gaze, absently fumbling with the keys she had been given. She was still a bit unsteady on her legs as she walked up her driveway and into the dark house. Easy prey, I thought, feeling the muscles in my arms tighten as my fingertips brushed her neck.

My sister had always been a serious rival to me. It would have been so easy to dispose of her right now. But so deadly for my career, too, so I braced myself for another round of acting the concerned brother.

My hand found the light switch and we walked into the living-room.

“It’s nice,” she said.

“You’ve always had a good taste in furniture,” I said although I had no idea whether what I said was true. But that was nice for a change since I usually knew damn well when I was lying.

She walked straight towards a few pictures that stood on a shelf and looked at them, almost afraid to touch them. How would I explain the absence of my picture in this? Would she realize already that I was not one bit the friendly brother I pretended to be? Her gaze was clouded as she picked up a picture of her mother.

“Who’s the kid?” she asked, frowning.

“You,” I replied.

She looked up, then realization dawned on her face.

“Then this is our mother?”

I understood. She’d thought it was her, just like everyone else usually fell for the resemblance.

“Yes,” I said.

“Where are you on the picture?”

I refrained from shifting uneasily as I would have wanted to and just shrugged, hoping that the boyish smile I gave her had reached my eyes.

“I guess I was running ahead as usual,” I lied. “I was always on the run.”

She shrugged, then replaced the picture and turned back to me.

“Thank you very much for driving me home,” she said. “I think I will just go to bed now. I am very tired.”
I bent forward and stroked her cheek lightly. Her skin was very soft to my touch.

“Then I’ll better leave. If you care for lunch tomorrow, I could tell you a little bit about your life.”

Her eyes lit up. “Thank you. That would be great.”

“I’ll be here at two.”

She nodded her agreement.

Already at the front door, I turned around again and smiled at her once again although I couldn’t see her face since it was half obscured by the shadows.

When the door had closed behind me I passed the two Sweeper cars that would be parked around her house 24-7 for the course of the next few months. Raines and my father couldn’t risk her getting away after all. Not with the child she was carrying.

I smiled to myself.

In contrast to my father I knew how to handle this. And when she trusted me enough, I would find a way to be in charge. And we would see what the Centre would offer me to get her and that precious little future-pretender back.

I whistled as I started the car and drove off.

The house… my house was spacious but not huge. Just enough for a small family, I thought. Not really suitable for a single person, but then again my brother had told me that it had been my mother’s summer house. Since she had died early I supposed that I had remained there for nostalgic reasons.

I wandered all the rooms. The kitchen, the living room, the dining-room, the bedroom, looking at everything. Still it was like a stranger’s house.

I opened the drawers, looked at the pictures –no recent onces as I realized- and felt the fabric of my clothes.

Nothing.

No recollection. No sudden flash of remembering. Just the same emptiness that had persisted during the last two months.

And I missed Jarod already. He had become the only constant in my life and now he was gone. The circumstances of our argument were still a mystery to me. Why had he been so intent on keeping my past from me? I still didn’t understand.

I had felt completely alone after the disturbing encounter with my father, but my brother’s warm ways had served to cheer me up a little. He seemed to genuinely care about me and that gave me a little hope for the future.

Still it was unsettling to know that the decision about whether I would carry the baby to term or not had been made without my consent. Of course I had given it a little bit of thought already. Under whatever circumstances it had been conceived and as unwanted as it was, it was still my child and some distant part of me had already started caring about it, but the decision should be up to me, shouldn’t it?

I lay down on the bed and rested my head against the pillows, wishing for Jarod to be here, but startling as it was, I didn’t even have his phone-number. No way to reach him and so many issues to deal with. I felt so overwhelmed that all I was capable of was pulling the blanket over my head and going straight to sleep.

We didn’t get to see Miss Parker during the next few days. She was never at her office, never even at the Centre. My friend Jake from security had told me that her presence hadn’t once been recorded in the security files since the one time I had seen her.

I had tried calling her but her numbers were out of service. I had tried driving by her house, but had been stopped by Sweepers. I had talked to Lyle but he had told me to get lost.

Was she too ashamed to let me contact her? Did she know that I knew about the disgusting plan she was carrying out? Why wasn’t she coming to work? What was she doing all day? None of these questions I could find an answer to.

Sydney proved to be even more uncooperative than Lyle. He just remained silent when I told him about what had happened, then advised me to stay away from Miss Parker.

“She is not who you thought she was,” he told me solemnly. “I know that you…” There was a short and pretty meaningful pause. “…care about her, but you should really try to forget about that whole affair.”

“Forget about it?” I spat. “And what about this kid?”

He looked up from his notes for the very first time during the whole conversation.

“What do you mean?” he asked curtly.

“The baby. She wouldn’t have come back if she wasn’t pregnant, would she? So there is Jarod’s baby to save and I bet he doesn’t even know about it.”

“Jarod hasn’t called a single time in the last few months,” Sydney pointed out. “I can’t reach him.”
I nodded. “Then we have to do something… talk to her! She can’t do this. She has a heart. I’ve seen her with Debbie… she can’t just… just give the baby away. There’s still time!”

“You told me yourself that there were Sweepers around her at all times. You won’t get the chance to talk to her, let alone get her out of there.”

I was starting to get angry at Sydney.

“Listen! If you don’t want to do anything, I will do it alone!” I told him. “I can’t just let it happen.”

Sydney sighed and massaged the bridge of his nose in frustration.

“You are an honorable man, Broots, but there are some things one better stays out of.”

I walked towards the door, then turned around a last time before I left.

“Are there, Sydney?” I asked, shocked myself at how cold my voice was capable of sounding. “Like Jarod’s imprisonment? Did you look away, too, because you just surrendered to the Centre?”

Sydney looked up and there was pain in his eyes.

I left.

“Good cop, bad cop?” I asked, raising an eyebrow.

“Yeah,” my son told me, shrugging in the boyish way that was so completely at odds with his actual personality. “Although I guess that we’ve normally got a kind of ‘bad cop, worse cop’ policy going on around here.”

That, I could not deny.

“What are you implying?”

He adjusted his tie in a swift gesture, then flattened it against his chest.

“I am implying that we do a little theatre-play. I am centre-stage –no pun intended- in the starring role of caring twin brother and you play the occasionally appearing father who caring brother has to defend amnesia-sister against.”

I frowned at his colorful choice of words.

“So you say I should frighten her so you can gain her trust. What would we do that for?”

He smiled.

“For the effect. If she trusts me, I can feed her with all sorts of information that will make her oblivious to what is really going on. I understand correctly that you want this baby and Jarod for whatever it takes? But your favourite player is disabled by amnesia. That’s where I come in.”

Strange, that I didn’t even trust my own son. I wondered whether anybody in this family had ever trusted another. If not, my children had turned out exactly like I wanted them to. Trust is expensive and the price you pay for it is usually too high.

“So you want me to play along in your little game?”

“Sure!” He sounded almost cheerful now. “Don’t tell me you feel like it is too much to ask! You’re basically playing yourself, now, aren’t you?”

I began stuffing a few folders of files into my briefcase and didn’t look up from the task when I finally spoke to him again.

“Christmas Eve, son. Let’s see how it turns out.”

I looked up to watch him leave as soon as he had turned his back to me. As he pushed through the double doors with just the right amount of force to have them fly open but not crash into the walls, I wondered whether he had a secret agenda and whether he knew about ours.

Miss Parker

Christmas was approaching fast and I had no idea what to do about it. Before our discord Jarod and I had been planning to spend Christmas together at his house. Now the only person I could think about spending the holidays with was my brother Lyle.

He had been a great help over the last few days. He’d helped me settle in and had kept me entertained by showing me around the town I had grown up in and couldn’t remember anything about.

Everything still felt weird and although I had gone through the few personal items I had been able to find in the office upstairs, I could still not find out about the woman I had been.

Lyle had made it a habit to drop by almost every evening so we could sit in the living-room and talk. And there was always something to talk about. He told me about our family’s cooperation where I’d had worked as a business woman. At least my travellings explained my knowledge of foreign languages.

Today we sat there again, fingers wrapped around cups of hot and sickenly sweet tea that he had made in my kitchen and I finally asked the question that had been on my mind for ages now.

“Who is Jarod?”

I had told him which town I’d been in and that I had stayed with a doctor who’d quickly become more than a friend, but I had never actually said his name.

“How come you know that name?” he asked, looking slightly alarmed.

“Came across it,” I replied vaguely. I wanted his unbiased opinion which I knew I would not get if I told him that I’d slept with the guy.

“You better forget about it again,” he said with emphasis.

“Why?”

“Well, there are things that we would want erased from our memory. You are so lucky, so I don’t want to be the one who gives it back to you.”

My heart had begun to beat faster inside my chest. What had happened between Jarod and me? So it hadn’t been a coincidence after all, that we had met?

“I want you to tell me,” I told him sternly.

His gaze lingered on my face for a second and I saw something flicker in his eyes when they met mine.

“Jarod is a part of your past that you have told me a thousand time you want to forget.”

My hands had started trembling and for the first time during my pregnancy I felt really and truly sick. Straightening up, I tried to ignore the feeling of vertigo and grabbed Lyle’s arm.

“Tell me.”

He seemed to recognize the fear in my eyes and touched my shoulder in a comforting gesture.

“Jarod once worked at the Centre. You two have known each other for years. Since you were children, in fact.”

So far the story concurred with what Jarod had told me, but I still couldn’t begin to relax. What horrors were there that he had kept from me?

“He’s always liked you a little more than you liked him. Many others were sweet on you in the Centre, but he was different. Well, actually he was a good guy. Liked by everybody, very competent in his job, but when it came to you, he seemed to lose complete sight of reality. He really pursued you, but you turned him down quite a few times. One time too many, I guess, because he truly freaked out.”

The hollow feeling in the pit of my stomach grew with every single one of his words.

“He assaulted you in your office and threatened to kill you, nearly raped you. It was sheer luck that your secretary was able to call security in time. He was fired after that, of course.”

Suddenly I was unable to hold on to the mug in my hands any longer. It slipped through my fingers and collided with the floor in a loud crash. Hot tea spilled into all directions and seeped into my trousers, but I didn’t even feel the sting.

“He tried to…?” I couldn’t even say it. We couldn’t possibly be talking about the same man who had taken care of me, whom I had fallen in love with, whose child I was carrying…

“Are you alright?” he asked and I felt his hands grab my shoulder through a daze.

“Is something wrong with the baby?” He sounded suddenly alarmed, guilty, even.

Oh yes. Everything is wrong with the baby.

Of all the lies Jarod had told me, I had thought that our love was none.

Despite all my sorrow I was eternally grateful for the comforting arms of my brother that I could sink into.

Sometimes, it’s almost too easy to actually get a thrill out of it, I think when I stroke my sister’s hair while she tries to calm down in my arms.

I want everything. And I will get everything.

Miss Parker

Lyle had offered to hold my hair back while I was throwing up but I had slammed the door into his face at the prospect of a scene as humiliating as that.

Once I had stopped emptying the contents of my stomach into the toilet, I could hear his gentle knock. I was struggling for air, glad that the retching had stopped.

“Are you okay?” his worried voice filtered through the wood of the door.

“Sure! I feel excellent!” I replied, irritated, before I bent forward a second time to vomit some more.

I just wanted to get rid of Lyle. Get rid of everyone around me to be able to come to terms with what he had just told me. Jarod- a man who had been so obsessed with me that he would have done anything to possess me?

That would explain his reluctance to tell me about my past... but had he really taken advantage of my helpless state? Had he tried to start over with me by withholding his past attacks on me?

Whenever I tried to imagine it, the nausea grew stronger.

Esspecially when I thought about the fact, that I was pregnant with his child. For all I knew he could have even switched my contraceptives with placebos just to bind me to him.

Oh my god...

Even his anger and suspicions that I was just pretending to have amnesia did add up. He had probably really believed that I was just getting revenge on him. What a sick mind, I thought, my heart beating furiously inside my chest.

I placed my hand onto my stomach in an effort to calm it down, but did not succeed. But since there was nothing left there, I was just retching dryly and thus lowered myself to the floor, leaning against the bathroom wall.

I felt exhausted, still nauseous and absolutely frightened.

Would he come back for me now that he’d had a taste of me? Would he claim his baby and make my life even more unbearable?

I couldn’t decide what was worse: The fact that he knew where to find me, or the fact that I knew that deep down, I still loved him despite everything I had just heard. Who was the greater danger to me? He or I?

I drew my legs up to my body and buried my face in the fabric of my trousers.

“Don’t cry” a voice inside my head told me and I suddenly understood that the old Miss Parker, that person I had once been, was still inside me. Some part of her had survived and told me to be strong. I even had the distinct feeling that she would have despised herself for curling up on the floor to cry.

The thought of her comforted me greatly and that very moment I felt some of her strength... my strength return to my body. If she could do it, I could do it.

So I grabbed the edge of the sink and pulled myself back to my feet where a look in the mirror confirmed what I had already known.

I looked like living hell.

There was Lyle’s knock at the door. Again.

I frowned at my reflection. Besides the smudged make-up and pale complexion, there was something else that was wrong. I touched my own cheek and smoothed my hair back from my face, when suddenly something hit me.

It was as if I had been slapped in the face, like a veil being abruptly pulled from my vision. Suddenly it was there and I had no idea where it had come from, but I knew that I was right.

I was supposed to have black hair.

Of course the dark roots had told me that blonde wasn’t my natural haircolor, but now I knew with a strange certainty that I had never bleached my hair before. I felt my body tremble and clung to the sink. The woman in the mirror was the woman Jarod had had. The one who had willingly stayed with him and trusted him, not knowing what a twisted mind he had. She was weak and stupid and far too trusting.

I thought back to the suits that hung in the upstairs closet. The sharp stilletto heels and dark colors. That was who I really was.

And I would become her again because I knew that she was strong and independent. Just what I needed to be now. I ignored Lyle’s calls for me and rubbed at my eyes to restore the make-up.

“Sis, please!”

“Go away!” I called to him. “Just go away!”

“But I can’t leave you like this!” he protested.

“Oh you can!” I told him without taking my gaze off my reflection in the mirror.

“I might have lost my memories, but I am perfectly capable of taking care of myself.”

And I was. Well… I would be.

Life at the Centre had become even more unbearable since Sydney and I avoided each other. He had always been the one person I had been able to talk to, but now the day was only filled with dull work.

At least I had finally completed the extensive check on the security system, but had now been assigned to a thoroughly boring job that was supposed to make the internal server’s firewall Jarod-proof. Futile attempts, I secretly knew. Nothing on this planet was actually Jarod-proof.

Brooding over those dark thoughts I stepped through the hall, carrying a paper-cup of stale coffee in my hand when suddenly I collided with somebody.

Hot coffee spilled over my trousers and when I looked down to survey the damage, I noticed that the hot liquid had stained the other person’s shoes, too.

I recognized them even before she spoke.

“Great. Moron. Do you have any idea how much one pays for Manolo Blahnik shoes these days?!”

I looked up into Miss Parker’s cold blue eyes. She had raised an eyebrow and tilted her head slightly to the side as if waiting for an answer.

“I… I’m sorry, Miss Parker! I am so sorry!” I apologized, at the same time taking in the image of her.

Her hair was as raven as it had ever been and although it was styled differently than usual, she looked far closer to her old self than she had the last time I had seen her. The stilletto heels and suit had done their magic.

My gaze slipped down towards her stomach and I couldn’t help but stare, although there was nothing to see. She was as slim as she had ever been.

“What are you looking at?” she snarled. “Now get out of my way, I have a meeting to attend.”

“But Miss Parker…!” I called after her. Desperate for some sign that she was fine, or that she had not fulfilled her evil plan, I tried to hold her back.

“What?” she snapped, emphazising every letter.

“I… are you… are you?”

She raised both eyebrows now and smoothed her jacket over her stomach in a motion that I believed to be automatic.

“You can try talking to me again, as soon as you have learned how to articulate yourself,” she said coldy, as if she had lost interest in me altogether.

She stepped into the elevator and turned around only when she stood inside. The look she gave me was almost pitying. As if she had never seen anyone more pathetic in her life.

I sighed. She was back. She looked like herself. But something was entirely different.

I looked up with the knock at my door.

“Come in”, I called, expecting my son with some more instructions on what he liked to call “The Taming of the Shrew”. I hadn’t been very happy with his latest progress on his sister, whatsoever. He had meant to bind her closer to him by telling her lies about Jarod so she wouldn’t trust him, should he try to take her away from the Centre. Since she had refused all contact to anybody since then, his move had obviously been not quite as ingenius as he had thought it to be.

Instead of him, the double doors revealed my daughter herself and I couldn’t stop myself from taking a sharp breath when I laid eyes on her.

For a second I was unsure whether she had unexpectly regained her memory because there was nothing left of the frightened woman that had been sitting on my couch last time. Her hair was black again and her fingernails blood red as she put her hand flat on the table.

“I would like to work again,” she said in a firm voice that once again reminded me of the fact that natural authority was in the Parker genes. She hadn’t just handed in a request. It was an order.

“Maybe it is too soon,” I said, then remembered the role I had been assigned. Occasionally appearing father.

The problem was, that I hadn’t appeared. She had taken the stage and ruled it.

“It is not too soon. I have my little ulcer related problem under control. The doctor gave his okay.”

“But your amnesia…” I began, but she stopped me midsentence.

“It’s fine. I may not remember personal details but my skills are all intact,” she said. “There won’t be a problem.”

I hadn’t realized that her voice had been higher last time, but I realized now that it had dropped to its familiar growl once again. That was what I had always wanted my daughter to become. Someone who appeared to be invincible. Someone who displayed authority and could pull people’s strings. It was just that those abilities were most unwelcome in the current situation.

“Lyle told me that I worked in corporate before I became Head of Security. I want to do that again.” She was not pleading, but negotiating.

And I knew that she was good at it. But I had always held a powerful weapon against her that I now intended to use once again.

“Angel,” I told her, cupping her cheek gently in my hand. “I am your father. I know what’s good for you.”

It seldom took more than that. A reassuring touch of her face, a few nice words and she softened to the point where I was able to talk her out of whatever she wanted to do. I had done this so often that it came automatically.

I had done it back when she had wanted to take the offer she had received from a prestigious law-firm, when she had refused to work for the Centre, when she had inquired about what had happened to her mother. It had always worked.

Today, it didn’t.

And for the first time I regarded her amnesia for what it really was: a major inconvenience.

She gave me a smile that I recognized to be the fake smile she usually gave as a formality to people she did not like.

“You might want only the best for me, but it’s me who has to decide what is good for me. And hanging around in that house of mine is not.”

I tried again. Sometimes it took a little effort.

“Angel, can’t you wait a little longer? You are only a few weeks along in your pregnancy. The first three months are the most dangerous. I don’t want you to miscarry.”

She swept towards me with two swift steps and leaned over the table to give me that intimidating stare of her that I was only rarely the object of. Her voice was firm and very low when she spoke, pointedly.

“My child. My responsibility.”

I regarded her, considering my options at the same time. There was no cupid reason to not allow her to work back in corporate. We just had to be careful about her nosing around. Should I really put the little trust she had gained towards us in jeopardy again?

“Well, if you feel up to it…” I finally gave in. “We can try it for a while.”

After a short pause I added. “Please tell me whenever you feel stressed and want to cut down on the workload.”

“Don’t worry,” she replied and straightened up again. Her stance was so much more familiar than the way she had hugged herself last time in my office. Now her arms were crossed in front of her chest and her eyes sparkled with awareness.

I had a definite sense of foreboding about what I had to expect next.

“When I was away from home I found out that the information on my driver’s license is wrong. Also I don’t seem to be listed in any of the registration offices around here. Can you explain that to me please?”

I frowned. We really needed to adjust to this situation. I realized that threatening her had been far easier than acting the concerned father. I should have really stuck to Lyle’s strategy, but now it seemed to be too late.

“Well, we’re a wealthy family. It’s a security measure to make sure noone is able to track us down in order to kidnap us or similar,” I gave her my standart response to questions like that, but it sounded weak this time.

I couldn’t determine whether she bought it because she just nodded curtly, then walked towards the door.

“Angel!” I called her back to which she gave me a look over her shoulder. Her blue eyes didn’t look at me with their usual loving and admiring expression. They merely wore the look you’d give an unwelcome stranger.

“Yes?”

“Lyle told me that we would be celebrating Christmas at your house this year.”

The hard gaze wavered for a second and I felt a surge of triumph inside me. She might look steadfast, but nothing in this world would be able to erase her wretched, ridiculous need to be loved.

“Yes,” she said, more softly now.

When she had left, I leaned back in my chair. She needed her family and she knew she did. As strong as she might appear to the outside world, I would be able to drag that scared little girl she was inside back to the surface. It was that frightened core of her that I usually despised, but now that it worked to my advantage, I needed it just as much as my daughter needed her strong outward appearance.

It was my advantage that I had known her for years and she had no idea who I really was.

It was usually not a good sign when my father summoned me to his office so I hurried along the corridor, buttoning my jacket in the process.

My father’s secretary greeted me with a bright smile but I was too weary to return to my usual flirty banter with her, since I had retrieved all the information I needed. She was useless to me and in consequence I just raised an eyebrow and her then went past her.

