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Chapter or Story 
Chapter or Story
Disclaimer: The Characters Miss Parker, Sydney, Jarod, Broots and The Center are all property of MTM, TNT and NBC Productions and are used without permission. No money has been involved here and no infringement is intended. 11/17/2002
A Voice Heard in Ramah (Part 4 - Progeny Delta Progeny Epsilon) By Phenyx
As Jarod slept on the nearby bed, Parker watched the first DSA from the Progeny Delta project.
On the viewer, the black and white image showed a brightly lit room containing three plastic cradles lined up like the newborn nursery in any regular hospital. Two of the cradles held sleeping infants.
The walls were painted with large shapes, circles, triangles and squares. The monochromatic format of the DSAs prevented any determination of color in the room but Parker imagined that the shapes must have been bright primary colors.
A single nurse dressed in a white uniform, paced the length of the room. A third infant was cradled in the crook of her arm while it suckled at a bottle of formula.
"That's a good boy." The woman soothed. After the baby had emptied the bottle, the nurse placed the tiny body against her shoulder and burped him.
The infant gurgled contentedly as the woman stroked the tuft of dark hair on his head.
Parker felt a deep hatred forming for the unknown woman. Jealousy clawed in the pit of her stomach as she realized that this video was over four years old. Parker would never feel her child on her shoulder the way the woman in the DSA had.
Parker reached out and flipped the DSA on to a faster playing speed. The first several months of recordings were all the same. Women in white uniforms would come in to feed and change a child when it cried. There was obviously scheduled playtime when someone would come and perform educational exercises with each infant.
After a few weeks, Parker noticed a pattern developing in the children. The babies' schedules began to coincide with each other. By the time the DSAs had been recording for 2 months, three nurses had replaced the one nurse previously in attendance. The three boys cried at the same time, slept at the same time and were active at the same time. Whether Raines had designed the project that way or the children had fallen into the routine on their own, Parker couldn't tell.
Parker pulled the disk from the machine and replaced it with another.
In this recording, the babies were sitting on the floor, surrounded by blocks and big balls. They crawled about the floor, happily gurgling and sticking things in their mouths. Two new women, clad in the ever-present white uniform sat cross-legged on the floor helping the children make towers with the blocks.
With a sad smile on her face, Parker stroked the image on the viewer. She laughed at the playful tumbling of the dark-haired trio.
After several minutes, Parker moved on to another disk.
There was now a small table and three little chairs in the room. Another woman held each child's hand as she led the toddler to the chairs. The exercise for this day consisted of learning to stay in the chair. The youngsters had recently learned to walk and would stumble away moments after being seated. The woman would patiently lead the baby back to the chair and then retrieve the next child.
Parker shook her head and forwarded the recording another six months.
What Parker saw on the screen at this point made her frown in concern. Each child sat quietly in a chair with his hands folded neatly in his lap. Three pairs of dark round eyes watched silently as a white clad instructor held up a placard with a word on it. The instructor would carefully enunciate the word and then flip the card down, revealing the next one.
The teacher went through each card multiple times, while the children sat without moving. None of the boys could have been more than eighteen months old.
After nearly an hour of drilling, the instructor returned to the beginning of the stack, turned to the boys and simply said, "Begin."
"Future" the first little boy read.
"Monetary" the second read as the instructor flipped the card.
"Interest" read the third.
"Stock" "Percent" "Decline" "Static" "Value"
The little boys took turns as each card was displayed. Their baby voices slurred the pronunciation of some of the words, particularly those containing the letter R. Parker wondered if the little boys were actually reading the cards or if they had simply remembered the order of the words used by the teacher. Either way, it was not normal behavior for three children who were still in diapers.
Once the children had successfully cycled through the flash cards, the instructor said, "Well done. We are finished for today."
With that, the three boys jumped up from their seats and began chasing each other about the room gleefully. The wild abandon with which they jumped about made Parker smile.
Parker skimmed through the recordings. She watched as the lessons became more complicated. A metamorphosis from lessons to basic simulations began to take place when the boys were about three-years-old.
