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.