My father rarely shouted, and he didn’t either, today, but he raised his voice against me even before the doors had swung shut behind me.

“What have you done to her?”

“To whom?” I asked, although I knew damn well who he was talking about.

“Your sister!”

“She’s no threat,” I told him calmly, helping myself to an apple from his fruit basin on the coffee table. “She’s totally crushed with the news of Jarod being an obsessed stalker.”

I wiped the apple on my sleeve and then took a hearty bite. That idea had really been one of my better ones. The look in her eyes had been to die for. I just hoped that she wouldn’t regain her memories soonish because crushing her like that gave me a great sense of power. And satisfaction.

“No threat!” he echoed, furiously. “She marched in here today and demanded her old job back!”

I looked up from the apple and stared at him with some disbelief.

“Oh come on. The last time I saw her she was completely…”

He cut me off: “Not anymore.”

Damn. Sis was recovering more quickly than I had expected. That would take some adjustment to my plans. But they wouldn’t be mine if they weren’t adjustable. I was quite flexible after all.

“What’s so bad about her working again?” I asked, shrugging. “At least she’ll once earn herself that nice little sum you transfer to her bank account every month.”

My father had obviously lost his sense of humour and just eyed me with some disdain.

“Really. We just have to assign her to the corporate activities that don’t violate any laws. Trading and stuff. She’ll never know what the Centre is really about.”

As usual it was me who realized that we could actually turn this around to work in our favour.

“If Jarod finds out about the baby and tries to take her away from the Centre, she’ll won’t suspect anything was wrong and when he tells her the truth, she’ll never believe it.”

I grinned, chuckling at the thought of it.

“If he tells her that she’s actually working for an evil cooperation that holds people hostage or some delirious stuff like that, she’ll tell him to go to hell.”

“You mean this is working to our advantage?” he asked, frowning at me.

Wow, at least the penny had dropped with Daddy!

“Sure. We just have to keep an eye on her, so she’ll not have any contact with Sydney and Broots.”

“I can arrange that,” he said, solemnly. “Now get out, Lyle. I need to make a phone call.”

I turned around and left, remaining in front of the door while I heard him pick up the phone inside his office.

“Mister Raines. I need to talk to you.”

I waited patiently while he explained the situation to Raines, my ear close to the gap between the doors.

"I agree. We will transfer her to a sublevel if anything goes wrong."

Miss Parker

Obviously I had gained myself some sort of reputation in this place because when I asked for something, the employees usually tripped over their own feet to get it as soon as possible. Some even seemed to fear me.

I wouldn’t have thought so, but I sort of liked it.

Since I had lost all control over my life recently, it was quite nice to have some power over others. At least that made me forget that others had a lot of power over me in knowing things about my life that I did not.

For the purpose of keeping that reputation, I tried to hide my now regular morning sickness from them. Lyle’s story about Jarod seemed to have triggered something inside me and I now had the misfortune of experiencing the whole nine yards of early pregnancy symptoms. It really annoyed me.

I knew that although everybody around here seemed to think differently, the decision about this pregnancy was mine to make. Still I couldn’t quite decide whether to terminate it or not. So while I buried myself in work, I pushed those thoughts to the back of my mind. Dealing with it now only seemed to penetrate that handy brick wall I had erected around myself. Displaying only a very cold and calculating person to the outside world was easier when you didn't have to deal with an inner turmoil. It amazed me how easy it actually was and that led me to the conclusion that I had done it before, but although it was useful to not have to be dealing with my feelings, I knew that it was wrong.

After one of my morningly escapades I stepped out of the Ladies Room, rebuttoning my jacket with trembling fingers. I stopped in my tracks to search my pockets for a stripe of chewing-gum but could only come up with empty wrappers for a while.

“Merry Christmas, Miss Parker,” a voice said and I braced myself for another encounter with someone who knew me and whom I had never before seen in my life. Instead, I was in for a rather pleasant surprise.

“Sam!” I said with a bright smile that we actually owed to me finally being successful in my search for chewing gum. He grinned when I hurriedly stuffed it into my mouth.

“How are you feeling?” he asked and I shrugged, not really willing to talk about my physical state with anybody. Not even a man I had grown to like. Funny, but somehow I felt that I could trust him more than my own family. Weird, I thought, acknowledging that fact for the first time. Where had that come from?

“You were so busy during the last days that I didn’t want to bother you, but…” he slid his hand into the pocket of his jacket and produced what looked like a photograph at first sight. “… I have something that is yours.”

He handed me the picture and I realized that I was holding the sonogram picture that had been made in the hospital.

“You put it my coat’s pocket,” he explained while I was still staring down at it. “Sorry. I should have returned it to you earlier.”

“That’s okay,” I replied weakly. I had been so occupied with trying to forget about the child that I hadn’t even noticed that I wasn’t in possession of the sonogram picture anymore.

“Well, I’ll see you later,” he finally said, then walked past me into the direction of the elevator.

I looked up to check whether anyone was around then leaned against the wall with all energy suddenly drained from my body.

There was just the shape of something in that picture and with my untrained eye I could only guess where the head lay, but something touched my heart and caused the icy exterior to melt away unexpectedly when the whole reality of my pregnancy came crashing down on me.

Having let my guard down, I glanced around again but the corridor was still mercifully empty. I tried to imagine myself as a mother to that child. I really really tried, but it was very hard to picture. Still… when had it ever been easy for a first time mother?

I thought back to the pictures in my living room. The one in which my mother gave her little girl a beaming smile, holding on tightly to her hand. Maybe she had been scared to death at first, too. Although I remembered nothing about her, I suddenly missed her with all my heart.

But then after all, the child was Jarod’s. The mere thought of it had fear welling up inside me. But not all children were like their parents, I reminded myself sternly. Was I like the man who called himself my father? I wondered. Were my eyes as cold and unforgiving as his?

I didn’t know him but as far as I was concerned the only thing that bound us together was, that we were both pretending to the outside world. I wanted everybody to think that I was cold and tough and he was trying to make me believe that he actually cared about anything beside his own agenda.

But I knew that he didn’t.

It’s how we grow up that makes us who we are, I told myself. And as comforting as that thought was when it came to my unborn baby, it made me fear something else:

I was suddenly very afraid of who I really was.

What was left of my education were just knowledge and a number of certain instincts and impulses.

What if I had been as twisted as this man before my amnesia?

I inhaled the air deeply and felt a lightheadedness creep up inside me. All I found myself wanting right now was my mother. Wherever she was.

This is too much. I can’t handle all of this.

Another sleep deprivation experiment to supervise and I would go insane. Spending long hours in the sublevels, deprived of daylight I felt myself growing more depressed every day. Esspecially since Broots’ words still seemed to echo inside my head. And everytime I found myself craving daylight, I saw pale young Jarod in front of me. He had never breathed air that hadn’t been filtered by the Centre’s airvents, had never felt the warmth on sunlight on his skin.

I carried the guilt with me at all times, but it was in those moments when I really struggled with it. I had just let it happen…

I rose from my chair and took the elevator to whatever floor it took me, just to get away from the depressing artificial light down where I was working day by day.

The doors slid open and revealed an empty hallway with two large windows through which the light of the pale winter sun streamed in and a piece of brilliant blue sky was visible.

I sighed and walked towards it like a moth that is drawn to the light. I just hoped that it could erase Jarod from my mind. He still hadn’t called and I wondered what Miss Parker had done to him so that he stayed away.

I had finally reached the window and leaned onto the window sill with both hands.

A soft groan snapped me out of my absentmindedness and had me swirl around. Miss Parker stood in a corner close by and stared down upon what looked like a sonogram picture, breathing heavily.

My insides felt as if they were twisting into knots when I looked at her standing there in her business outfit. Business. That was what her baby was for her.

For a moment I was tempted to just leave without her ever having known that I’d been there, but then another part of me got the upper hand.

“Miss Parker!” I called and she looked up, paling slightly, and let the picture slip into her pocket.

“Yes?”

Broots was right. I hadn’t done anything the last time. I had just let it happen. Maybe there was some way to turn this around. A way to rescue that baby from the grasp of the Centre. Or maybe this was just an outlet for all the fury I had been feeling towards her lately.

I made sure that she felt my disapproval when I snarled at her: “Shouldn’t you hand that over to your father? I bet they need it for their project files!”

She looked puzzled for a moment, then her face hardened. I took that as a sign that she had understood that I knew.

“No wonder you’ve been trying to keep it from Broots and me. What did they offer you, Miss Parker? Freedom to walk away? Or was it what all Parker’s have ever fallen for: Power?”

“What the hell are you talking about?” she snapped.

“How could you do that?” I asked her. It felt as if I was talking to a stranger. Didn’t she understand what she was doing?

“Do what?” Her anger was now audible in her voice.

“Miss Parker! Stop trying to make a fool of me!” I exploded which caused her to wince and take a step backwards.

“I’ll call security if you try to attack me,” she threatened.

“There’s no need to, Miss Parker. Have a nice day.”

While I angrily stormed back into the elevator, I already regretted acting like I had. Not that she didn’t deserve to be treated like that, but I had always deemed my ability to control myself my greatest weapon. Now that I had lost control, I felt empty and annoyed with myself.

I took a last look at Miss Parker’s face before the doors closed and was puzzled to see tears welling up in her eyes.

The first weeks of my sister’s corporate work went rather smoothly. It had me wonder why they had ever removed her from the corporate branch of the Centre in the first place because she really had a knack for that sort of thing. Her success had even silenced my father’s complaints about her not staying home with her feet up where he deemed she belonged.

Well, I could have foretold that. Whenever it came to money, my father was easily satisfied. And money she did bring in. Big time.

The only thing that worried me was that something had changed between us after I had told her about Jarod. Maybe it was just an elaborate case of kill the messenger, but it seemed as if she had distanced herself from me since then.

We still had dinner or lunch once or twice a week, but she often seemed absent-minded and wasn’t half as open about her feelings as she had been.

Still, I wasn’t overly concerned about it. Her emotional baggage wasn’t very interesting anyway.

And things were definetly going my way.

It was a few weeks after our last encounter that I finally managed to cross Miss Parker’s path. She was on her way from the cafeteria back to her office when I finally caught her without the usual Sweepers accompanying her. She always kept them around her, making sure that neither Sydney nor I would speak to her.

Today she was mercifully alone and so I took my chance and followed her into the elevator. I could feel my pulse hammering inside my throat, but I had to stand my ground for once.

She looked up from the chocolate bar she had been unwrapping and cast me an annoyed glare after which she slipped the candy bar into her pocket.

I waited for another floor to pass by and then hit the stop button with force. She was shocked at first and I found her hand fly up to her stomach in an automatic gesture. It was only then that I noticed that she had begun to show.

“What the hell are you doing?” she snapped at me.

“I just want to talk to you!” I replied and was relieved to hear my voice clear and without the slightest hint of a stutter. It even sounded slightly intimidating. Not to Miss Parker, of course, since her expression had only darkened at my words.

She tucked at her jacket with some force as if trying to hide the sign of her pregnancy from me, then put one hand on her hip.

“You pathetic little bastard,” she scorned. “Why can’t you have my secretary give you an appointment like anybody else?”

She tried to reach past me to restart the elevator but I refused to let her.

“Miss Parker, your Sweepers won’t let me talk to you. There was no other way to do this.”

She cocked her head at me as if I was talking complete nonsense.

“And have the Martians landed, too?” she asked mockingly.

“Stop it!” I told her, fear and fury equally ruling my bearings. “I am very much aware of the fact that you consider me second string, but I thought we were friends!”

She frowned but didn’t object, which encouraged me to ramble on.

“You just went on that mission without telling us and now you’re back and hiding in corporate!”

I was surprised to see fear in her eyes at my words, but her stance told me, that it was not me she was afraid of. I couldn’t tell why, but something in her barely disguised helplessness touched my heart and before I knew it, I had told her what I hadn’t even dared to admit to Sydney.

“You should really know, that I would always listen to you if you’d try to explain what you’ve done, Miss Parker. Maybe even understand…” My voice had softened considerably now. “I know that you’re not cruel and I’ve been clinging to the hope that all of this is just….”

I trailed off. One of her set-ups? A farce? What?

“What are you talking about?” she asked, annoyance now coloring her voice.

“Miss Parker… It doesn’t make sense to act innocent. I know. You know. And that’s it.”

She opened her mouth to speak, but whatever she had wanted to say I would never find out. Her hand flew up to her forehead as if she was dizzy and her legs gave way under her. I instinctively lurched forward and caught her in midfall.

“Miss Parker?” I asked, worried. “Are you okay?”

Miss Parker

“Miss Parker… It doesn’t make sense to act innocent. I know. You know. And that’s it.”

I was so frustrated at his words that I drew a deep breath. I had no idea what he was talking about and I was so damn tired of it all.

Some good-looking Centre-employee had winked at me at the corporate Christmas party, telling me how much he’d liked last year and I hadn’t had any idea what he was talking about. One of my neighbours had given me a deadly glare when I had asked about her dog, whom I had obviously nearly run over last year and I hadn’t remembered a thing. My secretary had reminded me of my father’s birthday and had looked at me with some dissatisfaction since I had obviously never forgotten it before.

I was so sick and tired of all of those situations.

And suddenly -without warning- this man’s words were triggering memories inside me. They came washing into my mind as if a wall had come tumbling down. It was only a second that I wondered whether it was all about wanting to remember before I felt too overwhelmed to think logically.

I felt myself sink forward against his chest, his aftershave making my stomach lurch before the wall broke completely and a string of seemingly incoherent scenes started playing in my head, accompanied by a staccato of sensations.

“What?” I asked, forcing an icy tone into my voice although I was already suspecting what all of this was about.

“Happy birthday,” he said, handing me the present with a nervous smile.

“You shouldn’t have.” My voice sounded flat while I tried to hide the fact that I was touched by his gesture. Esspecially since he seemed to be the only one who had remembered my birthday.

He looked at me with a look that would have suited a puppy and I allowed myself to acknowledge the fact for the first time, that this guy was completely smitten with me.

--

“Lemon ice-cream!” The little girl chirped happily. She looked quite like her father, the same puppy look, I thought. Just that it was far more becoming on a little girl than on a grown man.

“I love that stuff,” I told her, wondering at the same time what had made me open up to her about it.

“My Dad says that I shouldn’t eat so many sweets,” she objected.

“Do we have to tell him? Could be our secret…” I smiled at her.

--

“Could be our secret,” my mother told me and winked at me while her hand came up to softly smooth my hair back from my face. I smiled at her, happiness and excitement filling me.

“I like secrets.”

--

“I hate secrets…” I felt tears welling up in my eyes and a scream forming in my throat. “Why is this place full of gruesome secrets?! Why do you have to rub my face in it everytime?”

I hated myself for not being able to stop the sobs from shaking me..

“Why can’t you just leave me alone?! Let me go on with my life and go away.”

My hand held on to the phone as if clinging to a lifeline and a distant part of my conscious recognized my knuckles turning white.

“You don’t really want me to do that, Miss Parker.”

His voice. Jarod. “I’ll stay until you’ve given me what I want.”

And I knew he would.

The smell of the aftershave floated back into my nose and the scenes that had been playing inside my head dissolved immediatley. I was confused. It had been like changing the channels on TV, just that I knew that it had to have been memories. Strange it was, that I remembered those few moments but absolutely nothing beyond it.

My body felt weak and all I wanted to do was sit down. Instead I was clinging to the man- Broots. That was his name.

He was holding me and his hand was softly stroking my back in a soothing motion.

Inside me, conflicting emotions were battling each other and all I could do was witness this fight as if it was another person’s life I was watching.

On the one hand I wanted to push him away violently, hurt him physically and emotionally and on the other hand it felt good to be held by him. The few things I remembered about him had told me that I could trust him, that he cared about me.

But why was it that I wanted to hurt him so badly anyway?

I straightened up slowly, tugging at my jacket.

“Feeling better?” he asked, still holding on to my shoulder.

“Yes,” I replied monosyllabicly, unsure of what else to say to him.

“Let’s go somewhere you can sit down,” he told me in a worried voice. “You still look pretty unsteady.”

I hadn’t noticed that the elevator had been back in motion and so I jumped slightly when the doors swished open and revealed my brother and Sam.

“Hello, Sis,” Lyle said in a warm voice and motioned for Sam to take me by the arm. “I am so sorry you got stuck.”

Despite my dazed state I noticed the evil glare he gave Broots and his helpless shrug. Lyle obviously thought that I couldn’t hear him when he snapped at Broots: “I told you to stay away from my sister.”

The rest was lost on me while Sam lead me towards my office. There was only one thing that I could say for sure: Something was very wrong.

Maybe what came next was a warning issued by my subconscious but like a flash, another stray scene began playing inside my head.

Lyle looked at me, a sneer on his face while my father held on to our shoulders, trying to be the binding element between two people that I suddenly understood despised each other beyond compare. I looked back at him and felt hatred rising inside my throat.

“Miss Parker!” Sam’s voice sounded worried and I realized that I must have looked pretty dazed.

“I’m fine,” I replied curtly, suddenly feeling the urge to run out of this building and leave it all behind. If we had actually hated each other, what was my brother’s reason to treat me so differently now? Somehow I suspected that this was not about a fresh start, but about something far more sinister.

“It’s okay. You can leave.” I told Sam in the steely voice I used around the Centre and nodded to him.

“Call me if you need anything,” he replied, then left. I waited until he had turned the corner before I opened the door to my office and stepped inside. I crossed over to my desk and pulled out the drawer, finding what I was looking for in a second.

I hadn’t really used my cell-phone except for some business calls, so I wasn’t familiar with the caller list, but I quickly found what I was looking for while I scrolled down the names. I hit the call-button.

Broots picked up the phone after only a second.

“Miss Parker!” he said. “I thought your cell-phone was out of service!”
”For you, probably,” I said, not realizing at first, that I had picked up a pretty harsh tone with him out of sheer impulse. I deliberately softened my voice. “Meet me in the diner outside Blue Cove tonight at ten,” I said. “I’ll shake off those Sweepers.”

“But…”

I hung up before he could say anything else.

I was nervous while I was waiting for Miss Parker in Monica’s Diner, a small and somewhat shabby place that Miss Parker had probably chosen for its dark corners. I sat in one of those, huddled over a cup of stale coffee, waiting for her to enter.

She had seemed different in that elevator and her fainting had scared me. What if something was wrong with her?

I had really tried to view the whole situation like Sydney did. I had wanted to just give up on her and get acquainted with the fact that she was selling her child to the Centre. The thing was that I just couldn’t.

When she finally pushed through the doors and looked around for me, my heartbeat quickened. And that wasn’t just down to me being nervous.

“Miss Parker!” I called for her, raising my arm.

She came over and slid onto the chair opposite me.

“Hello, Broots,” she said and something about the way she spoke to me was unfamiliar.

“Are you okay again?” I blurted out the first question that came to mind.

“Just fine,” she replied, then took a deep breath. “What can you tell me about Lyle?”

Of all the questions she could have asked, this was the one I would have least expected… well, except for “Would you like to marry me?” probably.

“Lyle?” I asked, puzzled. “All I know is that your brother is a mean, sick bastard.”

“Well, that’s more than I know,” she said and looked as if she was bracing herself for something. “Broots… I am not exactly sure about our relationship but I’ve got a gut-feeling that tells me that I can trust you... I don’t remember a thing about my old life.”

Broots stared at me in silence when I had finished telling him the story of my life which, considering my age, was pretty short.

I could tell by the sense of foreboding I suddenly felt when I looked into his eyes, that he was about to tell me something that would shake me to the core.

“You know something,” I demanded. “Tell me.”

“Look… You just disappeared and… and… we were looking for you and we found something… we found out about why you were gone…” he muttered, avoiding my gaze.

“Will you look at me when you’re talking to me?” I snapped, pushing his chin upwards with my hand. It was the panic that I felt inside, that made me raise my voice, but it did its magic with Broots.

“We… we found out that your father sent you on a mission… to…” He obviously had some difficulty to phrase it. “Well, to get pregnant to Jarod.”

I felt as if someone had swung a hammer at my head.

“But why?” I asked, still completely unable to make sense of all of this.

“You don’t remember…” he told himself rather than anybody else.

And then he began to tell me about people that were called Pretenders and Jarod being one of those. He told me that he had been chasing him over the past four years and that I wouldn’t be free from the Centre until I’d caught him. But the last thing he told me, finally caused me to drop my face inside my hands, willing to block out the world entirely.

“It’s just that what they really want is your baby, Miss Parker. It could be their new Pretender.”

“But that would mean that I would never see my baby again,” I said weakly, already knowing his answer deep inside my heart.

“Yes,” he said. “That would be what it means.”

Suddenly I understood why the strange man I had been talking to a few weeks ago had despised me that much. I realized why my father hadn’t even listened to my objections to my pregnancy and why my brother suddenly stuck to my side although we supposedly hated each other.

But it wasn’t the evilness of my family that made me desperate. It was what I had done. Had I really been willing to deceive Jarod like that? Pretend to love him, have his baby and then just give it to the Centre where it would lead a life in mysery?

Maybe I deserved every second of the hell my life had become.