Within a year, the Delta program had become adept at simulating resolutions to simple problems like traffic flow issues. Toy cars and large crayon- drawn maps of busy intersections were used to engineer new routes and lay the foundation for new road construction.
Granted, traffic flow problems weren't difficult for a pretender. Jarod could do this stuff without even thinking about it, in the same way that most people could chew gum. But these kids were barely four-years-old, and this type of simulation could be sold very profitably.
The Delta aspect of the Progeny project had huge financial potential for The Centre. Raines wouldn't let these boys go easily.
As Parker watched the most recent recordings she discovered that she could find no reference to any names being used. The boys were known collectively as Delta, none had an individual moniker. They referred to each other as you, me and him.
And yet despite this missing bit of personal identity, the images reflected three enthusiastic and adaptive little boys. They were extraordinarily intelligent and unusually disciplined for their ages but when they were allowed free time the children squealed and roughhoused like normal brothers.
The Centre had entirely isolated them from popular culture. Their meals all consisted of the optimized nutritional substance that Jarod had been raised on. So Parker knew that the world outside The Centre would be a huge change for them. But the boys seemed confident enough and as long as they had each other for emotional support, Parker felt they would be able to adjust.
Parker pulled the last DSA out of the viewer and returned it to the carefully filed group of Progeny Delta disks.
Hesitating for a moment, Parker picked up the first of the Epsilon disks and watched the spectrum of colors jump off its surface as she held the circle up to the light. Jarod had told her that these disks were difficult to watch. Parker wasn't sure that she wanted to know what The Centre had done to her little girl.
Giving in to her curiosity, Parker pushed the disk into the DSA viewer and watched the dark screen blip on.
This room was a small gray space with cinderblock walls. Another hospital- like crib sat in the middle of the room. The child lying in the crib wore a diaper and a tiny white cotton shirt. There weren't even sheets covering the tiny mattress.
A woman entered the room. She perfunctorily changed the infant's soiled garments then wordlessly stuck a bottle in the baby's mouth while it still lay in the crib. When the bottle emptied the woman simply turned and left the room.
Parker sped through the recordings. Day after day unfolded with the same routine. The baby was changed and fed on a specifically timed schedule. The infant was handled as little as possible during these times and no one ever spoke to the tiny creature.
Tears misted Parker's eyes as she watched the baby's cries go unanswered for hours. There was absolutely no interaction outside of the scheduled time for feedings. There was no one to soothe the infant's tears. After several weeks, the baby didn't bother to cry anymore.
Months passed and the plastic isolet was changed to a regular crib with bars, making the little girl's prison heart wrenchingly complete. Once she could hold a bottle on her own, interaction with any caretakers decreased even further.
It became apparent that some of the formula given to the child was laced with sedatives. Only when the little girl was unconscious in this manner would someone bathe her and change soiled bed linen. The diaper and white t- shirt were her only clothing.
The child grew but her bland surroundings never changed. Parker found herself zooming through the DSAs at maximum speed as weeks melted into months.
At the point in time where her brothers were sitting around a table learning to read, the little epsilon girl sat solemnly in her crib rocking back and forth in a monotonous rhythm.
One day, shortly before the child turned three, she was drugged and her room radically changed while she slept. The crib was removed and replaced by a metal cot and a bare mattress. A toilet was introduced in the corner and the child was dressed in a nightshirt and cotton panties. A tray of green goop passing as food replaced her bottles.
The little girl hadn't taken the change well. Upon waking, she had been horribly frightened. The security of her crib bars was gone. The child had screamed in fear and had crawled under the cot to whimper pitifully.
Parker wept as she watched the child's painful adjustment. The little girl hadn't recognized the tray as a source of food. Whimpers of fear had become screams of frustration as she waited for a bottle of nourishment that never came. It took her days to understand that the trays materialized, shoved through a small aperture in the door, at the same time of day that her bottles used to come.
She learned to feed herself and she eventually figured out the purpose of the toilet. Her world had now grown from the confines of the crib, to that of the tiny room. The child's existence was little more than survival.
