Trap them

            “Were you followed?”

            “I don’t think so.”

            “If you were, we’ll know it in a moment by the gunshots. Sydney, you’ve got to help us.”

            “What can I do? I’m trapped.”

            “Trapped by what, Syd? By Jarod? Or by your own love for Jarod?”

            “Parker—”

            “Syd! You know what he is now! He’s not the sweet little boy you raised. He’s a psychopath. Admit it, Sydney! Everything the Centre has done to him has finally tipped him over the edge. Now he’s doing it back, and he doesn’t care what innocent people get in the way, any more than the Centre cared.”

            “He is the Centre. I can’t bear it, Parker! I can’t bear what we’ve done to him! What I’ve done to him.”

            “It’s not your fault, Syd.”

            “No? Then whose fault is it? I’m the one who raised him. I’m the one who taught him not to be human. Remember when you used to call me Doctor Frankenstein? Well, now Frankenstein’s Monster is loose. And I can’t bear to see him hurt again.”

            “And he knows that. And he uses it. He’s been using it for a long time. It was when he stopped needing you to love him that he realized you did, and then he started using you.”

            “And it’s my fault! If I had ever once shown him that I loved him, he might now be a different man. But no. I couldn’t allow emotion to sully my science, and now we’re all paying for it. Even Jarod. Especially Jarod. If I had helped your mother rescue him—better yet, if it had been me lying in the bed in the Mount Pleasant Home instead of Jacob—and Jacob here instead of me—he might have done what was right long ago.”

            “Sydney, help us do what is right now. Jarod has to be stopped. The time for pitying him has passed. He has made his own choices for a long time now. He’s not the child you knew. But there are others who are still innocent and who must be protected.”

            “You look like your mother when you say that.”

            “And I’m asking you to do what she asked Jacob to do. Help us.”