“God, I won’t let them do this…” I whispered, perfectly disgusted at who I had been. I felt the curve of my stomach under my hand and imagined the innocent life inside. What kind of person had I been? Who did something like this? How cruel and cold-hearted had I been? I felt hatred welling up inside me like a storm. Hatred at the Miss Parker I had been. No wonder nobody had been calling me by my first name! I had been more of a machine than a human being!

Suddenly I felt very alone.

“Hey, Miss Parker.” Broots’ hand had reached across the table and covered mine protectively. “We won’t let them do this.”

I looked up and saw relief in his eyes. He had believed me to still be willing to carry out that plan but he had still listened to me. How did I deserve friends this devoted?

“Thank you,” I breathed. “Thank you so much.”

“You look pale today, Miss Parker,” I told her and she jumped, startled. Her eyes widened at the sight of me and she looked frightened for a moment, before she had herself under control once again and rose from her desk.

“You should have knocked,” she told me in a neutral voice.

“I was just looking for you,” I told her with a smile. “My name is William Raines and I am a friend of your father’s.”

“Nice to meet you,” she said, but it sounded like the opposite.

I searched her eyes for some traces of what I knew soon had to be visible in them, but found only her hard gaze. Still, that didn’t mean anything. She was less emotional than her mother, had more self-control. Maybe she was still able to hide it. To suppress it, even.

I wheezed and saw disgust flickering in her eyes.

“I just decided to drop in and see how you are,” I said.

“I’m fine,” she replied. “Thank you very much.”

I decided that she wasn’t ready yet. It would probably take a few more weeks.

“I’ll see you soon,” I said and I could see in her expression that she had received it as what it was. A threat.

Although Miss Parker’s despair was haunting me, I felt incredibly relieved. It might be just down to the fact she didn’t remember making a deal with the devil, but she wouldn’t give her child up to the Centre.

For me, that was all that counted.

In consequence I gave up all my freetime to be able to do my work and search for information considering the Centre’s plans while Miss Parker would just pretend to go about her business so nobody would suspect anything was wrong.

What we both wanted to find out was the truth. What they were planning considering Miss Parker’s baby was not our primary goal to find out because we had a pretty clear idea of it. It had been Miss Parker who had asked me to find out why she had ever agreed to something like that.

She had looked shattered with the news and there had been nothing that could cheer her up. So now I searched every Centre database for the video footage of the deal they’d made.

I was pretty sure that it had happened at the Centre. Esspecially since a few DSAs were missing. Two from Mister Parker’s office, three of Raines’ and one of hers. But I would find them. Eventually.

But there was still another question on my mind, that was far more difficult to answer. How had she begun to suffer from amnesia? She had told me about the cars-crash she’d been in and how her doctor’s were pretty sure that the head-trauma hadn’t been severe enough to cause long-term amnesia.

The problem was that we were dealing with the Centre here. There had to be more to it than just that. Deep down we both knew that there had to be a reason for her amnesia. We would just have to find out, what it was…

Yawning I pushed open my front-door and carelessly threw the keys onto the kitchen counter before I drained a glass of water in a single draught.

Although I was so very tired, I knew that once again I wouldn’t be able to fall asleep. There was nothing that helped. No herbal teas, no warm milk, no relaxing exercises. Whenever I closed my eyes, thoughts filled my head and made me cringe with self-hatred.

I tried not to think about it too much, but it was still lurking inside my head and kept me from falling asleep. At daytime work was hard but interesting and so I didn’t feel the exhaustion, but when I got home, it weighed heavily on me.

I sat down on my couch and sighed. It was only seven o’clock and I was hungry, but not at all in the mood to cook. Esspecially since everything I cooked seemed to taste the same.

I sank into the cushions and rubbed the back of my neck.

Jarod could give excellent backrubs, I thought, though quickly trying to ban him from my thoughts. The Centre kept telling lies and more lies. What was true and what did Lyle make up about Jarod’s and my prior relationship?

I was too tired to think rationally about it and curled up on the sofa, feeling my limbs go heavy with exhaustion.

Please let me sleep, I pleaded to whomever was listening and was glad to feel my mind go blank. My last conscious thought was one of gratitude.

The doorbell rang inside my ears and made me sit up, startled. I groaned when I looked at the clock. I had only slept for ten minutes.

Slowly, I got up and staggered towards the front-door.

“You woke me up!” I snapped, fully expecting to be faced with Lyle’s sheepish puppy-look, but instead looking into a pair of shiny blue eyes.

I strongly suspected my first reaction to be pre-programmed by my old self because I felt like slamming the door into the kid’s smiling face.

“Miss Parker!” she said, her voice oddly melodic. “I haven’t seen you in… like… ages!”

I raised an eyebrow. She had to be twelvish by now although the brief memory I’d had of her had shown her much younger. But without a doubt, this was the girl.

“Debbie…” I said, weighing the name on my tongue, hoping that it would be the right one. Her broad smile could have sent a diabetic right into Intensive Care, so I gathered that my memory, for once, had not let me down.

“I brought you ice-cream!” She said and handed me a huge carton of lemon ice-cream, which I held on to without the foggiest idea how to react properly.

“Would you… like to come in?” I asked, unsure of how to treat her.

“No thank you. Daddy is waiting in the car!” she said, suddenly lurched forward and threw herself at me in a surprisingly firm hug.

“I’ll see you soon!” she promised, then ran back down the driveway at an amazing speed. I looked after her, puzzled, still holding the ice-cream box in my hands.

It took me a moment to realize that it was not very likely to contain ice-cream.

At least I sincerely doubted it due to the fact that the box wasn’t cold, let alone frozen.

I walked over to the dinner table and sat it down onto it, quickly ripping of the lid. I had been right. Inside were a DVD and a note from Broots.

“Seemed to be the easiest way to get them to you without anybody noticing. I copied the files from DSAs to a normal DVD since I am pretty sure they took your DSA-player away. Glad that I could help.”

Only when I slid the DVD into my laptop I realized that my hands had begun to tremble. What was I about to I find?

I clicked onto the first file and was faced with the interior of my father’s office. The file was labelled with a date almost of about one and a half year ago.

Sitting comfortably in front of my father’s desk was a man in the attire of a Sweeper whose face was not visible to the camera.

“I am convinced that you are the right man for the job”, my father said.

“I feel quite honored, Mister Parker”, the Sweeper replied with confidence.

“You are aware that this is a delicate matter and that your participation is needed. Your commitment is only needed for a certain time after which you are required to walk away.”

“I am aware of that”, he said. “I am comfortable with that.”

“Good,” my father replied, gesturing towards the door. “I will make sure that this meeting will be erased off the records. You never know who’s nosing around in the files.”

This hadn’t been very enlightening, I thought, clicking onto the next file.

It showed my father and the creepy man I had learned was Mister Raines, who were talking about a project, which they never specified anything about. Raines seemed to be angry with my father and the only memorable sentence was him telling my father that now after his strategy had failed, they would do it his way, and even get a bonus out of it. Confusing.

The next file from my father’s office was dated to a few days before I had left Blue Cove and lost my memory in an accident. The door opened and I saw myself stride in looking perfectly groomed but stricken.

This was it.

“Daddy, I will not do this,” I announced in a voice that sounded determined but still contained a reasonable amount of discomfort.

“You have to, Angel”, my father argued. “Think about what's in it for you. You should have come up with this plan yourself. Jarod and a child of his would be a perfect match to ensure brillant simulations. No problem to lurr Jarod here when his newborn kid is the bait. Your problems will be solved, the Centre will be back to its old glory and you are free to walk away.”

“You make it sound incredibly easy,” I heard myself say. Was that me? Letting herself be reassured by her father that this was the right thing to do?

“It is!” he said, rounding the table and touching her shoulder. She…, I, stepped away.

“I don’t want a child.”

“You would never see it after you’d given birth.”

I saw grief well up in my own eyes.

“I don’t want to be a mother but I cannot subject my own flesh and blood to the Centre. I will certainly have some kind of connection to that child if it grows inside me.”

I had been so right, I thought. The plan was not only evil but faulty as well. It did not consider the feelings my father should have known I’d develop.

“Be strong,” he said. “Be a Parker. Don’t let stupid nostalgic feelings weaken you.”

“I will not do it, Daddy.” There was more confidence now.

“You will.” His voice was full of steel cold force.

“No!” Almost a shout. Go, Parker, go, I told the woman on the screen. He grabbed my arms hard and I winced.

“You have to.”
”No.”

There was a moment of silence, then he slapped me hard across the face.

“I am disappointed in you!” he said.

“I don’t mind.” I answered, receiving another slap, not even flinching at it this time.

“If I should ever happen to have a child, it will stay with me and I will ensure that it will not be forced to live the dysfunctional childhood I had to deal with.”

“How dare you!” I could almost feel his cold hand smashing against my cheek again now.

“You will do it.”

“Why? Use another bait! Why should it be me? Take another woman Jarod will fall for!” I challenged.

“It must be you,” he insisted.

There was another silence, then I bent forward and looked into his eyes. I had trouble understanding the low growl.

“This is not just about catching Jarod and creating a second Pretender. Tell me. I want to know!”

He sneered and I could feel my heart contract.

“You will see soon enough. You don’t have to know now."

He put a bottle of pills into my palm. “Take these.”

“Fertility drugs?” I smashed the bottle on the floor and tiny pieces of glass and pills scattered everywhere. “Forget it. I will never participate in your stupid plan!”

“You will,” he said coldly and I could hear a sort of reassurance in his voice, that made me shiver with fear.

“What makes you so sure?” I challenged and he grinned a wide grin that suddenly ripped the veil away that had obstructed my eyes and I could see the real him. There was a look of utter horror in my face that convinced me that I had never allowed myself to see him for what he really was ever before.

“I will make sure that your friend Sydney and that pathetic little moron Broots, along with his little brat will be executed if you do not comply. And it will not be an easy death for them. You can take my word for that.”

There was no doubt that he meant what he said.

For a second I didn’t say anything but I could see the defeat in my eyes. There was a long and painful silence, then I watched my defeated figure drop down to her knees and slowly begin to collect the scattered pills.

Blackmail.

It had been so easy. I didn’t know whether to feel relieved or aggrieved.

On the one hand I was relieved that the reason for my participation in this evil sheme had been due to my attempt to protect the people close to me, but on the other hand I was painfully aware of the fact that noone, not even I myself had ever considered that option.

Sydney had never asked me whether I had been forced to do this. He had simply believed that I was actually capable of it. Jarod, too. Broots had forgiven and hoped that it was not true, but he, too, had not considered this to be the reason for my action.

I was not a monster after all.

Suddenly I was exhausted, sinking down upon my windowseat, sitting the laptop down on the floor next to a pile of files.

I was not a monster.

I was not a monster…

And finally sleep came to me.

I had never been a sound sleeper, but the kind of imsomnia that plagued me lately, was new even to me.

I had tried a thousand strategies to cope with what had happened. First I had tried the unreasonable ones. Drinking, which had given me nothing but a horrible hangover, then denial, trying to block out all thoughts of her, then flight, leaving everything that reminded me of her behind.

Nothing had changed, nothing could block out the thoughts of her.

I couldn’t wash her scent out of my clothes, couldn’t erase the image of her from my memory and I sure as hell could not forget about the fact that she was pregnant with my child or why she was.

I still couldn’t seem to come to terms with her betrayal. Despite her cold attitude and the hurtful things she said, I had always believed her to not be willing to cross a certain line. It scared me that she had leapt far beyond that line without me suspecting a thing.

Lying to me like that to be able to conceive a child that was most likely to become the Centre’s next best science project was digusting to say the least. You had to be truly cold-hearted to carry out such a plan. I had always believed that she was not.

Apparently I had been wrong.

Sydney had taught me to contain my rage, to think logically about things and I had always stuck to this course of action, but I had to admit that it had never before taken me that long to calm down.

It was only weeks after her departure that I trusted myself enough not to physically assault her when faced with her. Still, my hands were trembling gripping the wheel while I was speeding along the highway that led towards Blue Cove.

I needed to go about this methodically, because one thing in this whole turmoil of incidents had always stood out clear.

I would do anything to protect my child.

It was already dark when I drove up near her door. I hadn’t been surprised at the sight of two Sweepers, equipped with donuts and coffee, huddled together in a car outside her property. Passing them hadn’t been half as difficult as one could have expected with trained bodyguards at hand.

The door didn’t make a sound as I slid in and my steps were muffled by the carpets when I slowly crept towards the living-room. The lights were still on at this hour, well past midnight, and I frowned at the sight of Miss Parker, wrapped up in a blanket and sound asleep in the window seat.

She looked peaceful like that, one hand holding on to the blanket, the other arm wrapped around her stomach. There was a stack of business files that had probably slid from her lap when she had fallen asleep and the screen of her laptop cast a pale glow onto them.

I couldn’t move while a wave of conflicting emotions washed over me. Deep inside me, I was angry, furious even, wanting to seek revenge but now that she was that vulnerable in front of me, I couldn’t seem to find a way to act upon that rage.
She stirred in her sleep, still oblivious to my presence and snuggled deeper into the cushion with a content sigh.

The sound of her voice brought back memories of her seducing me over a bottle of Chardonnay and the serene look on her face made me think back to her falling asleep in my arms afterwards.

Inside me, disgust was fighting with the urge to just cross over and envelop her in my arms. I found that my head seemed empty and I couldn’t figure out what to do about the situation, so I simply stared.

Her hair was black again and her skin looked pale against the dark streaks that had fallen into her face. She was beautiful.

I tried to pull myself together, to not get confused by whatever feeling I might have held for her before she had done what she’d done.

Remember what she did to you, I told myself sternly and closed my hand around the syringe in my pocket. There was no other way and I knew it. Of all possibilities there were, this was the safest imaginable.

I took a couple of hesitant steps towards her, then quietly dropped down to my knees next to her sleeping form. The scent of her parfume was overwhelming now and I fought the urge to pause in order to inhale it deeply.

This was ridiculous. Even if my body was still attracted to her, there was no way I could allow myself to love her. Everything I was about to do was happening to protect both myself and my child.

She winced as I inserted the needle into her vein, seemed to fight to break the surface of sleep, but then dropped back into unconsciousness. I waited a second to make sure that she wouldn’t wake up again, then felt her pulse. It was slow but steady. Good.

I slowly peeled away the blankets from her body and found that she was still dressed in what seemed to be the day’s business outfit. The emerald green top was cut loosely in order to hide her swollen stomach, the short beige skirt revealed her perfect legs.

I adjusted the blanket around her body, then lifted her into my arms. Her head rolled against my chest and I felt a pang of sadness, thinking back to the day I had carried her to the car. I had been so worried about her well-being that I had then finally realized how much I had already allowed myself to love her.

I carefully carried her towards the door, once again past the Sweepers and placed her into the passengers seat of my car.

She was still unconscious when I turned to her. I knew that she couldn’t hear me, but still I forced all the coldness I felt inside into my voice when I said: “I won’t let you do this, Miss Parker.”

I was woken by the movements of my baby inside me and although I could feel a slight headache coming up, I smiled, my hands reaching down to meet the soft flutter.

It was only then that I realized that I was not laying but sitting and I opened my eyes with a start.

“Welcome back,” a familiar voice told me and although my head wasn’t completely clear yet, I could feel fear begin to creep into every fiber of my body.

I turned my head and looked at Jarod who was driving the car I sat in. More even than his mere presence, the look on his face scared me. I had never seen this dark and distanced look in his eyes and I could tell by the whiteness of his knuckles that he was gripping the stirring wheel with some force.

Unable to speak with my heart beating away furiously I looked down at my feet that were tied together. My hands were, too and I felt so helpless that I would have broken down in tears had I not be so intent on not letting him see my weakness.

“Let me go!” I demanded. “You have no right to do this to me!”

“Oh I do!” he replied with so much conviction that I was puzzled for a moment.

“Where are you taking me?”

“You’ll see soon enough.”

I thought back to Lyle’s words about him. He would do anything to have power over me, I thought. He would even kidnapp me to keep me by his side… but then I remembered what Broots had told me. I had been so shocked with the news that I had never asked him about whether Lyle’s story was true. Somehow I couldn’t really believe it, but I felt that, no matter why, I had a good reason to be afraid of Jarod.

I started struggling, trying to free myself from my restraints, but to no avail.

“I’ll get your sorry ass to prison for this!” I hissed at him, noticing that fury was a good way to chase the fear away. I would insult him and yell at him until I had completely got rid of that feeling.

“To prison?” he asked, chuckling slightly. “Prison is heaven compared to the Centre. And you won’t get me back there. And now you should really stop struggling, Miss Parker,” he said, still distanced but in a rather polite voice now. “Otherwise I would have to sedate you again and I know that you won’t like that.”

“I’ll kill you as soon as I get the chance!” I threatened, still straining against the rope around my hands. They were tied firmly together, but not firm enough to actually hurt. How very kind of him, I thought sarcastically.

His gaze was directed at the empty dark road in front of me. My insults didn’t seem to reach him, so I sank back into my seat, frustration forcing more tears into my eyes. I closed them and drew a deep breath.

Whatever he had used to sedate me had left me with a dry throat so I turned to him.

“I’m thirsty,” I stated flatly. Unlike my insults, he didn’t ignore those words but handed me a water bottle, unscrewing the cap without taking his gaze off the road.

The water made me feel better immediatley.

“We’ll stop for something to eat later,” he told me, his voice almost gentle now.

It was his kindness that turned my fear into annoyance.

“What do you think you’re doing here?” I asked him. “You can try whatever you want! I’ll never love you.”

I just hoped that he wouldn’t realize that I already did.

“Don’t worry, Miss Parker,” he said grimly. “I could never love someone like you either.”

I wouldn’t have expected these words to hurt me so much. I tried to ignore the hollow feeling in my stomach and went on: “Then why can’t you just let me go? What do you want from me?”

He ignored me a while longer, then simply said: “You can stop now. I’m not buying your act, Miss Parker.”

After pretending not to know what was going on some more, Miss Parker had finally fallen asleep. I kept my gaze fixed on the road although I wanted nothing more than to look at her. Instead, I occupied my head with thoughts of my plan.

I had to prevent the Centre from finding us whatever it took. As soon as the baby would be born, I could take it away and make sure it would never come into contact with the Centre.

Whenever I thought about the possibility of my son or daughter having to endure the same fate I’d had, I felt sick with rage. That rage only grew when I allowed myself the thought that it was only happening because Miss Parker was willing to let it happen.

What had made her make that decision? When had she changed so thoroughly that she not only endured but also supported the Centre’s evil plans?

What had her father promised her so she would?

It was early morning when I finally pulled up in front of the house I had chosen to live in for the next few months. I had been sure from the beginning that it would be the perfect choice. Comfortable, yes. Equipped with everything we could possibly wish for. Except for a telephone line- I wouldn’t risk her calling the Centre.

She stirred when I shut off the engine and looked out into the forests that surrounded the house. It was definetly an advantage that she had slept through the trip. This way she wasn’t able to memorize the way out of the forest.

Miss Parker blinked away sleep while I untied her. Once her hands were free, she covered her stomach with them.

“Don’t even try to run away,” I told her calmly. “There’s no sense in it anyway.”

“I know,” she replied in a husky tone, ignoring my offer to help her out of the car.

She was completely silent when she followed me inside and her reaction to everything I showed her around the house consisted of mere nods.

“I’m tired,” she said without looking at me and lowered herself down onto the bed, dropping her head into her hands. She looked shaken and I suddenly felt very much like comforting her beside myself.

“This is about my baby, right?” she asked. “You think I am really going to give it up to the Centre.”

“So you do remember,” I said.

“No. Broots told me.” I could see the anguish in her eyes. “Please believe me, Jarod. I love our daughter. I wouldn’t allow anything to happen to her.”

With her calling the child “our daughter” it suddenly became very real to me.

“You know it’s a girl?” I asked, although I had actually meant to tell her that I wouldn’t take any more lies. I was surprised to see her confusion at my words. There was a distant look in her eyes for a moment, then she shook her head.

“I… I don’t know. It just came into my mind.”

Usually it gives me a great sense of satisfaction when Lyle’s smugness vanishes for once, but this time I knew it was serious when I walked into him threatening a Sweeper. I did the first logical thing that came to my mind and took a step back, hiding in the shadows of a dark corner.

“How could that happen?” Lyle barked. “This is unacceptable. I see to that you will get exactly what you deserve for this!”

“But…” the Sweeper began in a futile attempt to justify himself.

Lyle cut him off. “It’s not that she is exactly easy to miss when she tries to sneak away!” he raged. “Why did you think I would order 24 hour surveillance? Because I’d let you get away with her vanishing?”

I had heard enough to make me worry seriously.

When we had talked last, Miss Parker had reassured me, that she would be okay, that she would not do anything rash. Now she was obviously gone, past the Sweepers. I took a gulp of air and began to hurry towards my office. I was yet to tell Sydney about the fact that Miss Parker was not the person he had made her out to be. I still held reservations against him after him abandoning her without even trying to get under the surface of all of this.

Still, now I needed his help in finding her.

When I entered my office, I knew that something was wrong. There was a shadow against the dim light of the desk lamp so I stopped short in my tracks.

“Who is it?” I called out. Nobody came down here, if they didn’t have to. I was more likely to be called into any superior’s office because they didn’t want to remind themselves of the fact that this building, this corperation, actually consisted solely of dark corners.