She spent some of her time pacing the length of the room like a caged animal. But most of the time she sat curled in a ball, rocking back and forth, while she chewed at the ends of her long, wild hair.
Parker wiped the moisture from her cheeks as she found another disk and inserted it into the viewer.
The date in the bottom left hand corner of the screen was nearly six months ago. The girl could be seen lying on the floor in front of the tiny space where trays were shoved through the door. Her dark tangled hair fanned on the floor around her head as the child screamed in anger and pounded her fists against the cement beneath her.
Parker frowned as she tried to determine what had caused this type of behavior.
Suddenly, with a loud clang, the door opened and Lyle entered the room. "Now what have we here?" he sneered.
The little girl, having been isolated for so long, bolted in fear to the far corner of the room and slithered under the cot.
"Have you followed my instructions?" Lyle asked some unseen person who stood outside the room.
"Yes, Sir." A voice answered. "Haven't fed her for 24 hours."
Parker's hands clenched into fists as she watched the video continue.
Lyle nodded and took another step into the room as the door closed behind him. From his pocket he pulled a small covered bowl. He crouched down on the floor and opened the container.
"Hmmm." He said, inhaling the aroma from the bowl. "Smells good, doesn't it?"
Lyle sat on his haunches, holding the bowl toward the bed and waiting patiently.
Long minutes passed before the frightened child eased from her hiding place. She sniffed at the air, obviously confused by the smell of whatever it was that Lyle was offering to her.
"Come on." He said, gently shaking the container at her. "Come and get it."
The little girl warily inched closer until she could snatch the bowl from Lyle's hand. She immediately withdrew to the far corner and gulped at the food, scraping at the bowl's meager contents with her fingers.
Lyle grinned. "Good isn't it, my dear."
For a moment the two stared silently at each other. Then Lyle reached into another pocket and pulled out a foil-covered rectangle.
"Here's a real treat for you." He said as he began removing the silver wrap. "Its called chocolate."
Lyle broke a small square off of the candy bar and held it out to the little girl in the same way that he had with the bowl of food. This attempt took less time for the girl to approach him and take the morsel from his fingertips.
Lyle watched in amusement as the child sniffed at the brown tidbit. A look of delighted wonder came over her face as she stuffed the chocolate into her mouth and tasted it.
"Would you like more?" Lyle asked as he broke off a second piece.
There was no hesitation at all as the child crossed the room this time. However, rather than handing the confection over as he had before, Lyle snatched the candy away from her grasp.
An angry frown creased the little girl's forehead as she lunged at the treat. Lyle then struck her with the back of his hand with such force that she fell to the floor.
Parker flinched at the image of the violence in the recording.
Lyle then turned on his heel and walked out of the room. "Continue to follow my previous orders." He said to the unseen person as he left the room. "She's is to be given nothing but water. I'll be back in 48 hours."
The images recorded two days later had repeated the sick scene. Lyle had tempted the starving child with tidbits of food until she had come to him willingly. Then he had punished her trust with a crushing blow.
The same painful lesson was repeated again and again over the next several months. Once, when the girl had managed to dodge Lyle's fist, she had been rewarded with an extra piece of chocolate. But during their next session, she had lunged at him and had bitten Lyle hard enough to draw blood.
Lyle had slapped her into the corner then bent over his mangled hand.
Parker shivered at the image of her child. Curled in the space between the cot and the wall, the girl's hair hung across her face in a twisted mess. Blood from Lyle's wound trickled down her chin as the girl snarled and hissed at her tormentor like a wild creature.
Parker cringed with each blow as she watched Lyle beat the child senseless for her insolence.
The DSA viewer abruptly went black. Jarod stood behind Parker, glaring at the now dark screen, his left hand motionless over the power switch.
Parker's lip trembled. "Why?" she whispered.
Jarod's jaw clenched as he said haltingly, "They are teaching her to hurt. To hate. They will reward her for violent behavior and punish her for any sign of disrespect."
Parker gasped. "They're treating her like an animal. What can they possibly gain this way?"