The person stepped out of the darkness so the light was able to spill onto the face and chase the shadows away. I gasped, both shocked and confused.

I felt myself grab the doorframe to steady myself against the surge of possibilities that threatened to overwhelm me.

“I take it you are a little surprised to see me,” a voice said and I was flashed a smile that was everything but reassuring.

There was a turmoil of thoughts raging inside my brain but one stood out loud and clear. This is the end of everything I have ever believed to be the truth.

I felt as if the face of the clock was staring at me as I reached out to turn the hands back. At first I began to turn them slowly, afraid of damaging the delicate wood, then I became impatient and was filled with a desperation that fuelled my determination. I swung them around until my fingers hurt, but didn’t stop there. I turned them back and back until they must have rotated around their centre a thousand times.

With all the force I gripped them with, I could finally feel them crack, crumbling away under my fingertips until they became only shredded pieces of wood that made my hands bleed. Still I was standing there, wishing so desperately for the time to be turned back. Back to my mother, back to the days I had been happy.

Back to the days in which evil had not been my whole universe.

I was unable to catch my breath when sobs finally escaped from my throat, echoing in the darkness that had suddenly enveloped me. I couldn’t see the clock anymore and I could only feel the warmth of the blood that was running down my burning fingers.

“Parker”, a voice said and the light came as quickly as lightning striking me. I turned around looking into a pair of eyes, feeling dread and shock as if I was looking death in the eyes. It wasn’t me who was speaking, it wasn’t my head that was forming the thoughts that led to the words I heard spoken in my own voice.

“Oh my god… How… how…?”

The voice broke, almost burst, with a gurgling noise that sounded as if I was suffocating. It is impossible. The notion wasn’t mine but still it echoed inside my head. Bounced off the walls and always came back to hit me once again.

“You are not going to leave. You will do as you have been told. There is no future for you. Am I not the symbol of that?”

I knew that those words were meant to destroy me and I could feel myself tremble so much that I was hardly able to stay upright.

Somehow I knew that there was an enourmous significance to those words. That this situation influenced everything, but I didn’t know who it was I was talking to, I didn’t know why I was about to leave and where to. All I could think of suddenly was the urge to run away. To get away. To leave everything behind me… although I didn’t know what everything was.

Hands reached out towards me and I didn’t know what I was doing until I heard my own screams ringing in my ears.

Miss Parker’s desperate screams were full of horror and I almost tripped over my own feet, my bedroom door crashing into the wall as I pushed it open. I crossed the landing in a few long steps and opened her door, storming into her dark bedroom. She was thrashing in bed, long legs tangled in the sheets, and her forehead sweaty. I caught her by the shoulders to calm her.

“It’s okay. You’re safe, Miss Parker,” I said in an effort to wake her from what had to be a major nightmare.

She finally opened her eyes, blinking against the light I had turned on and the screams died on her lips. She remained silent and motionless for a moment, then drew a deep breath, running her hands through her hair.

“You’ve had a bad dream,” I told her, still strangely unable to remove my hands from the warmth of her shoulders. “You’ll be okay now.”

She locked her eyes with mine and unconsciously moistened her lips with her tongue. Her gaze was still clouded over and she looked a little distant, as if not quite back in this world with me.

“He… he is back!” she finally said, her voice shaky but still terrifilingly clear.

“What are you saying?” I asked, unsure of whether this still resulted from her dream, or whether she was actually trying to tell me something.

“What?” she responded, her mind finally clearing. “What did I say?”

“Never mind…”

She shivered slightly and we both grabbed the blanket to pull it up to her shoulders at the same time. Looking down upon our fingers brushing each other, we remained completely still for a long moment. Feeling her soft skin unter my fingertips, I finally acknowledged the longing I felt for her. I just wanted to take her in my arms and warm her up.

Instead I asked uncomfortably: “Are you okay? The house usually takes a little to warm up after it’s been unoccupied for a while.”

“I’m fine,” she replied, still not making any attempts to remove her hand from under mine. I felt my resolve melt when our eyes met. The memories of her sleeping with her arms around me or snuggling up to me in the middle of the night were still too vivid to be carelessly cast aside and I could feel that she was thinking along the same lines.

The urge to kiss her was a little too much for my still sleep-infected mind and it took a great deal of self-control to actually not do it. I had dropped my defences with her before and the result was this mess we were in. No need to do it again.

After her having given up yelling at me but treating me with icy reserve all day, I had not expected her next move.

As opposed to writers of romance-novels in the world, I am of the opinion that kisses never just happen. It’s not that your lips suddenly meet and you go “Ooops, how did that happen?”. No.

I had clearly initiated the kiss. Blame it on hormon induced lust or the sincere and naïve wish to go back to where we had been, I don’t know. Maybe it was a mixture of both that led to me leaning into him and pressing my lips upon his.

As I had more hoped than actually expected, he responded to the kiss and for a second it felt just as it had before. His hand came up to run down my back and I felt myself shiver with anticipation.

The low temperature in the room seemed to have risen considerably when he began to slowly caress my upper arm with his other hand. My low moan unfortunately had him snap out of our little romantic moment and he drew back quickly.

He opened his mouth to speak, but I quickly placed my finger upon his lips.

“Don’t,” I said, trying to sound stern, but my voice a husky whisper instead.

He looked as if he was torn inside between shutting me up with a kiss and running from the room. That was when I finally saw my chance to get him to listen to me.

“Jarod, I need you to believe me,” I said. “I have watched the DSAs of my father blackmailing me into doing this. He told me that he would kill Broots, Sydney and Debbie if I didn’t comply.”

“Let’s not discuss this now,” he said, trying to rise from his spot on my bed but I grabbed his arm with the strength people so often forgot my rather slim frame possessed.

“I won’t let you go,” I said in a tone of voice that makes most people shiver. “until you have heard me out.”

His stare was even.

“You can’t force me to believe you.”

“You can’t force me to stay here and give my daughter up to you.”

“I can and I will.”

I realized that panic was rising inside me. What could I do to make him believe me? I so desperately needed him to. And after watching the DSA, I wondered what my father would do if he thought I had run away from the Centre. Would he direct his wrath at Broots, Debbie and Sydney?

I swallowed deeply, trying to keep the fear at bay. I needed to sort this out.

I looked into Jarod’s eyes, knowing that I would never get what I truly wanted from him, if I couldn’t convince him of the fact, that I was innocent.

Well, as innocent as a person working for the Centre can actually be.

He didn’t flinch with my gaze and I reluctantly let go of his arm.

Neither of us said a word when he headed for the door and closed it behind him without turning back to me.

Two months after Thomas Gates' Funeral

The Centre Infirmary is a gloomy as ever. Only a dim light illuminates the scarcely furnished room that resembles a prison-cell rather than a hospital room.

There is only one bed in the room in which lies Miss Parker, her head buried in the pillow, the covers pulled up almost to her chin.

Only the slight shaking of her shoulders indicate that she is crying.

There is a soft knock at the door to which she parts her lips as if to answer, but then just sighs and waits for whoever is outside to come in on their own accord.

She blinks as the door opens and Sydney walks in. Quickly but ineffectively wiping the tears from her face, she looks up at him.

“Hey, Miss Parker.” Sydney sits down on the plastic chair next to her bed and reaches for her hand, but she pulls it back.

“Don’t touch me,” she says, her voice quivering as if on the verge of tears.

“I’m sorry,” Sydney replies and they sit in silence for a while.

“Are you still in pain?” he finally asks, looking at the fetal position she has assumed.

“No,” she growls back, refusing to look at him as she stretches out her legs and sits up with some difficulty.

“Broots is wondering where you are. What am I supposed to tell him?”

Miss Parker growls again. “Tell him to shut up and mind his own business. He doesn’t need to know about this,” she replies. “It’s bad enough that I have you around to terrorize me.”

It is evident from the tone of her voice that she does not mean it and is just trying to keep up her old façade. She is not doing well.

“You have suffered a great loss, Miss Parker,” Sydney says. “It is only natural that you would suffer a breakdown.”

She speaks through clenched teeth to prevent the tears from falling.

“I did not suffer a breakdown.”

Sydney is wise enough not to object and reaches out to touch her arm lightly. Miss Parker flinches, but does not pull back. She opens and closes her eyes a few times, then a tear slides down her cheek.

“It’s okay to cry,” Sydney whispers and offers her his hand. She hesitates for a long moment, then takes it and buries her face in it. Her breaths are deep and unsteady, still trying to fight the inevitable tears.

“I miss him, Sydney,” she whispers. “He was all I ever had.”

Sydney does not object, but she realizes the truth without his help and the first sob is followed by a second until she is shaken by a cascade of them.

Sydney softly strokes the back of her head with his free hand, until her tears finally subside.

“It’s my fault, isn’t it?” she finally asks.

“You didn’t kill him,” Sydney replies, regret for her audible despair soaking his voice.

It’s only now that Miss Parker lifts her head and looks at him. The look in her eyes is haunted.

“I wasn’t talking about Thomas.”

With the steadfast resolve of firing the Centre’s human ressources manager as soon as I had figured out where exactly his office was located in the maze of corridors, I once again decided to do the Sweeper’s job myself.

Entering my sister’s empty house I immediately began to methodically go through her things. Well, I told myself, at least I had the pleasure of searching her underwear drawers for hidden documents. A largely useless but pleasureable diversion I wouldn’t have liked to give up to one of the moronic Sweepers employed by what was leisurely called an evil corperation.

After learning that the luscious scent that always lingered when she’d left my office was actually bottled by Christian Dior and chuckling about the fact that she, judging by the state of the paperback, had actually read Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, I decided that I had some real business to attend to.

I picked up her laptop that was sitting on the floor in the living-room and waited until it had booted. Slightly disappointed by a desktop wallpaper not anymore personalized than an Alpine landscape of New Zealand’s South Island I started going through her files.

Business, mostly. Not even anything password protected that might have intrigued me. Finally I routinely checked her disc drive and finally found something.

The DVD contained five media files, obviously copied from DSAs of which the first three did not contain any more information than I’d already had. Except for the fact that my father had employed a little bit of good old blackmail to get my sister to do what she’d done, which disappointed me a little. I actually found her occasional evilness quite sexy.

The next two files, however, were of a certain bit of more significance since my father and Raines repeatedly mentioned a project that went by the name Cassandra which I had seen on a file label while nosing around my father’s office and remembered for it being quite catchy.

I retrieved the disc and slid it into my pocket, whistling a happy tune of joy while I bounced out of the house.

I looked again.

Impossible, my mind screamed, but there was no denial.

It wasn’t only the elegant and probably expensive suit that had changed the person’s attitude so thoroughly, but the different expression on a face that I had only known to be kind and mostly smiling.

Now the stare of blue eyes radiated a coldness that was terrifyingly at odds with the casual smile I was given.

“Come on, Broots. Nobody really dies at the Centre.”

I swallowed before I could pull myself together enough to answer.

“How could you do that to her!”

My accusal came out as a terrified whisper and I once again hated myself for not having the guts to simply punch him in the face. What I had just said was brushed aside with a flick of the hand.

“I am not here for a chat, you know.”

The smile had turned into a sneer and before I could even think about backing off, I was trapped at gunpoint.

“W… What do you want from me?” I stuttered, frightened.

“Nothing, really. It’s just that I have been defrauded as well and that I know that you are the key to what I really want.”

My legs seemed to have turned to jelly, my hands were sweaty while my eyes danced from the gun to the face in front of me that was familiar and completely alien at the same time.

“And what is it you want?” I asked, huskily.

“Parker,” Thomas Gates said.

After a mostly sleepless night I savoured every drop of the good strong coffee Jarod had made. The baby was awake, although still too small for me to feel it kick yet there was definetly movement. I rested my hand where I had last felt it, feeling oddly protective. The woman I had been hadn’t wanted a child under any circumstances, but the woman I was now hadn’t had much of a choice.

The problem was, that she was still me. Like her I could be extremely mean without being able to pretend that I did not like it. We were irritable and slightly neurotic, sarcastic and sharp. I wore her clothes and lived her life, knowing that I was her- but not able to find the connection. I felt lost.

“Would you like some breakfast?” Jarod placed a plate containing an assortment of sweet, calorie-loaded breakfast foods on the coffee table in front of me.

“Newsflash, Jarod. I might be pregnant but I am not planning on gaining a ton,” I snapped at him, although I knew that he was meaning well. Jarod sighed and sat down on the couch facing the one I had stretched out on.

His gaze lingered on my revealing neckline for a little too long, then he looked me in the eye. Probably the only place on my body he could look at without it seeming suspicious.

“Staring at me?” I asked casually, willing him to lose his composure for a while. Maybe if he dropped his give a damn-attitude I could make him listen to me.

“Anything for me to see?” he responded with a cold overtone that was probably meant to warn me not to go down that road. Since my situation could not get any worse, I ignored the warning.

I opened my mouth to hurl another thinly disguised insult at him, when suddenly a name appeared inside my head, coming from nowhere.

Thomas Gates.

“Thommy…” I whispered which made Jarod’s head snap up.

“What did you say?” he asked, alarmed.

“Who is he? Thomas Gates?” I asked, confused about which different ways my memories used to suddenly and unexpectedly return to me. I should have kept my mouth shut about it, though, but since it had hit me so hard, I had no means to ban it from my mind. Inside me, emotions started bubbling to the surface and I knew from what little experience I had gathered, that it was usually emotions first, before the actual memories came back.

Jarod got up very quickly and turned his back at me, hiding some sort of emotion from me.

“What is it?” I asked, forgetting our fight, aching for some information, lurching to my feet as well. The feeling I associated with this Thomas Gates was one of horrible grief, loss, desperation, shock and also… fear.

“Did he die?” I asked what seemed to match the feelings associated.

Jarod turned back around, fury leaving its ugly marks on his face. I was too shocked to make sense of it until he spoke: “You loved him, Parker. How dare you use him now to try to manipulate me?”

His voice rose with every word and although I knew that he wasn’t a violent man and wouldn't hurt me, I felt the sudden urge to get some distance between us. He still didn’t believe me. Not one bit. I should have known.

Jarod stepped forward and grabbed my shoulders. I winced, fear flooding me like hot lava, consuming the annoyance I had felt before.

“Can’t you finally stop it, Parker? Can’t you just stop ruining every bit of respect I still hold for you? What has become of you?”

“Jarod, I told you, I…”

He shook my shoulders. It didn’t hurt and was rather meant to bring me to my senses, but suddenly I began feeling sick and dizziness overwhelmed me in one swift unexpected motion. I must have groaned as the pain followed.

Parker doubled over, her arms around her stomach, and hissed in pain. She was as white as a sheet and when she looked up I could see terror in her eyes.

Suddenly I was painfully aware of my hands grabbing her shoulders and I let them slide down her forearms to calm her.

I carefully lowered her back onto the couch and sat down next to her. She gasped, pressing her hand against her stomach.

“Is it the baby?” I asked, my heart racing with concern.

She nodded, slowly, then grimaced in pain again.

“It hurts… so much… Jarod,” she finally managed, which only fueled my worry. I carefully removed her arms from her stomach and made her lay back.

Sweat had broken on her forehead and she buried her face in my sleeve, reaching for my hand at the same time.

I squeezed her hand reassuringly, placing my other hand on her stomach, still trying to figure out whether it would be necessary to rush her to the hospital or whether I could take care of this situation myself.

She suddenly relaxed for a second, then tensed again and began to cry. Her shoulders were shaking with sobs, her fingers clawed into my arm and it took me a while to understand what it was that she kept repeating between tortured sobs: “I lost my baby… oh god, Jarod. I lost my baby…”

It would have been the classic understatement to say that Project Cassandra was interesting. It was actually groundbreaking. And it perfectly explained everything that had seemed completely pointless before. As usual with this nuthouse called the Centre, at first things had gone awry, heads had been rolling but then they had actually set in motion what might as well be the Centre’s greatest shot so far.

The only problem was, that the key player had vanished.

I stood in the middle of my father’s deserted office, surveillance system disabled and the file that would make my career skyrocket in my hands.

I had always suspected that there was a hidden agenda. Just getting someone like my sister pregnant to the Pretender was simply too flawed a plan to actually be thought up by the Centre.

We like it a bit more twisted, you know. Long, complicated plans that we villains can explain to a suffering victim in great detail… well, you get the picture.

Jarod would surely come after the kid, maybe even after the mother, because –let’s face it- we all knew that Broots wasn’t the only one with an unhealthy infatuation for my dear sister. And I am not talking about yours truly here…

Anyhow, it would have just been too much hassle with the chances of everything actually working according to plan being so slim.

Flipping through the file I realized that the actual plan was brillant in its simplicity, even if it contained blackmailing Miss Parker into oblivion. Yes, that might have been the only risk in it. That it all was up to Miss Parker’s participation.

I closed the file and slid it into my briefcase. If I found her and brought her back, I would indeed be able to finally get the recognition I had always deserved. And more. Much more.

My hand was still on her stomach and I could feel the movements of her baby that was probably being stirred by its mother’s almost hysterical state.

“Parker…” I said soothingly. “Parker! Your baby is just fine… Can’t you feel it?”

She hesitated, then looked at me as if she had never seen me before.

“What?” she whispered, tears still glistening in her eyes, her breaths short and ragged as if being pulled from a trance.

I carefully pulled her into me and held her head to my shoulder. Her arms came around me and for a second she stilled, her breath slowing.

“Are you still in pain?” I asked her, running my hand up and down her back.

“No…” she whispered, sounding surprised, and my heart broke at the sound of her still terrified voice.

“See? You will be okay.”

I released her and she only reluctantly let go while I carefully laid her back on the couch, examining her as well as I could, detecting no signs of anything wrong with either her or our daughter.

The only thing that worried me, was how dazed she looked and acted. Each time it took her a few seconds before she responded to any of my questions after which her gaze wandered off again and she became largely oblivious to her surroundings.

When I had finished, I wrapped a blanket around her body and although I knew better, did not resist her when she snuggled up to me.

I only came to very slowly. The pain had subsided as quickly as it had come, but it was strangely difficult for me to pay attention to what Jarod was doing or asking me. It felt as if his voice came from very far away and although I really wanted to pay attention, I just couldn’t gather enough concentration to do so.

There were other voices in my head that confused and frightened me. A small female voice that kept repeating that I had lost my child, a male voice, sounding vaguely familiar, telling me that it hadn’t been my fault and overlaying all of them my own crying for a child Jarod’s distant voice kept telling me I had not lost.

I felt hot and feverish and yet I was grateful for the warmth of the blanket and the embrace Jarod enveloped me in.

As soon as I had calmed down a little, once again images flooded my head in a wave and although it was a relief to finally be able to tie my emotions to images, it was painful.

The first thing I realized was that the excrutiating pain I had experienced a mere five minutes ago had actually been a vivid memory that I had not recogized right away. I remembered loving arms around me and a stubble that scratched against my cheek as I was kissed. I remembered turning around and smiling up into the face of a tall good-looking man in a red flanel shirt. I could almost feel the gentle kiss we shared and heard his whispered words in my mind: “I love you Parker.”

Then I remembered finding him on my porch, slumped with blood running from his temple, causing a dark red trail down to his neck. I remembered taking him into my arms, crying, running back to the house… I remembered an ambulance taking him away, a doctor confirming his death on the scene. I remembered finding out about the Centre having killed him and the fruitless search for the one person who had taken my happy life away.

Unlike the last time I’d had a flash of memories returning to me, these weren’t unrelated and did not leave any gaps. I knew that I had been devastated with grief and after I had not been able to take revenge for his death, I had gone back to work, pretending that everything was fine.

Once again I had been able to shut the grief away, to isolate it in a very secret place of my heart where I did only go when I was on my own. During those weeks after his death I had been unable to eat and had lived largely on coffee although Sydney and Broots had been trying their best to take care of me. Of course I had not let them. And then as if it had always been there, the memory of the pain fell swiftly into its place in the jigsaw puzzle of the whole mess.

I had been standing in my office only half-listening to Sydney while I was once again trying to fight off the nausea that was plaguing me constantly, when a wave of pain had shot through my lower abdomen, sending me straight to my knees. The rest of it was blurry which I did not blame my amnesia for, but rather my being only semi-conscious during the moment itself.

I remembered the cold, crisp feeling of the sheets in the Centre infirmary, the doctors denying me the wish to tell me what had actually happened and why Sydney’s hands had been covered in blood after he had carried me here. Finally, a little nurse, obviously new and not aware of how evil a place she worked for, had told me that I had suffered a miscarriage, lost a baby I hadn’t even known I was carrying.

I remembered sending her out, then realizing that I had just lost everything that I’d still had from Thommy.

And I had been so sure that it had all been my fault. I shouldn’t have even considered going to Portland with Thomas, should have taken better care of myself, should have listened to the symptoms…

Now that I felt slightly detached from it all, while it was just playing inside my head like a terrifyingly real movie starring me, I realized that it hadn’t been my fault, I had lost the child.

Still, I remembered the feeling of guilt weighing down upon me, the feeling of loss startling me awake in the middle of the night and the emotional and physical pain.

Now I forced myself to take a moment, to breathe deeply, to make myself aware of the fact that I was in the present, that I was safe with Jarod and that I needed to stay focused on saving Broots, Debbie and Sydney.

Few people are born fighters. And what do they say? We are born innocent. It is only later in life, when we experience pain and heartache, betrayal and letdown, that some of us are shaped into fighters. Feeling like wounded animals we lash out at those who hurt us or those who are weaker although we known that inflicting more pain will not get us out or our myseries.

I have long forgiven Miss Parker for humiliating me constantly because I know that her pain is greater than I could ever imagine.

There are lives shaped by loss and if there isn’t anything good that can help keeping the balance, the scales drop and we fall.

Miss Parker has fallen long ago with nothing to reach out to.

Now I realize that amnesia is actually the best thing that could have happened to her.

She is a victim of the unfortunate life she was born into, but she refuses to be. She wants to be a winner. And she does have what it takes. She is beautiful and intelligent, educated and wealthy, but what really counts has always failed her: Human contact, love and friendship.

Although she refuses to admit it, she knows about it as well as we all do. But her pride will never allow her to act on it. She refuses to be a victim but she cannot possibly be a winner, so she is all she can be: A fighter.

And what a hell of one.

As I sit next to Thomas Gates in a car, speeding down a deserted highway with only the headlights illuminating the wet street I take a deep breath. It feels as if the street was moving under us while the car remained motionless.

I feel the movement the engine creates and imagine it to be energy that flows into my body, strenghtening me not physically, but emotionally.

I have never been a fighter. I have never been a winner, but I am not half the victim everyone makes me out to be.

I clench my fist in my lap, looking at Gates’ face that looks so hard in the dim light, the edges more pronounced than I remember, his eyes in the shadows, telling me nothing.

He wants Parker. But don’t we all?

I look up at the sound of Raines’ oxygen tank on the floor and although I have not been issued a formal warning, I instinctively know that I am about to meet my end.

The Sweeper standing next to him is carrying a gun as leisurely as a cup of coffee.

Raines’ eyes lack all expression and I wonder whether he tunes out of situations like this, just like I have all these years.

I dare not to move, knowing that resistance is futile and will only worsen the pain. Let them get this over with quickly.

They say that pictures of your life will flash at you before you die, that you see everybody whom you have loved. It does not happen and I realize that I didn’t really have a life.

I have never loved Catherine although I really tried. My first goal in life have always been money and power but I don’t regret that. It is who I am. These two factors are the only things that shape me into someone.

I don’t know why I have never been able to feel. Maybe it goes back to my childhood when terrible things happened whose memories remain blurred inside me. I must have been able to experience emotions a long time ago, because I can remember how it feels.

I have always found it handy to lack remorse, compassion or grief, but I have to admit, that I did miss out on love.

I never loved my wife, I never loved my children.

I think of my daughter whom I have always tried to shape into my mirror-image. I imagine her loving smile, her head against my chest, my hand stroking her hair with my heart feeling as if it was thinly layered with ice- functional but unable to love.

I remember being envious with my own wife because she could love and I could not, even though the love was for me.

I think of my daughter this awkward Christmas, sitting on the sofa in my living-room, next to her brother, slowly and not consciously caressing the barely detectable swell of her stomach.

“You failed,” Raines announces as if I hadn’t known it. “Your daughter is gone and we both know this was your last chance to prove yourself. The Triumvirate has ordered your immediate removal.”

I look into his eyes, for the first time actually realizing, that they are dead. Like mine.

I don’t think I am afraid as the Sweeper’s finger advances upon the trigger.

I close my eyes and suddenly what has seemed lost all my adult life drowns me. The image of my daughter appears in front of my eyes as I congratulate her on her high-school diploma with the usual reserve. I feel so proud that she has graduated top of her class, now. I didn’t, back then.

I can almost feel her pain at my rejection and there is remorse in my heart.

I remember the softness of her hair, of Catherine’s hair, the way she begged for my attention, the many times she showed me that despite everything, she loved me.

My throat tightenes with the click of the trigger but it is not my impending death that causes it.

Oh Angel, what have I done to you?

My feelings are back but they don’t have time to haunt me as I feel the bullet hit. My last breath is drawn as my gaze focuses one last time on the framed picture my secretary has silently put up on my desk many months ago. My daughter smiles back at me. One of those rare smiles, but never quite reaching her eyes.

There’s a drop of blood suddenly running down the glass and I understand that it is my own.

That’s when everything goes black and I fall into the welcoming arms of death.

I was glad that I was alone in my room, resting on my bed, when it came again. It was a peculiar sensation that began with a sense of alarm that grew until I found myself suddenly and unexpectedly at the verge of panic, then it ebbed away, leaving only the equally terrifying and calming certainty that something had happened.

I could feel pain being inflicted in every fiber of my body, but I knew at the same time that it wasn’t mine just as the pain this morning had been nothing more than a memory.

Suddenly a stray scene returned to my memory like a concealed person stepping out of the shadows.

My father, congratulating me on my high-school diploma that I hold in my hand.

It was curious that I could feel his emotions as well as my own.

I did know now that he had actually been proud of me but I had been convinced that he didn’t care. I remembered looking into his eyes and finding them dead. His eyes morphed into those of Mister Raines and his voice rang out inside my head.

“You are a failure.”

His words became my father’s words as I suddenly remembered the last bit about my losing Thomas’ child. My father stepping into my infirmary room as I am trying to eat for the first time in days.

His eyes are dark and my stomach clenches as he says: “You lost it. You lost our future. You are a failure, Angel.”

I cannot make sense of his words. He does not like Thomas, why would he want me to give birth to his child? But dread overwhelms me before I can pursue the question any further.

I remembered the odd feeling, the anger and the pain that had been building inside me, raging to be let out whenever Jarod jokingly called me a failure in the kitchen back in those blissful weeks we had spent together and I close my eyes, trying to block it all out.

I put my arm over my eyes and clench my fist. There is no time for sentimentality now, I decided and sat up slowly.

I took a deep breath, then crossed the room for the door. The memories were returning to me in shorter intervals now, but it is still not fast enough for my liking. I needed to be my old self to get through this, I understood now.

I needed my memories back. Desperately.

The DSA on Broots desk had been unlabelled so it had caught my interest. I couldn’t quite remember why I, whom had never been one to nose around other people’s things, had spotted it anyway.

A scene began playing in front of me and while I watched Miss Parker being threatened with the killing of the only people she could have called friends, had she been so inclined and finally surrender, I felt a terrible sense of dread rise inside me.

I had not only misjudged her and done her wrong, I had also failed her.

But not anymore.

Miss Parker’s face was illuminated by the light that the screen cast across it and she didn’t even bother to look up when the snow began to fall. Big snowflakes quietly descended upon the earth, enveloped every branch in the garden and piled up on the window sills.

She remained motionless as she watched how our lives had touched each other so long ago and I could see tears brimming in her eyes. Tears that she quickly blinked away as soon as she realized they were there.

Something had changed in her posture since this morning and I could see a determination that she had lacked since that day she had turned up in my ER. Not that she had been passive or anything, but she had never looked this calm and efficient again. Not as if she knew where she was heading.

When she had demanded to see the DSAs I carried around with me, I had hesitated, but she had insisted. Broots had told her about my whole life being recorded and she wanted to know what it had been like.

She had never said that she wanted it to trigger her memories, but I knew it anyway. Weird, how I had to remind myself all the time that she was just pretending to have lost her memory. The truth was that in weak moments I had admit to myself that I did believe her.

Watching her, I noticed that the color she had tried to restore her dark haircolor with, had worn off a little. From a very amusing pretend as a hairdresser I knew that this was common when you applied a much darker color on bleached hair. I somehow liked the soft brown she now sported since it nicely accented her face.

As she watched the one and only moment we had shared after she had returned from University in Europe, I remembered how she had always seemed like such a wonderous creature to me. Subconsciously at first, and very aware of it later, I had compared every woman I had ever met to her although none had ever met her standards.

That day we had walked into each other by accident as I had been accompanied back to my room by two Sweepers. Even not looking at the screen I remembered exactly what she had worn and how her hair had brushed her shoulders with every graceful step she took.

She had been in her mid-twenties then and her long absence from the Centre had done her good. I remembered the light grey suit she had worn and the almost playful smile she had given me before she had realized who I was.

I had been smitten with her immediatley, but I had never seen that flirty smile again until she had flashed it at me back in those good days we had spent at the lawyer’s cottage. Maybe it had been what had made me drop my guard.

I sighed inwardly. As beautiful as love was, it could hurt badly- and be a true disadvantage…

Broots

Thomas Gates didn’t treat me cruelly. When we stopped at a diner to get food, he asked me how I drank my coffee and what I would like to eat. Except for the crisp suit and the absence of a stubble on his face, he looked exactly the Thomas Gates I had met in the past.

On the long way North he listened to the new Dixie Chicks album which I found not exactly the right choice if you wanted to appear villaneous. After the fourth song, I was confused enough by the mixed signals I was receiving, to actually boldly go forward.

“Why did you make Miss Parker believe you were dead?” I asked as casually as I could and he took his gaze off the road only to give me a curteous smile.

“Couldn’t stay forever, could I?”

It is not easy to listen to a man who has had everything you have never even dared to dream about and being so indifferent about it, you know.

“Then why didn’t you just leave her?” I asked.

“You don’t just leave Miss Parker,” he replied in a voice that would have been suitable to announce tomorrow’s weather report, hadn’t there been a slight amusement.

His casual behaviour began to annoy me, so I pressed on.

“Did you love her?”

He looked at me again, but without the sinister gleam in his eyes, that I would have expected.

“That is too personal a question for the two of us,” he said. “We haven’t been friends too long.”

I snorted and answered the question for him. “You didn’t. If you just left her and like that... you didn’t.”

He shrugged. “Maybe I didn’t. But even if I had, I wouldn’t have had much of a choice on that matter. The Centre can be quite adamant when it comes to fulfilling your end of a bargain.”

“You said you had been defrauded. Is that why you want to find her? Kidnap her and have the Centre give you what you have been deprived of?” I asked, trying to put the pieces of the puzzle together.

“Very good, Broots. I can see why Parker regards you so highly.”

Weird enough he actually said it without sarcasm.

Then he grinned at my dumbfounded stare.

“Would be typical of her not to show you how she felt about you. Really appreciated your loyalty and found you quite sweet when you tripped over your own feet to please her.”
My throat went dry with both embarassment and excitement, but I tried not to show it, so instead I watched him, concentrating on the side of his head so hard that my vision began to blur. And suddenly I saw it. Something seemed to click inside my head when the pieces finally came together.

I had seen whom I had assumed to be a Sweeper on the DSA from Mister Parker’s office only from behind, so his face had been obscured by the ever present shadows of the Centre. But now that I heard his voice and watched the way he slightly bowed his head when he spoke, I understood that the man whom Mister Parker had paid to participate in a “delicate matter” had in fact been Thomas Gates.

So far I had believed that they had paid him to walk away from Parker, even faked his death to have her concentrate on the Centre again, but what if… I was filled with disgust at the thought.

“They paid you to begin a relationship with her, didn’t they?” I asked. “They didn’t just pay you to leave her… it was just part of something else!”

My voice had risen with the fear I suddenly felt. What was that thing they'd wanted so dearly?

“Yes.” He stated simply.

“What was it they wanted?”

He smiled. “Do you think they would let some stranger they have work for them in on their secret plans?”

“You must know something! Why that period of time? Why didn’t you stay with her longer? What was behind it?” I didn’t care any longer that the urgency was ringing in my voice and showing in my face. I just needed to know!

“Well, you might as well know,” he said just as if he had just decided that it wasn’t a problem, but I suspected that he was actually taking pleasure in telling me so casually.

“They told me I could leave when she was pregnant.”

I suddenly felt very very sick.

The gun that was being pressed to my temple only a second later didn't help matters.

Mister Lyle

Mister Raines’ eyes seemed to bulge out of his face and the prominent vein on his forehead was throbbing with flourish.

“How do you know about Project Cassandra?” he wheezed, sounding as if he was choking on something. We both knew that his question was rhetoric, so I went on without answering it.

“I want in on that. It looks as if it was our last chance to save the Blue Cove Centre branch. The authorities are swarming the place. If we don’t succeed this time, the Triumvirate will decide that we are too much of a risk to be upheld any longer.”
I knew that this scenario would kill Raines. The Centre was his life and we both knew it.

He finally dropped his hunched shoulders and took a deep rattling breath presumably to calm himself.

“The project is in serious jeopardy,” he began, still reluctant, but I could sense that this was heading my way. “Gates is back and blackmailing us. He knows where Parker is and he is on his way to get her.”

I raised an eyebrow. “Why would he have a grudge on us? According to my favourite file…” I waved the folder to him. “…we paid him more than enough to knock her up.”

Raines’ nonexistant eyebrows served to make his frown even more sinister.

“We left it to him how he wanted to walk out. Of course he was stupid enough to pick a method so dramatic that she was devastated.” He made a gurgling noise that made my stomach turn. This guy really wasn’t pleasant company.

“You might have noticed. She got herself so worked up that she miscarried.”

“So I gathered,” I replied and enjoyed watching his face turn scarlet. Although he hated me with all his heart, he knew that he needed me. Ideal situation. I so loved being me.

“So we paid him a visit and deprived him of the money he did not rightfully earn.”

He paused, staring at me with hatred, then nodded.

“Get her back, eliminate Gates and you are in on Project Cassandra.”

I smiled. “Is it so easy? Wouldn’t you like me throw a tapdance on top of that so it won’t be that boring?”

Raines growled and I raised my arms in mock defeat.

“Fine… you are a man of business.”

I gave him a beaming smile as I walked past him.

“Consider it done.”

Miss Parker rubbed her eyes and leaned back against the sofa. Dusk was falling outside the windows and it would soon be time for dinner.

She had not noticed my presence yet and so I watched her lay her hand against her stomach which made a smile flicker over her face. I wondered whether that could be the smile of a mother who would willingly give her child up to an evil corperation. Somehow it just didn’t seem likely.

I finally made my presence known by clearing my throat and she slowly turned towards me.

“Hey Jarod.” Her voice sounded tired.

“Have you found anything that could be of help?” I asked, implying that I was quite interested in the contents of her plan.

“No. Not yet.” There was a hint of disappointment in her voice that she could not mask with simple exhaustion.

“What about some dinner?” I asked, almost amused at my sudden wish to take care of her. She hesitated for a moment, then smiled at me and held up a DSA she had watched a mere minutes before.

“Like that time I brought honey sandwiches?”

I remembered that day when we had still been kids and she had brought some badly wrapped sandwiches, dripping with honey. They had actually tasted horrible, but I remembered eating them anyway because I knew that Miss Parker had gone to lenghts to smuggle them into the Centre.

“They were dreadful,” I said and smiled.

“Then I suppose we should make something nicer tonight.”

“We?” I mocked her. “Should I be worried?”

She laughed. “You should really stop reminding me of the fact that I am…” she paused briefly, as if catching her breath before she went on. “… a failure in the kitchen.”

The pain in her eyes lasted for only a second until it disappeared and was a little too quickly replaced with mischief.

“Bad for you, so you always have to cook.”

“I like it. I used to cook on a pretend in a five star hotel in Las Vegas.”

She laughed. “Very cool. Jarod the chef.”

“I was good,” I said. “They begged me to stay when I left.”

She leaned slightly forward. “I can imagine that.”

I wondered whether she consciously put that look in her eyes or whether her desire just showed on its own accord, but the intensity of her gaze almost made me shudder.

“I made the best lobster in town,” I said, my voice surprisingly raspy.

I only realized that I had started leaning into her when I could feel her breath on my face as she whispered: “I am craving that.”

The way we were lingering over each other made it pretty clear what else we were both craving.

“Jarod, do you believe me?” she asked in the same tone of voice. She probably knew that she had caught me in a weak moment because all I could say was “Yes”.

My reward was a slow and loving kiss that I felt I did not deserve because I still held the tiniest bit of doubt against her. Still I could not gather up the willpower to end the kiss.

That was why I was caught off balance when she suddenly pulled away. The look in her eyes was terrifyingly close to those of the merciless huntress she had been for those past years. Her eyebrow jerked upwards in a familiar intimidating way.

“You are lying, Jarod.”
I stared at her. How came I always forgot that she was far more perceptive than one would assume?

“I believe far too much of what you say for my own liking, Parker.”
”But that’s not enough for me.”

Only when her eyes clouded over I realized how much it took from her to produce that cold look in her eyes. She was clearly out of practice.

I looked into her eyes, noticed for the first time how frenzied she had scattered the DSAs around her. This woman was fighting for every ounce of control she still had over her life. And she was losing out.

The problem was that I could not help her. I did love her, but I could simply not allow myself to trust her. Lacking her memories, she could not possibly understand how crucial it was to not trust anybody associated to The Centre.

“You can believe me or not, Parker. Trust…”

“… can kill you or set you free.”

Tic toc tic toc.

“The clock is ticking, Angel. Get him back.”

Tic toc tic toc.

My heels click violently against the marble floor as I walk down the Centres corridors.

Lyle almost imperceptibly caresses my hand with his thumb as he removes it from the elevator door. He grins wickedly at me, as the doors close.

“I love you, Thomas.”

Pain explodes in my back as the bullet hits and the last thing I register is that my father catches me in midfall. For once my Daddy is exactly where I need him.

“Michelle. My name is Michelle.”

I have lost control over my car and in a very weird way it feels good to know that you could not gain control, even if you wanted to. It helps you to accept it.

“Parker!”

“Parker!”

Suddenly Jarod was next to me on the sofa and tilted my chin to make me look into his eyes.

“Are you okay?” he asked, while the voices were still echoing inside my head.

“I… I just remembered a few things.” My voice was husky and I cleared my throat.

“Don’t worry,” I added. “I am okay. It’s just that it was a lot...”

I rubbed my forehead and looked up into Jaod’s calmly watching eyes.

“I want to know why I crashed that car and how I ended up with amnesia,” I said and could feel anger rise inside me, knowing that if I wasn’t careful, I would snap at Jarod for entirely no reason. Sometimes having the temper of an erupting vulcano really sucks.

“The human brain is a complex thing,” he answered, sounding scientific already. “There are many fit reasons for that amnesia of yours. Maybe even more than the ones we could come up with.”

His words sounded like the prologue to a longer lecture and I caught myself being surprised at how I always seemed to forget that he was a genius and that he possessed more knowledge than I would ever acquire although I was the one with the university degrees.

“Sometimes I wonder whether I wanted to forget something. Something that hurt me terribly or scared me…” I trailed off. “I am not sure what it might have been because as far as I know I have gone through so much in my life, that what finally makes me snap must be something quite horrid…”

I watched the pained grimace distorting his features and realized that we were now looking at what joined us despite all our many differences.

We had suffered so much in that place and we were both trying to make our lives work in spite of it. While my reaction to such sadness and pain had been to hurt everybody before they got a chance to hurt me, Jarod had taken up helping people to make up for what evil had been caused by his simulations.

I suspected that his goodness had always disgusted me, but on some level that I was only now willing to acknowledge, it had also fascinated me.

Suddenly I felt the urge to pull him into my arms and hold him. I tried to envision the little boy I had watched in all his loneliness on the DSAs all afternoon. I had been able to give him comfort back then and I knew that I was capable of chasing the sadness away from his eyes right now.

Without thinking I pulled him into a tight embrace and held him, as he held me.

“I love you, Parker,” he murmured softly.

“That might as well be the only thing I have never forgotten.”

And then the annoying tune of the theme song to a completely ridiculous tv-show called “The Adventures of Brisco County Jr.” began to play. When we pulled apart I understood that it was his cell-phone. Well of course. He probably changed his ringtone every day just to try them all.

I could hear a terrified voice on the other end of the line, but couldn’t understand what it was saying. Jarod’s face, however, darkened considerably as he listened.

Then, before he could say anything, the other person had hung up.

“Who was that?” I asked, perching on the edge of my seat with worry.

“It was Broots.”

“Broots?” I asked. “How would he have your cellphone-number?”

“Very good question indeed. Maybe he got it from his kidnapper.”

I could feel my knees weaken although I was still sitting.

“He’s been kidnapped? By whom?”

“I don’t know but they want you to meet them. Otherwise Broots will be dead by dawn.”

Miss Parker

I felt as if the wind had been knocked out of me. Staring at Jarod, my mouth probably gaping open, I made a decision that, despite reasons against it, I knew to be irreversible.

Who would possibly kidnapp Broots, I wondered, before the answer came to me. Mister Raines, Lyle, my father… I just had to make my pick since there was absolutely no shortage of villains here.

I took a deep breath, then crossed over to the kitchen sink and opened the cupboard beneath it. Jarod watched as I took out a jar of chocolate cookies and unscrewed the cap. A second later his hand closed around mine, covering not only my fingers but also the car keys now dangling from them.

“You knew where they are?” he asked, mildly surprised.

“Smart of you to hide them where the most calories lurk,” I told him calmly, looking into his worried eyes.

“You are going to leave?”

I nodded. “Just let me do it. You know that you cannot prevent me.”

He sighed and we both knew that I was right.

“I don’t want you to go,” he started a half-hearted attempt at convincing me. “This is about the most obvious way they could choose to get hold of you.”

“Not if I am smart,” I disagreed. “Do you have a gun?”