"They'll try to break her spirit, destroy what's left of her humanity. Once they accomplish that, Raines will have a sociopath to do whatever he wants." Jarod glanced at Parker, his eyes hard with determination. "We will stop him." He vowed.
Parker couldn't prevent the tears that flowed down her cheeks. "Oh Jarod, that poor baby."
Jarod's eyes began to pool as well. He crouched beside Parker's chair and tried to reassure her. "Did you notice how she fights him?" He said proudly. "Lyle's been treating her this way for months, but she still fights him."
Jarod's lower lip trembled as he went on, "I saw her yesterday, Parker. She is strong willed and stubborn. She fears Lyle yet she continues to defy him."
Parker sighed. "I can't bare the thought of him hurting her again, Jarod."
"I know." Jarod stood and paced excitedly across the room. "Lyle visits her once a week. Each week is worse than the last. I was too late to do anything when I found them yesterday but we need to get her out before he comes back."
Jarod strode across the room and back, a frown furrowing his brow.
"The problem is," he said thoughtfully, "she has no memory of anyone but Lyle. She inherently mistrusts anything new." Jarod glanced sadly at Parker and shrugged. "She will be afraid of us."
Parker dragged both hands through her hair and sighed with fatigue.
"You're tired." Jarod said, abruptly dropping the conversation. "Lie down and try to get some sleep." He urged. "We'll need to rest if we are going to pull this off. We can talk details in the morning."
Parker agreed reluctantly and moved to the bed. She kicked of her shoes and crawled under the blankets without removing any other clothing. Jarod crossed the room and turned off the lights. Parker watched him settle into one of the hard wooden chairs, his legs stretching out in front of him.
"Jarod." Parker called softly as she tossed the pillow toward him.
He snatched it from the air with one hand. "Thanks, Parker."
Parker cushioned her head on one arm and stared into the darkness around her. A few minutes later, she could hear Jarod's deep regular breathing as exhaustion prevailed and he fell asleep. Her own breathing slowed to match his rhythm as Parker listened to his gentle exhalations in the otherwise silent room.
It wasn't long before Parker drifted into slumber as well.
A Voice Heard in Ramah (Part 4 - Progeny Delta Progeny Epsilon) By Phenyx
As Jarod slept on the nearby bed, Parker watched the first DSA from the Progeny Delta project.
On the viewer, the black and white image showed a brightly lit room containing three plastic cradles lined up like the newborn nursery in any regular hospital. Two of the cradles held sleeping infants.
The walls were painted with large shapes, circles, triangles and squares. The monochromatic format of the DSAs prevented any determination of color in the room but Parker imagined that the shapes must have been bright primary colors.
A single nurse dressed in a white uniform, paced the length of the room. A third infant was cradled in the crook of her arm while it suckled at a bottle of formula.
"That's a good boy." The woman soothed. After the baby had emptied the bottle, the nurse placed the tiny body against her shoulder and burped him.
The infant gurgled contentedly as the woman stroked the tuft of dark hair on his head.
Parker felt a deep hatred forming for the unknown woman. Jealousy clawed in the pit of her stomach as she realized that this video was over four years old. Parker would never feel her child on her shoulder the way the woman in the DSA had.
Parker reached out and flipped the DSA on to a faster playing speed. The first several months of recordings were all the same. Women in white uniforms would come in to feed and change a child when it cried. There was obviously scheduled playtime when someone would come and perform educational exercises with each infant.
After a few weeks, Parker noticed a pattern developing in the children. The babies' schedules began to coincide with each other. By the time the DSAs had been recording for 2 months, three nurses had replaced the one nurse previously in attendance. The three boys cried at the same time, slept at the same time and were active at the same time. Whether Raines had designed the project that way or the children had fallen into the routine on their own, Parker couldn't tell.
Parker pulled the disk from the machine and replaced it with another.
In this recording, the babies were sitting on the floor, surrounded by blocks and big balls. They crawled about the floor, happily gurgling and sticking things in their mouths. Two new women, clad in the ever-present white uniform sat cross-legged on the floor helping the children make towers with the blocks.