He slowly let go of my hand and shook his head.

“It is too dangerous, Parker. If you don’t worry about yourself, at least worry about the baby.”

Damn, he knew how to make me sway.

“Jarod, Broots was the only one who was ready to believe me and stand by my side. And this is the Centre we are talking about. They are going to kill him! There’s no way I’ll let his daughter grow up without her father due to my being a coward.”

Jarod shook his head again, but less determined and rather tiredly.

“But I am coming with you.”

“I guess I am supposed to go alone,” I said and made for the door, the metal of the keys warming up inside my clenched fist.

His hand went around my upper arm and he turned me around gently.

There was no room for arguments when he said: ”And I don’t care.”

Thomas

I had been doing lots of different things in the past. In a way you could say that I was some sort of Pretender, too, because I never visited a City twice, but always knew everyone from the corrupt major to the roughly charming mafioso running the pizza place round the corner. But before the Centre sent a troop of hitmen to force me into returning their money to them, I had always considered my work for them the coolest job I’d ever had.

Now that the first thing I saw of Parker were her incredibly long legs exiting the car, I perfectly remembered why. Well, it had almost been too easy back then. I had been warned that she could be a real bitch and everything and that she had always preferred an obedient boytoy to a real relationship. The fact that her father had told me about the hidden room behind the wall upstairs had come in handy, of course. The fact that a skinny girl like her could be lured with Chinese food, however, had come as quite a surprise. And there she was now, her cheeks flushed by the cold air and the look in her eyes very determined. Damn, I had forgotten what a hot chick she was.

I wasn’t surprised by Jarod making an entrance. When I had first met him it had been almost comical how he had tried to subtly talk me into meeting Parker- quite the coincidence. Well, at least I knew him well enough to know that he wouldn’t allow the woman carrying his child to meet a kidnapper on her own.

Broots, whose neck I had casually wrapped one arm around while the other hand held my gun against his temple, struggled weakly but a slight shove made him freeze. Poor pathetic little guy. I felt almost sorry for him, but some people are born to be tools. And Broots was one of those.

“Hi Parker! You look incredibly beautiful!” I yelled, truthfully, as she approached across the snowy parking-lot I had chosen to met her on. She walked slowly and carefully, but when she heard my voice, she looked up from her feet and stared at me, then suddenly slipped.

Jarod was at her side quickly and steadied her. She looked quite dazed. Maybe pregnancy dizziness. How cute.

Broots gave an anguished howl. He had probably realized what he had got her into. In his fear caused by my firing a warning shot into his direction earlier had convinced him that it would benefit his health if he called her.

I smiled at how I had taken a look at Sydney’s cellphone and found Jarod’s number right away, which he had saved under the alias “Jay” definetly lacking some of the imagination I usually associate with psychiatrists.

“I’m really sorry that I have to do that to you,” I told Parker and was surprised to realize that I meant it. She had been sweet during our relationship and the desperate tears she had shed for me while she had waited for the ambulance had been very touching. She didn’t react to my provocation, but stopped opposite me.

“Let him go,” she demanded and I shrugged, shoving the trembling guy into Jarod with reasonable force. With one swift step I had crossed the distance between me and Parker and held her in my grasp.

Her skin smelled sweet and I had to resist the urge to bury my face in her neck as I had done when we had been together.

“Bastard…” she hissed between clenched teeth as I pressed the gun into her temple and let my fingertips pointedly brush her stomach.

“Be careful, Parker,” I warned, but she just turned her head towards me and while her lips almost touched my neck she whispered: “You be careful.”

And then I saw stars as her fist came up. The blow against my chin had been so severe that for a second I was disorientated. The next thing I knew, she had kicked me in the leg and hit me in the head again. I tried to grab her, but she was too quick for me.

“Serves you right!” She said, wrestling the gun out of my hand. “Attacking pregnant ladies is not exactly gentleman’s behaviour.”

I felt myself slip on the frozen ground as she shoved me, but was able to catch my balance.

Everything had happened so quickly that I didn’t reach Parker before she had already beaten up Thomas with surprising strength. I guess the fact that she had surprised him had also come to her aid, but as soon as I was by her side, he was already lurching towards her again. She was surprised and as a result the gun nearly dropped from her hands. I ran forward and brought my body between her and him. Parker retreated, the gun wavering in her hands as she remained staring at Thomas whose front teeth were covered in blood.

“Take the car and leave, Parker. I’ll take care of…” I was interrupted by Gates’ attempt to strangle me and could only gurgle at her. Still she understood me and grabbed a still panting Broots by the sleeve, dragging him into the car with her.

Having received another blow, I became impatient and, despite my initial rejection of senseless violence, hit back.

Broots

The car began to fishtail on the frozen ground as Miss Parker hit the accelerator even harder. Still expertly maneuvering the vehicle towards the highway, her eyebrows came closer together in concentration.

“Quit goggling at me like that, moron!” she suddenly snarled, not taking her eyes off the road. “I just saved your sorry ass and I just don’t feel like wrapping the car around a tree anytime soon.”

As far as her behaviour was concerned, this could have been a normal day months ago, when we’d still be hunting for Jarod.

“Shouldn’t we go back and help Jarod?” I asked her, as soon as we had hit the highway.

“Actually we should,” she replied warily. “But Jarod talked me into a major guilt-trip on the way here. Going on all about how I should leave the heroics to him- for once.”

She sighed.

“But he’s right. You’ve exceeded the number of fistfights a pregnant woman should get into… it being zero-“

“Oh come on, shut up!” she snapped, but slightly better-naturedly than usual, then turned her head. “We’re heading to Blue Cove so I can rip my sorry excuse for a brother apart.”

My heartbeat quickened. Had my initial response been correct?

“Miss Parker!” I exclaimed, marvelling at her vicious grin. “Good to have you back!”

My furious desperation had even made me google “amnesia” and reading about loss of memory and identity due to major shock had made me shake my head. What on earth could make a person feel so desperate that they would commit emotional suicide and shut out their memories alltogether? To give up their whole life? And would a reminder of that most horrible of moments serve to bring back what had deliberately been lost by a part of the brain that instinctively knew that the mind wouldn’t be able to bear the burden?

With my first gaze at Thomas Gates all these questions had been answered at once. Up until now, memories had been returning in scenes or fragments, gradually coming back to me and playing inside my head as if in real-time.

This time it hit me like a slap in the face.

I had been scared by the memory of my miscarriage, the pain and the heartache- but this had been downright frightening. It felt as if someone had flipped a light switch and suddenly everything was back.

When I had closed my eyes the moment I’d slipped on the ground, falling with the terrible knowledge that Thomas Gates was the root of all evil that had happened I hadn’t known, but a second later, when I’d opened my eyes again, safely held by Jarod, I’d suddenly had all my memories back.

And there were these strange two Miss Parkers inside me again. The old one and the new one, more gentle, more understanding and madly in love with Jarod. None of these two seemed to be me. Or fit me. Like a pullover that you owned in two wrong sizes and thus didn’t want to wear.

But my determination hadn’t ceased and it had been pure bliss to hit Thomas in the face with all the force I had in me. And that was a lot.

I remembered now how the doorbell had rung. I saw clearly in front of me how the door had revealed Thomas, standing there with a lopsided grin. I could also connect the weird dream I had woken from thrashing in my bed with Jarod’s worried face hovering over me.

“Parker,” Thomas had simply said and my world had collapsed. My head had been spinning, my fingers cramping into the side of the door, had been hurt by a loose piece of wood that had made them bleed. It had felt as if someone had turned back time, but back then he had been supposed to take me in his arms.

Now I was shivering.

“Oh my god… How…? How…?” I had stammered, mind clouded over with the severe battle of happiness to have him back and fear of what that meant. He’d led me inside and sat me down on my couch, then told me that the Centre knew that I was planning to escape to not be forced to carry out their plan. He’d shaken me roughly, reminding me of how my life worked: “You are not going to leave. You will do as you have been told. There is no future for you. Am I not the symbol of that?”

He told me that our relationship had always been a farce, that they had been paying him to get me pregnant. I had not understood. Why they wanted Jarod’s and my child I realized, but why Thomas’s? He had sneered at me in a way that had broken my heart, then told me that the Centre regarded it his fault that I had lost his baby because of the manner he had staged his death in. They had taken the money from him and would only return it if he’d convince me that I had to go through with the Centre’s plan. Even back then, in my dazed state, I had known what they really paid him for: To break me. They had known that with him alive and the only proper relationship I’d ever had being a lie, my will would be broken.

What they hadn’t expected had been my mind’s reaction. Obviously they had believed me to be stronger than I really was.

When he’d left I had started to cry, then fallen asleep and woken up to the insecurity of not knowing whether I had dreamed him having been there as I had often in the past. Sometimes I had even imagined that I had seen his spirit. I knew now that I’d been wrong. So wrong…

Before I’d known it, I had grabbed my handbag and made for my car, the upstairs window still wide open and the wind blowing in. I had hit the accelerator, not consciously choosing the road that led to Broots’ house. Finally there I had thrown myself onto him, aware of the fact that he was probably the only man who’d ever really loved me. Well, except for Jarod whose affections I had not been able to admit to myself even then.

He’d held me and I had still been unable to convince me of the fact that everything would be fine. I had fled again, got in the car again and hit the city. In a frenzy I had had my hair dyed blonde- as far away from the former color as possible -as far away from me as possible-, I had bought clothes that I would not have even looked at before, but even looking different hadn’t helped. I had never felt that desperate in my life. Suddenly everything seemed dark and the prospect of acting according to the Centre’s plan inevitable.

And then it had happened, my mind had shut down and while still on the fast lane, my memories had slipped away. Not one by one but all at once. Then, terrified at the idea of not knowing who I was, I had lost control over my car. And I had cherished it in a weird way. Maybe the last conscious thought that had remained from the old Miss Parker.

Finally now, with regaining my memories, the control I’d lost that moment in the car had returned to me and I had relished it while physically lashing out at Thomas- the reason for all my sorrow.

Suddenly our car is hit. Miss Parker swears while I cry out in surprise. Once again we slither on the snowy ground and even a Miss Parker has troubles to keep the car steady. She manages for about a minute until we heavily hit the crash barrier. Once the car has come to a halt I bend over Miss Parker who is groaning.

“Is the baby alright?” I ask and realize that same moment that she has taken her hands off the stirring wheel when the crash has seemed inevitable, to protect her stomach instead.

“I think she’s okay,” she says, very quietly and, one hand still on her stomach, feels for my arm. “You okay, too?” she mutters.

Another car, presumably the one that has caused our current situation, has pulled up next to us and out steps Lyle, all smug and well-groomed. He opens the door and peers in.

“Well, hello!” he greets us cheerfully. “What a surprise! My beloved sister and her lapdog. Or shall I say laptop, computer geek?”

I seriously don’t know where he picks up these dumb jokes. He probably makes them up himself. Maybe to make people wonder so they don’t realize right away that he has now reached into his coat pocket and produced a gun.

“Now, Sis. We’re going home.”

Miss Parker has no choice than to get out of the car, but obviously Lyle has classically underestimated me. I jump out of the car and run towards them to save her.

A second later a shot rings in my ears and I explode with pain. I watch the snow turn an ugly red around my fallen form before darkness descends upon me.

Miss Parker

For the second time in a week my hands were literally tied. My feet, too, but at least my brother’d had the courtesy not to gag me. That circumstance left me free to haul insults at him every other minute which I gave up soon due to the amused smile that tugged at the corners of his mouth.

But only when a dark silence became almost tangible in the car and the snow started to pile up on the windshield, I allowed my mind to go back to Broots’ slumped figure in the snow, blood seeping into the white and forming a bizarre and deadly pattern.

I had tried to sweettalk Lyle into going back or at least having the decency to call an ambulance for him, but he had just smirked dismissingly and had replied something the likes of “Never thought you’d care about him dying”.

That very moment I wasn’t too happy about the fact that I had regained possession of the insight into my brother’s twisted mind that told me that he would not be inclined to take part in Broots’ fate.

I felt the shock grip my heart now that I was no longer able to come up with anything that might convince him. Hot tears began to burn inside my eyes and I closed them and drew a deep but silent breath. He would not see me cry. I’d rather stick my head in a bear trap… or his, for that matter.

My hand gripping Gates’ neck I shoved his head down on the hood of his car.

“Now tell me exactly what the Centre is up to this time!” I told him politely, but his muffled laugh had me change my attitude considerably.

I lay some of my weight onto his back, pressing his arms down onto the metal, which caused a groan to escape his mouth.

“Give me a reason why I shouldn’t kill you after what you have done to the woman I love,” I hissed at him, the words sounding trashy but the way I said them seeming to be taken straight from an action movie. Gates coughed, then groaned again.

“Damnit, Jarod. We used to get along just fine.”

I didn’t grace that with an answer, but simply waited until he came around himself.

“Fine, fine! They weren’t too happy with her losing the baby because I staged my death, okay? Made a housecall, had me beat up and forced me to go back and talk her into going along with that plan to have your baby. Decided that it would be better to have her be the Centre player instead of trying to do it behind her back again.”

His words caused me to shudder inwardly.

“So why are you back?”

“Well, I didn’t manage to convince her, did I? I was told that she’d run off and got herself amnesia. Tough cookies for the Centre so I decided that I should get her back. Got your cellphone number and arranged this. It was about money, okay? I never meant to hurt her.”

“Sure.” I replied evenly. “So you thought that returning her to the Centre wouldn’t hurt her?”

I kicked him in the shin but before I could decided whether to exert some more senseless violence or to sensibly restrain myself, my cellphone blasted the tune of Brisco County Jr. once again. Ignoring Gates’ stupid smile that revealed a missing front tooth that I strongly suspected to be Parker’s handywork, I flipped it open with my free hand.

“Jarod, this is Sydney. Lyle has Parker.”

The snow fell in cascades and obscured the view out of the hospital window I was pacing in front of. Just having ended the call to Jarod, I was now left to do nothing but wait nervously for the doctors.

I had been tailing Lyle for hours, with it being the only thing I had come up with to finding the others. I had always considered him the person the most immediate danger came from and once again I had been right in my assessment. I had eavesdropped on Lyle’s inquisition of a guard who had told him that Gates' car was still in the parking lot while he had seen him accompanied by Broots and getting in the car with him. So Lyle had pulled the good old GPS card. The Centre, of course, was paranoid when it came to pretty much everything. In consequence they had taken the liberty to install a tailing system into each and every employee’s car. And Broots’ wasn’t an exception. So all Lyle’d had to do was follow.

Naturally I had been a little bit behind, especially in the snow so I had walked into a horrible scene, car crashed into the crash barrier, smoke coming from the hood and curling into the sky menancingly. But the most horrible sight of it all had been Broots with blood scattered all around him, facedown in the snow. The bullet, it seemed, had hit him right below the right ribcage. It had missed his heart but only by inches.

He must have lost consciousness right away with the sudden bloodloss causing blood pressure to collaps entirely.

Now I was here in the nearest hospital, worried for Miss Parker and her unborn baby, worried what Jarod would do, but most of all, frightened out of my mind what would happen to Broots. There was no distraction here. The outside view was completely obscured by a mass of swirling snowflakes while the walls were cold and naked, white as well. I listened to my footssteps on the floor, counted them and counted them again, but nothing could disctract me from the horror that was going on.

Catherine Parker is sitting on a table, her hands in front of her, her eyes half closed, sitting upright but looking dazed, even in a trance. A hand reaches out for hers and carefully taps it.

“Catherine, are you with me?” It is Raines voice. Less choked and lighter with youth, but it is clearly him.

“Yeah.” She sounds dreamy, as if far away in her own world. Her eyes fall shut for a second, then she opens them again. Their greyish blue seems much darker with the strong dilation of her pupils.

“What do you see?”

Raines’ voice is oddly soft, as if talking to a small child, but still there is a definite edge he cannot quite conceal.

“A boy…” Catherine whispers. “An extraordinary boy.”
Raines is leaning forward now and as the perspective of the camera changes, the gleam in his eyes is like a blade flashing in the sunlight.

“Where?” he asks.

“I… I don’t see…” Suddenly Catherine snaps awake. She blinks her eyes and shakes her head as if trying to chase the drowsiness away.

Raines leans back against his chair, clearly exasperated.

“Concentrate,” he says neutrally.

“What do you want from that boy?” Catherine asks, vigilance lighting up her eyes that gradually return to their usual color. “I am not sure I am doing the right thing.”

It shows that Raines is not one to reassure people of their moral values, so he simply holds up both hands. “Concentrate on the boy, Catherine. What’s his name?”

“Jarod,” she says without hesitating for even a second.

“You know?” he asks. “What else do you know?”

“I am tired,” she almost pleads, then slowly gets up to her feet. It is now visible that she is pregnant.

“Well, enough for now.” It is obvious that Raines is everything but satisfied, but knows that he will have to be patient. “See you tomorrow.”

Sis is not too impressed when Raines shows her what inspired Project Cassandra before she was even born.

“So what?” she asks, folding her arms in front of her chest and giving me a dark look. “She’s had extraordinary abilities. I did know that. And you used her for your causes. Bugger. I did know before that you are a bastard. No need to prove that fact.”

Raines’ eyes are bulging out of his face again and I find myself shudder with disgust once again. Ugly, ugly guy.

“Don’t you understand the significance of that?”

Wow, I wasn’t aware of the fact that he could say a sentence that long without wheezing in between. Instead he coughs afterwards. Fair enough.

“No, I don’t,” Parker spats. “All I see is that you are probably even more dellusional than I thought.”

I would have cracked her give a damn- attitude in mere seconds by simply heating her up a little, but it is much more fun watching Raines fail, so I remain propped against the wall, watching my private little sitcom.

“Her abilities came out strongest…. when she was pregnant!” Raines says, having returned to drawing in breaths in the middle of sentences. Too bad, I would have loved to see him die from oxygen deprivation.

Realization is dawning on my sister’s face and she gives him a predatory grin.

“That’s the key to this whole stupid game? You wanted me pregnant to be some sort of medium so that I could do whatever to help the Centre land another jackpot like Jarod?” The laughter that follows is hollow. “God, that’s far fetched. How desperate are you, Raines?”

As different as we may be, there is one thing that both we Parker twins really have a knack for. Provocation. She’s good because Raines explodes in front of her eyes.

“What about… loyalty?” he yells. I didn’t know that he could come up with enough air to yell in the first place. Impressive!

“You have grown up in this place! You should willingly go along and help reinstate it to its former glory.”
She laughs again, obviously delighted with the fact that Raines has lost it.

“Nobody expected me to, did they? Because in that case I would have been asked before you sent some guy after me or blackmailed me into doing it, huh?”

Raines is too busy catching his breath to come up with an answer, which convinces me that this is the point where I come in.

“Sis,” I say, stepping out of the shadows. “You can stop your little tantrum now. “

She turns her head in my direction and a sneer forms around her full lips.

“Lyle, so you believe that humbug, too? You shouldn’t have watched all those X-Files episodes.”

I slowly approach the table and Raines moves over willingly as I sit down opposite her.

“You’re not crying,” I state and for a split second I can see confusion in her eyes, but then she has herself firmly under control once again. She leans forward until her nose nearly touches mine.

“And why would I be?” Her voice is so low now that it resembles the dangerous growl of an aggressive animal.

I lean back, opening my palms towards her in a pacifying gesture that I know to fuel her fury considerably.

“Broots,” I say simply. “He’s somewhere out in the snow, bleeding to death and you are not worried. You have stopped begging me to send him help. Why would that be?”

She stares at me and I can see that she suddenly understands. She doesn’t like it at all, but she does know that I am right.

For the first time I actually listened to that strange turmoil inside me. It’d been plaguing me like dizziness that I had had to work very hard to block out of my consciousness despite it getting stronger every day.

Now that I allowed it for the first time, it felt as if everything was suddenly clicking into place. I wasn’t worried for Broots anymore. Not because I didn’t care, but because I knew that he was fine. I had no idea where that had come from, but I could very faintly feel pain just beneath my heart- his pain. I felt Sydney’s presence looming over me- over him when I concentrated on it. I couldn’t make out the words on Sydney’s lips but I knew that things were going to be okay.

Very suddenly snapping out of my reverie, I looked up into Lyle’s eyes.

“I called the nearest hospital, Parker. Somebody’s found him and brought him in. You knew that, didn’t you?”

I remained motionless, simply trying to control the trembling that had begun to seize my body.

Raines had approached the table once again and now leaned on it with one hand.

“Do you see it now?” he rasps. “Just like Catherine, you know things when you concentrate hard enough.”

“There is so much you could do for the Centre,” Lyle added with a vicious grin. “You can find out what other people think or feel, you can work yourself into their strategies, you can find young Pretenders like your mother did...”

I swallowed hard, my mother’s voice whispering “A boy… An extraordinary boy...” inside my mind. Although I hadn’t wanted to believe it at first, it now made perfect sense.

Everything- how I had never been afraid of Jarod as he had kidnapped me, how in the fight with Thomas I had known what he would do next, how without it being medically confirmed, I undoubtly knew that my baby was a girl.

“You have some sort of psychic abilities which you have inherited from your mother. They are usually hidden under the surface and only show in some improved intuition as for what other people feel, but with pregnancy…” Lyle’s eyes radiated a manical gleam and now that I had opened my mind for what surrounded me, I could feel his evil determination burn like a fire.

“… all your senses are…. sharpened. And that one, too,” Raines added. What came from him was different than what I felt from Lyle. While Lyle was determined and heated, Raines was shockingly cold.

“I won’t do it,” I whispered. “I will not use my abilities to help the Centre.”

“Your mother did,” Raines delivered the first blow to my resistance. “And she found Jarod.”

“Give us what we want and you are free to walk away with it as soon as your baby is born.”

“How daft do you think I am?” I snapped at him. “Since when does the Centre keep its promises?”

Raines eyes were burning now. For the first time a little bit of passion showed on his face. The Centre had always been his life and he would do anything to save it. It was almost tragic how he clung to what had to be his last hope.

“The authorities are closing in on us, Michelle,” he said and I couldn’t determine whether he paused to catch his breath or rather for effect after using my first name.

“And the Triumvirate… isn’t going to watch… it any longer… Project Cassandra… is the last chance we… have!” The intervals between his wheezing had become shorter with desperation and I could feel the fear that radiated from him.

“Project Cassandra,” I snarled, fully aware of the impact my harsh tones had on him. I had never seen William Raines so close to losing his composure and I was quite determined to push him over the edge. “It has a nice ring to it, indeed.”

I leaned back in my seat, mimicking Lyle’s actions from before and gave them a wide smile. “Well, there is no way I will ever participate in this and you don’t need an inner sense to be sure of that.”

I could see that Lyle wanted to kill me on the spot and I didn’t have any doubts that he would go through with it, but Raines hadn’t given up yet.

He grabbed Lyle’s arm as firmly as his feeble strength allowed him and I was almost delighted with the look of disgust on my brother’s face as he was led out of the room.

I sighed and although I knew that the surveillance cameras were watching me, buried my face in my hands.

I really had to find a way out of here or at least buy some time until Jarod was inclined to turn up and get me out of this mess.

The cold winter sunshine did nothing to help Broots’ shocking palour as I stood over him and tried to convince myself that he would be fine. The doctors were positive that he would make a full recovery but that was difficult to imagine.

He was still under and although I really wanted to be there when he woke up, I knew that I had other priorities. I squeezed his arm carefully, then turned around and walked towards the door.

The guilt weighed heavily on me as I walked to my car. Instead of trying hard to built up hatred against Miss Parker for allegedly selling her baby to the Centre, I should have considered the other option.

Had they revived Project Cassandra despite everything that had happened? I did not dare to think about the consequences that would have for all of us…

Time was passing slowly inside my cell. With nothing to distract me from my impending doom I had taken up lying flat on my back, eyes closed and hands clasped over my chest, thinking.

As former chief of security I knew more about the prison than anyone else. Knowledge I had acquired during my first months in my new position, when I had still been under the wrongful impression that my father actually cared about how I did my job.

The room was windowless and quadratic, ten square meters. It was equipped with the bed I rested on and a sink. The walls were concrete and bare. What was interesting and not known to the average prisoner was the air vent that, conveniantly, was obscured by the headboard. Back then when I had first familiarized myself with the way prisoners were kept, I had wondered why the cells contained rather bedlike pallets with high headboards. Then I had found out the reason.

Air vents were accessible if you knew about them and were skinny enough. The first wasn’t a problem and the second, with my stomach only slightly swollen yet, shouldn’t be either.

What truly presented a challenge was the security camera that transmitted my every move to where Lyle was probably biting his nails not to grab a shotgun and take my miserable life.

He would possibly take that opportunity to intervene and give me a good beating- the bastard. So instead of trying to open the vent I remained on my back, concentrating on my breathing.

I pictured the other end of the camera inside my head, my knowledge of the surveillance system being eternally helpful in establishing the connection. Faintly, as if seen through a layer of fog, the screen began to show and I could make out a figure lying on a bed- me. I wasn’t used to using my sense, so I felt a stabbing headache built at the base of my skull and I winced, losing the picture almost entirely. The baby moved and distracted me for a moment. I reached down to calm it and sighed inwardly.

I wasn’t very good at this and I didn’t know whether I would have enough time to practice.

Once again I tried to relax, to work myself into a state that allowed my mind to open itself. Besides all the difficulties I experienced, it was amazing how naturally it came. As if I’d done it before.

“What do you see?”

In my mind I could watch myself suddenly jerk upright on the bed, then the image dissolved in front of my eyes as I opened them. My breath came in short intervals, my fingers flew up to my temples to massage the burning pain away. There had been something else underlaying the picture of the security screen I had concentrated on. Another faint image, lingering underneath the one I’d seen.

And it had scared me.

Centre Surveillance System - DSA

“What have you done?” Catherine Parker’s voice is strained to breaking point and tears are brimming in her eyes as she confronts Raines in his office.

“I helped your husband to glory,” he replies, a weird little smile tugging at his lips. “That nice little summer house of yours, the expensive school you send your little girl to… it wouldn’t be without my work for the Centre.”

“How dare you!” Catherine Parker hisses, despise showing on her face.

“How dare I take it upon me to help this tiny little outpost of a major corporation become a big player?” Raines mocks her. “Our success stands and falls with the Pretender project.”

“That’s what you call him? The Pretender project? He is a little boy and his name is Jarod!”

A sneer forms on Raines’ face. In contrary to his smile it actually reaches his eyes and turns them into glowing embers.

“Touching,” he whispers menancingly. “But there is really nothing you can do, is there, Catherine?

Catherine’s eyes fill with tears.

“Don’t be too sure!”

Jarod

Not quite sure what to do about Thomas Gates, I had decided to tie him up on the backseat and tell him to shut up. Maybe he would be useful later on, maybe I would realize that it had been a stupid idea to take him along. I didn’t care.

Parker was far more important right now.

My foot firmly on the accelerator, I tried to come up with some possibility of it somehow being my fault. I shouldn’t have let her go on her own, but then Broots had been with her… maybe I shouldn’t have let her meet Gates in the first place, but then she would have gone anyway…

I swallowed. Focus. Focus on what has to be done.

Hell, I would tear the whole damn building apart if it was necessary. A new surge of energy, newly based on determined rage launched me into kicking the mph even higher.

Looking back, I always wondered whether I should be more shocked or less shocked than I had initially been upon seeing Catherine Parker that misty morning. Back then, years ago, I had looked into her eyes and seen a coldness there that had been absolutely new to me. Never before had I seen her face look that hard, her jaw set so tightly. The image had imprinted itself into my mind and managed to jolt my stomach everytime I conjured it up from the depths of my memory.

But nowadays that stare was all too familiar. I knew these eyes to burn like fire, to seem to pierce through people’s skin. Only that they hadn’t looked from Catherine’s face, but from that of her daughter. Given their extraordinary close resemblance, it always seemed like a deja-vu.

“I need to talk to you, Sydney.”

Her voice had betrayed the angry determination in her face and I had almost been relieved to hear that under that dangerous scowl still remained gentle, loving Catherine Parker.

She had sat down, little Miss Parker in her lap, leaning against her chest and grabbing for the long necklace Catherine was wearing. She had been too young then to understand anything of what we were saying. Barely able to sit in her mother’s lap and curiously eyeing the environment of my office, Miss Parker had remained oblivious to the horrors her mother had told me about.

“Sydney. I’ve always had a good bit of intuition and although it has obviously abandoned me when I married little Michelle’s father, it has usually served me well. Only when I was pregnant with Mischa, I began to have strange episodes. At first it wasn’t something I paid much attention to. It were just little things, like knowing that my husband stood in front of the door without him having made a sound, or knowing who was on the phone before I’d picked it up, but then it became weird. I knew I would have twins before my doctor did. And I began to have… visions. It sounds incredibly stupid, but after I had trained myself a little, I could conjur them up instead of them hitting me randomly. I would think of something and there would be an image in my mind, names, places… It was downright scary.”

I had looked at her, my breath shallow, afraid of what was to come.

“I told my husband one evening and although he waved it aside, he obviously informed William Raines who approached me the next day. He made me believe hypnosis would help me explore the reason for my new talent. He said he’d read some research on things like that happening and I… I went along with it. I was so stupid, Sydney. I was just so curious… I don’t remember well what I have seen. I am convinced now that it wasn’t just hypnosis. He must have injected me with some kind of drug…” She looked down upon the little girl in her lap, whose eyes were drooping right now, ready to fall asleep. “I am just so relieved that they didn’t hurt Mischa. Maybe they hurt my little boy. I don’t know…” There had been the usual edge in her voice that was always there when she talked about her dead son.

“Anyway…” She’d visibly pulled herself together, desperate to get the story off her conscious. “I must have told him something… I just can’t remember what that was… I think… I think it had to do with the Pretender project…” She sighed.

“I feel so guilty Sydney. Since I have given birth my sense has left me. I guess I only had that special ability when I was pregnant. But what I can still tell is that Raines’ has exploited it to do something truly evil. I just can’t say what.”

All I had been able to do was take her hand and comfort her, but the guilt had never left her.

I wondered why I hadn’t remembered that fateful day earlier. Now that they had Parker, it had suddenly returned to me and although I knew they would keep her alive, I was terribly worried.

What was worse that I felt so guilty. I had been the only one who would have been able to see through Raines’ evil sheme. Why had I instead chosen to abandon my protegee? Catherine would have never forgiven me for exposing her daughter to this danger although I should have known better.

Catherine hadn’t been able to live with the guilt, had tried to rescue Jarod and thus fallen from grace with the Centre management. It had ultimately been the death of her and I owed it to her to at least save her daughter.

If only I knew how.

I had not realized that I had fallen asleep. I just remembered the headache blurring my sight, darkness descending upon me, different images making my stomach turn as they came flying at me.

Now I was startled awake by the sound of the door. Still groggily blinking against the light, I found myself firmly pushed into the matrace by a male hand that was quickly and efficiently placed on my chest. For a moment I was disorientated and even forgot to squirm. My slow reaction was what it took to completely pin me down.

I was not surprised to be faced with my brother.

“Hello, Michelle.” The throaty whisper differed so much from his usual pointed calling me ‘Sis’ that it sent a shiver down my spine. The usage of my first name had always foreshadowed sinister things. That was the reason I didn’t like to be called by it, why it pained me to hear it, why I angrily brushed it aside whenever it left someone’s lips.

This time was no exception.

“I took the liberty to disable the surveillance system,” he said nonchalantly, still easily holding me on my back. I dared not move, fearing the mad light that flickered in his eyes like a torchlight moving behind a black window.

“I’ve always liked black on you.” His voice was light and conversational, as if he was on a date, complimenting his companion in a slightly superficial way. Given my inferior position and our being completely alone and unobserved, I felt panic rise inside me.

He brushed my left cheek with his right forefinger, tracing the line of my cheekbone back to my throat. His fingertips moved into the hollow beneath my chin and I stiffened as I was sure his fingers would tighten around my neck anytime soon. Instead he removed his hand and gave me the most gruesome of smiles.

“I never realized I wanted you down and helpless like this,” he said with a note of amusement creeping inside his voice. My headache kept me from truly receiving any of his emotions but what remained clear was that I was not dealing with insanity. He was cold, collected and knew very well what he was doing. A terrible mixture.

“I’ve always been quite amused with the way you fought me. Even found it quite sexy, you know, Mischa.”

Finally the paralyzing fear was replaced with anger. How dared he call me my mother’s nickname for me? How did he even know?

“I never felt too guilty for my desire for you even though we are twins,” he said. “It would be sick if we’d grown up together, but like this…”

I could see in his eyes that he actually believed his own words, that he meant what he said and I shuddered.

My sister shuddered which I took as a sign of pleasure. She might feel somehow connected to Jarod, but deep down she had to have at least once, when she hadn’t known about our being twins, desired me.

Her pale skin was a nice contrast to her dark hair and black clothes and I was longing to press my lips upon her burgundy ones.

“You are so beautiful.” I said, matter of factly, but it came out as a husky whisper. Her eyes widened and her hand came up. I was about to catch it so she wouldn’t try to hurt me, but then allowed her to place it upon my upper arm as she had originally intended.

She pulled her leg up slightly as if in pleasure and I bent down in order to finally kiss her and run my hand along her perfectly shaped silhouette. She had all the graceful slenderness that I had always admired about Asian women, coupled with her considerable hight, which I loved.

She made no move to stop me as I descended my lips upon hers, but then, with our faces only inches apart she slightly cocked her head and gave me a smile that was, in fact, very sweet.

“Lyle,” she breathed and sounded the perfect mix between dreamy and seductive. Her voice was very low and only for a second I losened my grip on her. Her leg shot up the same moment that her fingernails dug into my shoulder. She threw me off her with such force that I momentarily lost balance.

“You sick bastard!” she growled. “Take your dirty hands off me!”

She was on her legs before I had caught my balance and shoved me against the wall.

“How dare you! How dare you!” she yelled, pressing her lower arm into my throat, cutting off my circulation for the moment. Unable to speak I could only open and close my mouth, trying to throw her back.

How embarassing, I thought, as she sent a blow against my head that made me stagger. Being beat up by my pregnant sister…

“If you think that I’d ever as much as consider you as a lover, you must be freaking mad!” Her voice was growing louder but was well below being able to be heard by the guards whom, with quite a different scenario in mind, I had sent away before.

For the first time I regretted my decision to disable surveillance.

“I would say that I was sorry, but I was taught not to tell lies.”

And then she hit me so hard that everything went black around me.

The satisfaction I felt about Lyle’s crumbling to the floor lasted only momentarily. I knew that my ordeal was far from over. For a moment I sat down on the bed, one hand on my stomach, rubbing it to calm my baby.

“I’m sorry, love.” I told her. “I’m just trying to get us out of here alive.”

After I had calmed down I got up again and started pulling the sheets off the bed to tie my brother up. How came my family was so incredibly twisted that my own brother was trying to get into my pants? I wanted to throw up.

I shuddered at the thought, wishing nothing than to be out of here and not to have to return to this godforsaken place ever again.

When I had finished tieing my brother up like a package, I pulled the bed away from the wall and was relieved to actually find the air-vent where it was supposed to be. Kicking the grate with all the strength I had left, I sank back onto the floor, gasping for air. It had been some time since I had attended the Centre’s compulsory martial arts courses. However, my lack in training still left my skills. A few more well aimed kicks and the old metal crumbled away.

I gave a snort of hysterical laughter as I remembered suggesting to renew said vents due to their being quite old and having been turned down by some mindless Centre accountant with an overeager calculator. Life was funny, sometimes. I crawled in and, for gaining a few minutes, pulled at the bed until it was reasonably close to its former position.

I began to crawl along the dimly lit duct. Then, a few meters on, I suddenly stopped in my tracks feeling the pain spread through my stomach making me whimper, then groan.

Suddenly the headache seemed to fade into the background, as the other pain made my head spin along with the sudden fear for my baby.

I crawled on, then felt my strength leave me and lay down on the hard metal floor, praying for my luck not to leave me right now.

I didn’t feel pleasure at the sight of an unconscious, tied up Lyle. I rather felt panic at the absence of his sister.

Whirling around I could see no trace of her. Had the Pretender rescued her? Goddamn Sydney? Whoever? I didn’t care who had done the deed with the only thing I knew was that I had just lost my last chance at reestablishing the Centre. The Triumvirate wouldn’t take anymore excuses, had seen through the faked reports a long time ago. They had complained about our strained relations to the mafia, had expressed their disbelief at how we didn’t manage to return a lone man to the Centre, hadn’t listened to me. To them, the Centre was a corporation, a money making machine, not the life it was to me.

That moment, when I stood in the cell, next to yet another member of the hated Parker clan, I resigned.

Gone were the aches, the nervous trembling of my hands that I had tried to hide from everyone. My sole wish was what had been denied for me in months: A few hours of sleep, or, rather, endless sleep.

Eternal sleep.

We all have emergency plans and I was no different. The Centre was my life and I would go down with this ship. Meaning I would go up in flames with it.

And everyone else, too.

I turned around and listened to the hated sound of the wheels of the oxygen tank. I walked towards the door, then let my eyes sweep over the cheerless room one last time. If this was where we would die, so be it.

I was once again startled into wakefulness by a shock. The smell of fire, the ear-shattering sound of an explosion and a horrible scream, like the uproar of a dying animal, hit me all at once as I scrambled to my hands and knees.

My stomach still hurt, but it faded into the background of my mind as the outcries of desperation and pain reached it. It was so wide open for the suffering of whomever was dying in the explosion behind the vent, that I couldn’t stand it but started to sob, frantically crawling away from its source.

I needed to keep a clear mind, but I just couldn’t. The smoke invaded my nostrils and obscured my sight. I started to cough, then fought for air but did only inhale smoke. Tears were pouring down my face and the panic began to take over me.

Oh please don’t let me die here, god. I prayed. I have practically done everything wrong in my life. I have never been a good person, but please don’t let me die here today with the only good thing I have ever accomplished in my life.

My hand brushed my stomach where my sweaty t-shirt clung to the skin. A mere minute later I couldn’t do it anymore, my hands couldn’t stand the hot metal underneath, the smoke became black and I felt myself sink to the ground once again.

I had given up trying to make conversation with a very grim looking Jarod and my thoughts wandered back to when we’d first met.

I had been in some godforsaken little city that, apart from some ridiculous youth gangs, lacked any kind of organized criminal activity that I might have made a few bucks with, so I had decided to use my skills as a carpenter for a change.

It had actually been quite enjoyable despite the fact that the money wasn’t half as good as usual. One morning when I had closed my eyes to wipe the sweat away from my brow, a man had suddenly stood in front of me, smiling. He had extended his hand and introduced himself as Jarod Taylor, a name I had later learned he had chosen for its reference to the TV-show Home Improvement. He’d been working with me for a while before revealing to me just why we were paid so badly. Turned out that I was working for a criminal and simply oblivious to it. So although usually I didn’t mind in the slightest whether my employee abode to the law, since this time it was a disadvantage to me, I helped Jarod take the guy apart.

And that was that.

And even Jarod noticed that, apart from my obvious disinterest in being a model citizen getting a regular job which he didn’t know about, I was really a nice guy. No idea what got him to point one hell of a hot chick with raven hair and endless legs out to me, but before I could actually make a move, I was faced with three men, dressed in black and looking like a group of mafiosi from a B-movie. They’d brought me into a building and I had a chat with a guy named Mister Parker who’d explained a very nice kind of job to me.

Why would I have said no? It’s not a crime to knock a girl up, is it?

And indeed we did have a nice time together.

Why on earth did I begin to feel guilty right now? Maybe because the whole thing had spiralled out of control lately…

I leaned forward.

“Jarod…” I began, but he waved me aside angrily as he employed a quite ruthless way of driving to get to his girl as soon as possible.

“Jarod”, I said again, pointing towards the sky with my head. “Isn’t that where the Centre is located?”

He took his eyes from the road for a moment and paled as he saw the black smoke curling into the blue sky and turning it a sickly grey.

“Oh my god…” he whispered.

And that very moment I felt something that I hadn’t felt in a while. Regret. Poor Parker, I thought. Sure, I had betrayed her trust, caused her a lot of pain, but I had never wanted her to die in the flames of the prison of her youth burning to the ground.

The pain became almost bearable as soon as I couldn’t distinguish it from the heat of the flames anymore. I imagined it as it would happen.

The room would fill with smoke and so would the airvents.

Miss Parker, back when still chief of security, had always complained about the lack of precautions in case of a fire. Little had she known that it hadn’t been the mistake it had been labelled. Instead I had always knowingly kept it that way.

Prisoners and employees were too well watched to actually set anything on fire, but if a high powered executive like me would do it in the right place, there was no way any stone of this building would remain on top of the other.

I had been taking care of that.

Flames burst through the doors, made the metal glow a ghostly orange. I heard the old steel joints groan in agony and the building structure scream out in pain like a wounded beast coming down.

Around me the flames danced and lambently crawled towards the ceiling.

I was filled with a curious mixture of pain, regret and irrepresseable joy that seized me. Oh how glorious the fire bringing down this building from which all our lives had been ruined, souls –including mine- had been turned black and unspeakable deeds had been done inside these walls.

I thought about Nero who had set Rome on fire and sat above the city, admiring the heavenly fire consuming a city that had seemed invincible to those it had ruled over.

The same was happening here and like back then it was not just a building burning to the ground. It was so much more than that…

Finally the smoke filled my lungs and I inhaled it as eagerly as I had once inhaled the smoke of the cigarettes. And it killed me just as well. Only that I felt that I had been dead for years.

There was no way I would reach the Centre building by car since dozens of cars were pouring out of the lot, speeding away from the burning monster. Smoke and fire leaked from the windows, half the south wing had already collapsed. The air was filled with ashes, and black smoke that rose above the building like a tornado and blackened out the sun.

I pressed the sleeve of my shirt against my mouth and nose and ran towards the building, knowing that I didn’t stand much of a chance.

Still there was the image of Miss Parker in my mind as I had confronted her in one of the sunlit hallways up there that were now filled with smoke and fire. The sad look in her eyes as I had accused her of being a heartless person, addicted to power just like her father hurt me now.

“No wonder you’ve been trying to keep it from Broots and me. What did they offer you, Miss Parker? Freedom to walk away? Or was it what all Parker’s have ever fallen for: Power?”