With a sad smile on her face, Parker stroked the image on the viewer. She laughed at the playful tumbling of the dark-haired trio.
After several minutes, Parker moved on to another disk.
There was now a small table and three little chairs in the room. Another woman held each child's hand as she led the toddler to the chairs. The exercise for this day consisted of learning to stay in the chair. The youngsters had recently learned to walk and would stumble away moments after being seated. The woman would patiently lead the baby back to the chair and then retrieve the next child.
Parker shook her head and forwarded the recording another six months.
What Parker saw on the screen at this point made her frown in concern. Each child sat quietly in a chair with his hands folded neatly in his lap. Three pairs of dark round eyes watched silently as a white clad instructor held up a placard with a word on it. The instructor would carefully enunciate the word and then flip the card down, revealing the next one.
The teacher went through each card multiple times, while the children sat without moving. None of the boys could have been more than eighteen months old.
After nearly an hour of drilling, the instructor returned to the beginning of the stack, turned to the boys and simply said, "Begin."
"Future" the first little boy read.
"Monetary" the second read as the instructor flipped the card.
"Interest" read the third.
"Stock" "Percent" "Decline" "Static" "Value"
The little boys took turns as each card was displayed. Their baby voices slurred the pronunciation of some of the words, particularly those containing the letter R. Parker wondered if the little boys were actually reading the cards or if they had simply remembered the order of the words used by the teacher. Either way, it was not normal behavior for three children who were still in diapers.
Once the children had successfully cycled through the flash cards, the instructor said, "Well done. We are finished for today."
With that, the three boys jumped up from their seats and began chasing each other about the room gleefully. The wild abandon with which they jumped about made Parker smile.
Parker skimmed through the recordings. She watched as the lessons became more complicated. A metamorphosis from lessons to basic simulations began to take place when the boys were about three-years-old.
Within a year, the Delta program had become adept at simulating resolutions to simple problems like traffic flow issues. Toy cars and large crayon- drawn maps of busy intersections were used to engineer new routes and lay the foundation for new road construction.
Granted, traffic flow problems weren't difficult for a pretender. Jarod could do this stuff without even thinking about it, in the same way that most people could chew gum. But these kids were barely four-years-old, and this type of simulation could be sold very profitably.
The Delta aspect of the Progeny project had huge financial potential for The Centre. Raines wouldn't let these boys go easily.
As Parker watched the most recent recordings she discovered that she could find no reference to any names being used. The boys were known collectively as Delta, none had an individual moniker. They referred to each other as you, me and him.
And yet despite this missing bit of personal identity, the images reflected three enthusiastic and adaptive little boys. They were extraordinarily intelligent and unusually disciplined for their ages but when they were allowed free time the children squealed and roughhoused like normal brothers.
The Centre had entirely isolated them from popular culture. Their meals all consisted of the optimized nutritional substance that Jarod had been raised on. So Parker knew that the world outside The Centre would be a huge change for them. But the boys seemed confident enough and as long as they had each other for emotional support, Parker felt they would be able to adjust.
Parker pulled the last DSA out of the viewer and returned it to the carefully filed group of Progeny Delta disks.
Hesitating for a moment, Parker picked up the first of the Epsilon disks and watched the spectrum of colors jump off its surface as she held the circle up to the light. Jarod had told her that these disks were difficult to watch. Parker wasn't sure that she wanted to know what The Centre had done to her little girl.
Giving in to her curiosity, Parker pushed the disk into the DSA viewer and watched the dark screen blip on.
This room was a small gray space with cinderblock walls. Another hospital- like crib sat in the middle of the room. The child lying in the crib wore a diaper and a tiny white cotton shirt. There weren't even sheets covering the tiny mattress.
A woman entered the room. She perfunctorily changed the infant's soiled garments then wordlessly stuck a bottle in the baby's mouth while it still lay in the crib. When the bottle emptied the woman simply turned and left the room.