I heard a security guard give another one the thumbs up as the evacuation plan had obviously worked well. On a Sunday, there was only the minimum staff operating anyway so whomever had set the building on fire’d had mercy on the employees.

“Sir, you can’t go in there!” A fireman caught my arm and held me back firmly.

“The basement is already burnt. It’s only a matter of time until the building will collapse.”

The horror sank in slowly as the hot air made my skin glow.

“I am looking for a young woman. She’s pregnant and I think she is still in there!”

“Don’t worry, Sir. We got everyone out in time,” he answered.

For a split second, I was almost relieved, but then a shocking bit of knowledge returned to my mind. Evil as all Centre operatives were, the evacuation plan did not include the prison.

And so I pushed the man aside and ran across the lot towards the building.

The smoke became almost impenetrable and the hot air started to burn inside my lungs. The main entrance was barely visible in front of me, the glass of the windows shattered by an explosion and crunching beneath my shoes.

There were yells behind me, but nobody dared to come any closer to the fire. I heard water splash into the other wing but knew instinctively that there was no chance to save the building.

Heck, I didn’t want the damn hellhole saved, but I needed to find Parker. I stopped in my tracks as one of the steel joints collapsed right in front of me and crashed to the floor, taking half the ceiling of the entrance hall with it.

I could hear the roar of an explosion somewhere underneath me and the floor rocked with its power.

More tears sprang to my eyes and this time they weren’t caused by the smoke.

Whereever Parker was, she was dead by now.

I stopped, unable to move with the guilt that weighed down upon me, sending me crashing to my knees. I closed my eyes, feeling the heat of the fire on my face, the dust tickling down on me. I longed for the crisp cold winter air, but knew that I wouldn’t breathe it again.

At least I had done all I could….

“Sydney!”

I blinked my eyes, looked up at the person standing next to me with worried blue eyes. There she was. The angel she had always been to me.

“Catherine….” I whispered, knowing that this was the hour of my death and grateful for the fact that there was a higher entity that had sent me this woman to guide me although I did not deserve it.

“I’m so sorry…. I couldn’t save Mischa…” I whispered, feeling the softness of her hot skin on mine as she took my hand.

Catherine walked slightly doubled over, her beautiful face streaked with black dust, her hair a tangled mass around it.

“Come with me, Sydney!” she yelled over the tumbling down of another wall. And suddenly there was another arm grabbing mine and they pulled me to my feet together. I turned left and saw the worried face of Angelo.

“Catherine…” I murmured again, disorientated and short of breath.

“Damnit, Sydney,” she answered curtly. “It’s me. Parker!”

Relief flooded me when I regarded her quickly as we set in motion towards the door. I wasn’t faced with the ghost of Catherine as my clouded mind had assumed but with her daughter in the flesh. She’d stripped down to her tank top and trousers, walking gingerly with an arm around her stomach, her face exhausted, but her eyes shining with determination.

She had made it… thank god, she had made it!

I felt my body weaken with every step that Angelo and I dragged Sydney towards the exit. I had woken from unconsciousness to the worried face of Angelo, his large childlike eyes peering down upon me.

“Come… danger!” he had whispered in the whining tones that usually annoyed me, but made me cry out in relief today. I had thrown my arms around his neck, abandoning my give-a-damn attitude towards him for a few seconds.

Before I’d known it, he had scooped me up in his arms and carried me along the corridor he must have dragged me into from the air-vent.

I had already been able to hear the flames from the fire that was raging underneath, but I had felt oddly safe with my arms around Angelos’s neck, admiring his surprising strength as he turned corners, absolutely confident as to where he was headed.

Finally we had made it to the main hall where the fire was consuming everything that the Centre had represented and found Sydney kneeling on the floor, obviously crying.

The smoke had weakened the three of us and I still wasn’t sure whether we would make it out of here alive as hot ashes and burning pieces of wood were raining down upon us. I launched into a coughing fit and had to stop for a moment.

Sydneys red-rimmed eyes looked at me with anguish and he soothed me by stroking my back in a tired motion.

“Don’t give up, Mischa,” he said and I couldn’t prevent myself from wincing once again with the usage of my first name.

Angelo dragged us forward, his empathic instinct helping us along as he assessed the situation very quickly. My empathic abilities, however, were weakend to zero by the pain in my stomach that raged like the fire around me.

I doubled over slightly as it got worse once again and clung to Sydney whose arm around my shoulder seemed no longer serve to support him but me.

“I am so sorry…” he rasped into my ear. “I am so sorry… I should have known about this… I am so sorry I assumed the worst…”

“You knew about the plan?” I coughed, afraid that I would never find out and suddenly desperate to learn the truth.

“Your mother told me about what they had planned… and she tried to save you along with the other children. It’s just… I thought they’d given up on it… but of course they hadn’t… You know… they have tried to train your sense before… do you remember?”

“What do you see?”

I tried hard to concentrate on the image that had plagued me earlier in the cell and unsettled me so badly but still I couldn’t come up with it. A memory… another lost memory… buried beneath years of denial…

The mind exercise was too much and suddenly my physical strength left me altogether. I touched my hand to my forehead and withdrew it, staring in horror at the blood it was newly covered in.

The world around me began to spin uncontrollably, the flames hissing by, ever threatening to turn me into their collateral damage in its wake.

I heard someone yell my name, then Angelo’s arms closed around me and pulled me down as my legs had begun to give way beneath me.

I knew I was about to die but still everything I could still think about was my little girl.

I didn’t know why I had allowed Thomas Gates to accompany me in the first place but now I was glad to have someone who helped break through the line of firemen who tried to restrain us from running towards the building.

He shoved the guy and followed me through the haze of smoke and ashes towards the dying giant in front of us. Although I still hated what he had done to Parker, I felt somehow connected to him as we ran next to each other, pumping all our energy into our legs to get to her faster.

We broke through the entrance, the once imposing entrance hall a battlefield of shattered columns and pieces of marble that lay scattered across the ashen covered floor.

And there they were. Only metres away from the entrance that would have saved them, Angelo crouched next to Parker, Sydney behind them, half kneeling on the floor.

My relief was only temporary as the groaning of a huge column next to them snapped me out of it. Thomas’ reaction was quicker than mine, however.

The world seemed to sink into slow motion when he lurched forward and threw himself towards Parker, shoved her towards me and hit the floor where she had been.

The deafening sound of the collapsing stone tuned out his scream when it buried him underneath. For a moment I simply stared at this man sacrifizing himself for the woman who had loved him, then automatically kneeled down, gently picked Parker’s limp body up and turned around, Sydney and Angelo following slowly.

Fueled by a sudden strength I didn’t know I still possessed, I dodged parts of debris that came raining down on us and narrowly avoided the flames that were reaching for us, Sydney supported by Angelo right next to me.

Still, the only thing I could think of was Parker, ghastly pale, the left half of her face almost entirely covered in blood whose source I could not yet make out. I cradled her head to my chest to protect it from the raging fire around us.

“You’re strong, Miss Parker…” I whispered. “You can do this.”

But I wasn’t sure whether she was still alive. I pressed her body against mine but still couldn’t make out a heartbeat.

A moment later we stepped out into the cold winter air, to safety.

Jarod was a nervous wreck while all of us were treated for minor smoke poisoning. Miss Parker, however, who had been exposed to the fire for far longer than any of us, had been wheeled into the ER immediatley.

I had never before seen Jarod, usually a gentle man, treat anyone as roughly as he did the attending doctor.

Finally, when the young man had lost his patience with us, Angelo and I sat in the waiting room of the hospital while Jarod was pacing nervously in front of us. The fact that the Centre had been brought down in front of our eyes in the literal sense, didn’t serve to cheer his dark mood.

“What the hell are they doing in there?” he exclaimed. “And why don’t they tell us anything? She might be dead for all we know!”

At these words he sank into a chair and dropped his head into his hands. His voice was much lower when he continued. “I’m scared for her, Sydney. I’m so scared for her…”

I patted his arm. Sharing his worries was the only thing I could do right now.

Finally, half an hour later, a doctor approached us, easily recognizeable as Miss Parker’s companions by the distinct smell of smoke that hung above us like a cloud and the dark streaks across our faces.

Jarod was on his feet before anyone could say anything. “How is she?”

“Please, Sir, I need you to calm down for this,” the physician said and Jarod drew a rattling breath that conveyed both impatience and dread.

“Please?” he then asked in a quiet, terrified voice.

The doctor seemed satisfied now. He looked very trustworthy, being a tall man with a shock of white hair that framed a kind face with sharply intelligent blue eyes.

“She has been exposed to the smoke for a long time and she has also lost quite some blood through her head injuries. Her vital functions did stop for a moment before the paramedics attended to her on the scene… she is unconscious now. Though it looks as if her baby was fine for now.”

He, too, saw the horrified look in Jarod’s eyes and reached out for the younger man, squeezing his arm slightly.

“I am sorry. We will have to see whether she will make it through the night.”

“May I stay with her?” Jarod asked, his voice almost pleading now and the doctor nodded towards the rest of us.

“You are the child’s father I presume?”

“Yes.”

“I can only allow one person in her room at a time. I would advice for the others to rest a little so you can take turns on her beside. It will be a long night.”

He went around to give our limp hands a firm shake, then left down the corridor. I followed Jarod until the edge of the door.

“I’ll stay, Jarod. Call me if you need me, okay?”

He nodded numbly and placed his shaking hand onto the doorknob. Giving me a last glance, he stepped through the door and into the hall.

Miss Parker’s pale skin glowed even in the semi-darkness of the room. Her eyes were closed, her face unusually calm. Around it, her now auburn hair was spread across the pillow. I approached the bed and gently picked up one of her hands from her stomach as I took my seat on the chair next to the bed.

Unsure whether I was to talk to her or whether I could even trust my voice, I cleared my throat quietly.

Outside the moon was raising, vanishing and reappearing between the dark clouds of the night sky. The leafless branches of the trees stood against the white wall of the opposite building like arms desperately reaching out into the air. I did not hear anything except for the sound of the heart-monitors for which, despite its annoying tune, I was eternally grateful.

“He said we had to wait for you to make it through the night,” I told her, whispering for the simple reason of my voice being made husky by grief and the smoke that might be responsible for her death.

“I know you would hate me for giving you a cheesy speech about how much I love you and how it would shatter me to lose you,” I went on, a little more sure now. There was still no motion on her face, no flutter of the eyelids or tugging on the corner of her mouth.

I ran my other hand along the delicate curve of her stomach and drew a deep breath. We often imagine the horrors of losing someone we love. Sometimes we pause in our hectic schedule to look up and wonder, if only for a second, what it would be like to lose someone so very close to us.

It is only in these moments when we are waiting- for a diagnosis, a message, the dawn, when we realize just how much it hurts. It wretches your insides, has fear paralyze your limbs and it feels as if your heart is cut out.

There is nothing romantic about that kind of fear, and nothing anyone could do to soothe you. I had always been prepared to one day learn of Miss Parker’s death. Of her having committed suicide to escape the horrible life she was forced to lead, or for her to having crashed her car into a tree because she’d once again been drunk. I’d never imagined losing her like this, or being able to sit by her bedside, having to endure the waiting.

I had wondered what I would say, what I would feel but nothing had prepared me for this. I was beyond words.

Silently, I leaned forward and rested my head next to hers.

Don’t die on me, Parker, I thought and inhaled her scent that was barely detectable through the smoky air.

The night dragged on, the minutes only passing slowly. I was so high on caffeine, that I had started pacing the corridor. Unable to endure imagining the impact her death would have on all of us, I finally sank onto a bench and buried my head in my hands. Don’t die, Mischa.

Broots

I woke to my own laboured breathing. Unable to catch the bad dream I’d had, I stared into the darkness of my hospital room. Sydney had called earlier, causing in me a feeling of wild triumph as the grim monster that had eaten my future away had been defeated. But then he’d broken the news of Miss Parker’s condition. I checked my watch on the nightstand. Three o’clock. The morning light was still far away. I felt the sharp pain in my shoulder and inhaled deeply. It was nothing compared to the pain I would feel if Miss Parker actually died. Please don’t.

There was a maze I was trying to navigate through. I knew perfectly well that I was dreaming, but still the need to get to the destination I was heading to was more pressing than anything. But still something seemed to hold me back.

Voices. A chorus of voices, calling me by the various names I had been called by over the years. Mischa, Michelle, Miss Parker… Parker.

My family name.

Oh god how I hated my family name. How I hated anything that was associated to the Centre. I imagined the hot wind and the Greek sun on my skin. I had been happy there as a young girl at boarding-school. Why couldn’t I go back and start anew? Why hadn’t my mother survived and found a way to take me away and keep me safe?

I had hoped so badly that alcohol and cigarettes would eventually kill me, or that Lyle would do it, or anyone. Just so I didn’t have to take it into my own hands. Curious, how despite all the bitterness and the pain a small part of me had still believed in the knight in the shining armour that would one day take me away. At first, I had imagined it to be Jarod. Later I had believed I could start a new life with Thomas in Oregon. The truth was, that I’d never stood a chance with either of them.

My life was just so incredibly twisted, so filled with pain, that a premature death seemed to be the inevitable end to it.

“Angel! I wonder where the Parker spirit has gone.”

I turn around to gaze into the eyes of my father. Only that they are different from how I remember them. Has he ever shown the tiniest trace of emotion in his lifetime? I wonder. I don’t answer him, just stare at his face, try to read what he is feeling.

“You still have a life, stupid girl,” he scolds, every bit the disapproving father he has always been.

“God, how I hate you!” I suddenly burst out. “How dare you assume that you know anything about me?”

“I am your father,” he replies and I laugh out.

“So you’re telling me to go back and live this life? I assume I am on the verge of death! Why don’t they send me my mother?”

He looks at me and slightly shakes his head.

“There is only one lesson to be told,” he says. “Life is pain, but it is still there to be lived.” He reaches out for me. “Take my hand, Angel.”

I feel fury rise inside me. “Oh thank you, Daddy. You alone have given me enough pain for several lifetimes!”

He bends his head as if in regret. It just doesn’t suit him.

“I know,” he finally admitts. “So if there is one thing that I can do for you it is to send you back.”

I approach him and try to grip his throat. “And if I don’t want to go back? I am sick of it all. I am so sick of it all…”

Tears are threatening to fall and as they spill across my cheeks, I give a sob of frustration.

“I didn't have a life. But you do.”
”No, you have taken that life from me.”
”Dammit! You are a fighter,” he scolds again.

“I don’t want to be anymore…” I turn away, having firmly decided that I will walk on that path.

“You told Sydney that your mother had been weak when you still thought she had shot herself in that elevator.”
I freeze, my shoulders sag and I turn around slowly.

“Are you omnicient just because your dead?” I ask.

“Too many people are depending on you now,” he tells me. “You can’t just leave them.”

I give a jolt of sarcastic laughter. “And here I was believing you to be a misanthrope.”

He crosses his arms in front of his chest. “I am. But you are not.”

“You tried your best to make me into one.”
”But I never succeeded.”

“Don’t die on me, Parker.”

“Don’t die, Mischa.”

”Please don’t.“

He is holding his hand out to me now. “Please, Angel. I was never able to love you when I was alive, but I am now.”

I want to see a Daddy I can love in this man. I really want to believe that he finally sees me for what I am, that he has stopped detesting me. I just can’t. Not even here. Not even now.

Still I need to voice what I have always felt, regardless of the circumstances of my miserable life.

“I love you, Daddy.”

“And I love you, Angel.”

He holds my gaze for a moment and for the first time I see honesty in his eyes. For the first time I am sure that he is not lying to me.
And I finally take his hand.

Centre Surveillance System

The little girl is sitting at a table on a chair that seems far too large for her. It is only with difficulty that she can place her hands onto the table. Her gaze, however, is clear and sharp as she looks at the man opposite her.

His bulging eyes and intimidating posture do not seem to startle her.

“Why are you not afraid of me, Miss Parker?” he asks.

“Why don’t you call me Michelle, Mister Raines?” she asks in a friendly voice.

“Now, Michelle, you haven’t answered my question, have you?”

The girl shrugs as if he had been asking about her favourite color.

“I can feel that you will not hurt me.”
Mister Raines looks intrigued now and leans forward across the table.

“Has your mother told you how to read people?” he asks, something very closely resembling greed seeping into his voice by accident.

“Noone can tell you how to read people,” she says wisely. “You either can or you cannot.”

“Has your mother told you that?”

She nods eagerly. “And Uncle Sydney.”

Raines leans back again, folding his arms across his chest.

“Have they taught you how to use that skill?”

She wavers for the first time. “I am not to tell,” she finally admitts.

“So they have.”

“Why are you angry at them?”

Raines looks slightly taken aback. “So you are that good.”

He suddenly jumps up and leans far across the table grabbing little Miss Parker’s shoulder.

“I want you to concentrate on your mother now, Michelle. What do you see?”

She shakes her head. “I don’t…”

“Concentrate.” His voice has risen and his grip has become harder. Miss Parker winces.

“You’re hurting me, Sir.”

He losens the grip. “I won’t if you simply tell me what you see.”
She closes her eyes, concentrates, then shrieks.

“No!”

“Do you see your mother?”

She struggles, tries to get up.

“Mommy! No!”

A predatory grin has spread over Raines’ face. “What do you see, Michelle? What do you see?”

“Mommy!” she shouts again, tears spilling over her face.

“MICHELLE- what do you see?”

She lurches backwards, her chair crashing against the wall.

“NO!” She blinks, sways for a second, then races for the door.

Mister Raines remains at the table, knowing what she will find when she will approach the elevator: The body of her dead mother.

He listens to her cries that echo through the corridors and shakes his head. It is only a single word that he mutters under his breath: “Extraordinary.”

A sweeper is trying to hold Miss Parker back as she makes for her mother’s body, tears smeared across her face.

“Michelle!” he calls and she suddenly goes rigid. She turns around to him and there is a sudden hardness in her eyes. “Never call me that again. It’s Miss Parker.”
And so it remains.

A soft sigh startles me awake instantly. The sky has turned a lighter shade of blue, the moon is already growing paler, but my attention is focused on the woman in front of me. Miss Parker’s eyes are open, staring intently at me.

My heart leaps and I squeeze her hand that I have been holding in mine all night.

“Parker…” I whisper, my voice still heavy with sleep, but she doesn’t answer, just stares at me with that clear focused gaze that scares me a bit.

“Are you okay?” I whisper.

“Who are you?” she asks, her voice only a faint whisper and an icy hand seems to grip my heart. Then she breaks into a tiny grin.

“I love you, Jarod.”

My heart skips a beat and I press her knuckles to my lips.

“Never do that to me again!”
”Are the others okay?” she asks me, clearly exhausted by the sole effort of keeping her eyes open.

“They are, Parker, they are.”

“Somehow I can’t believe it will ever be over even with Raines, my father and Lyle dead… there’s still the Triumvirate.”

I shake my head.

“The Pretender project was all they were interested in and with the authorities now swarming the place, I’m sure they have given up the Centre branch in Blue Cove for good.”

We sit in silence for a moment. What do they say? The past is just the future with the lights on…

We have been stuck in the past for such a long time that I am sure we are both determined to concentrate on the future now. But there is one last thing…

“What happened to you-run-I-chase?” I ask, only half joking.

She gives me a tired but sincere smile and I have to lean forward to be able to make out what she is telling me: “Say it very quickly, five times after another. Sounds funny!”

Broots

It is a rainy day and I can taste the salt of the ocean on my lips as I follow a very eager Debbie across the wet sand.

“Hurry, Daddy!” she calls back over her shoulder, once again forgetting that I have been discharged from hospital only a few weeks ago.

“I am coming, darling!” I shout over the noise of the wounded birds, the crashing of the waves and the people shouting orders at each other.

The oil is visible in the water, black poison spreading through the water.

The seagull in my arms gives a weak sound and struggles slightly, but I hold onto its freshly cleaned body.

Finally we have arrived in a cleaner spot, where the carpet of oil on top of the water doesn’t seem quite as threatening.

Debbie is overjoyed with anticipation as she helps me sit the seagull on the clean sand. We have spent the last few rainy spring afternoons caring for the birds, helping as much as we could after oil has leaked from a stranded ship close to the coast.

When we learned of it, we immediately volunteered to help. Especially Debbie has been pressing me to do it before after my sickleave, I would start a new job with a local software- firm who had been quite impressed with my abilities concerning security systems.

“Are you ready?” I ask and when my daughter nodds, step back, pulling her with me. The bird looks at us with its curious black eyes, then extends its wing, the clean feathers spreading easily. Finally it gets up, shakes its little head and starts into the pale blue sky. I shield my eyes with my hands against a sudden beam of sunlight that penetrates the rain-clouds.

We can't know whether the bird will make it or whether it will be hurt again but the feeling of seeing its final freedom is gratifying enough.

I feel tears prick in my eyes – Miss Parker would probably call me a wimp for it- and put my arm around my daughter’s shoulders, pulling her closer to me. As I see the bird circle in the sky, giving a cry that I decide is one of happiness, I feel reminded of someone I know.

“Debbie?”

“Yes, Daddy?”

“What do you think? Should we call this one Michelle?”

The End