Parker sped through the recordings. Day after day unfolded with the same routine. The baby was changed and fed on a specifically timed schedule. The infant was handled as little as possible during these times and no one ever spoke to the tiny creature.
Tears misted Parker's eyes as she watched the baby's cries go unanswered for hours. There was absolutely no interaction outside of the scheduled time for feedings. There was no one to soothe the infant's tears. After several weeks, the baby didn't bother to cry anymore.
Months passed and the plastic isolet was changed to a regular crib with bars, making the little girl's prison heart wrenchingly complete. Once she could hold a bottle on her own, interaction with any caretakers decreased even further.
It became apparent that some of the formula given to the child was laced with sedatives. Only when the little girl was unconscious in this manner would someone bathe her and change soiled bed linen. The diaper and white t- shirt were her only clothing.
The child grew but her bland surroundings never changed. Parker found herself zooming through the DSAs at maximum speed as weeks melted into months.
At the point in time where her brothers were sitting around a table learning to read, the little epsilon girl sat solemnly in her crib rocking back and forth in a monotonous rhythm.
One day, shortly before the child turned three, she was drugged and her room radically changed while she slept. The crib was removed and replaced by a metal cot and a bare mattress. A toilet was introduced in the corner and the child was dressed in a nightshirt and cotton panties. A tray of green goop passing as food replaced her bottles.
The little girl hadn't taken the change well. Upon waking, she had been horribly frightened. The security of her crib bars was gone. The child had screamed in fear and had crawled under the cot to whimper pitifully.
Parker wept as she watched the child's painful adjustment. The little girl hadn't recognized the tray as a source of food. Whimpers of fear had become screams of frustration as she waited for a bottle of nourishment that never came. It took her days to understand that the trays materialized, shoved through a small aperture in the door, at the same time of day that her bottles used to come.
She learned to feed herself and she eventually figured out the purpose of the toilet. Her world had now grown from the confines of the crib, to that of the tiny room. The child's existence was little more than survival.
She spent some of her time pacing the length of the room like a caged animal. But most of the time she sat curled in a ball, rocking back and forth, while she chewed at the ends of her long, wild hair.
Parker wiped the moisture from her cheeks as she found another disk and inserted it into the viewer.
The date in the bottom left hand corner of the screen was nearly six months ago. The girl could be seen lying on the floor in front of the tiny space where trays were shoved through the door. Her dark tangled hair fanned on the floor around her head as the child screamed in anger and pounded her fists against the cement beneath her.
Parker frowned as she tried to determine what had caused this type of behavior.
Suddenly, with a loud clang, the door opened and Lyle entered the room. "Now what have we here?" he sneered.
The little girl, having been isolated for so long, bolted in fear to the far corner of the room and slithered under the cot.
"Have you followed my instructions?" Lyle asked some unseen person who stood outside the room.
"Yes, Sir." A voice answered. "Haven't fed her for 24 hours."
Parker's hands clenched into fists as she watched the video continue.
Lyle nodded and took another step into the room as the door closed behind him. From his pocket he pulled a small covered bowl. He crouched down on the floor and opened the container.
"Hmmm." He said, inhaling the aroma from the bowl. "Smells good, doesn't it?"
Lyle sat on his haunches, holding the bowl toward the bed and waiting patiently.
Long minutes passed before the frightened child eased from her hiding place. She sniffed at the air, obviously confused by the smell of whatever it was that Lyle was offering to her.
"Come on." He said, gently shaking the container at her. "Come and get it."
The little girl warily inched closer until she could snatch the bowl from Lyle's hand. She immediately withdrew to the far corner and gulped at the food, scraping at the bowl's meager contents with her fingers.
Lyle grinned. "Good isn't it, my dear."
For a moment the two stared silently at each other. Then Lyle reached into another pocket and pulled out a foil-covered rectangle.
"Here's a real treat for you." He said as he began removing the silver wrap. "Its called chocolate."
Lyle broke a small square off of the candy bar and held it out to the little girl in the same way that he had with the bowl of food. This attempt took less time for the girl to approach him and take the morsel from his fingertips.
Lyle watched in amusement as the child sniffed at the brown tidbit. A look of delighted wonder came over her face as she stuffed the chocolate into her mouth and tasted it.
"Would you like more?" Lyle asked as he broke off a second piece.
There was no hesitation at all as the child crossed the room this time. However, rather than handing the confection over as he had before, Lyle snatched the candy away from her grasp.
An angry frown creased the little girl's forehead as she lunged at the treat. Lyle then struck her with the back of his hand with such force that she fell to the floor.
Parker flinched at the image of the violence in the recording.
Lyle then turned on his heel and walked out of the room. "Continue to follow my previous orders." He said to the unseen person as he left the room. "She's is to be given nothing but water. I'll be back in 48 hours."
The images recorded two days later had repeated the sick scene. Lyle had tempted the starving child with tidbits of food until she had come to him willingly. Then he had punished her trust with a crushing blow.
The same painful lesson was repeated again and again over the next several months. Once, when the girl had managed to dodge Lyle's fist, she had been rewarded with an extra piece of chocolate. But during their next session, she had lunged at him and had bitten Lyle hard enough to draw blood.
Lyle had slapped her into the corner then bent over his mangled hand.
Parker shivered at the image of her child. Curled in the space between the cot and the wall, the girl's hair hung across her face in a twisted mess. Blood from Lyle's wound trickled down her chin as the girl snarled and hissed at her tormentor like a wild creature.
Parker cringed with each blow as she watched Lyle beat the child senseless for her insolence.
The DSA viewer abruptly went black. Jarod stood behind Parker, glaring at the now dark screen, his left hand motionless over the power switch.
Parker's lip trembled. "Why?" she whispered.
Jarod's jaw clenched as he said haltingly, "They are teaching her to hurt. To hate. They will reward her for violent behavior and punish her for any sign of disrespect."
Parker gasped. "They're treating her like an animal. What can they possibly gain this way?"
"They'll try to break her spirit, destroy what's left of her humanity. Once they accomplish that, Raines will have a sociopath to do whatever he wants." Jarod glanced at Parker, his eyes hard with determination. "We will stop him." He vowed.
Parker couldn't prevent the tears that flowed down her cheeks. "Oh Jarod, that poor baby."
Jarod's eyes began to pool as well. He crouched beside Parker's chair and tried to reassure her. "Did you notice how she fights him?" He said proudly. "Lyle's been treating her this way for months, but she still fights him."
Jarod's lower lip trembled as he went on, "I saw her yesterday, Parker. She is strong willed and stubborn. She fears Lyle yet she continues to defy him."
Parker sighed. "I can't bare the thought of him hurting her again, Jarod."
"I know." Jarod stood and paced excitedly across the room. "Lyle visits her once a week. Each week is worse than the last. I was too late to do anything when I found them yesterday but we need to get her out before he comes back."
Jarod strode across the room and back, a frown furrowing his brow.
"The problem is," he said thoughtfully, "she has no memory of anyone but Lyle. She inherently mistrusts anything new." Jarod glanced sadly at Parker and shrugged. "She will be afraid of us."
Parker dragged both hands through her hair and sighed with fatigue.
"You're tired." Jarod said, abruptly dropping the conversation. "Lie down and try to get some sleep." He urged. "We'll need to rest if we are going to pull this off. We can talk details in the morning."
Parker agreed reluctantly and moved to the bed. She kicked of her shoes and crawled under the blankets without removing any other clothing. Jarod crossed the room and turned off the lights. Parker watched him settle into one of the hard wooden chairs, his legs stretching out in front of him.
"Jarod." Parker called softly as she tossed the pillow toward him.
He snatched it from the air with one hand. "Thanks, Parker."
Parker cushioned her head on one arm and stared into the darkness around her. A few minutes later, she could hear Jarod's deep regular breathing as exhaustion prevailed and he fell asleep. Her own breathing slowed to match his rhythm as Parker listened to his gentle exhalations in the otherwise silent room.
It wasn't long before Parker drifted into slumber as well.
