Chapter Three

            The sun was barely rising at the horizon when Catherine Parker woke her daughter up. She didn't enjoy doing it, but today, there was no choice; there was still so much to do before it was time for them to leave the house.

            Miss Parker groaned as her mother roused her from her sleep. She buried her head against her mother's chest, hoping to be granted a few more minutes. Catherine laughed at her daughter's attitude, something that the little girl felt more than heard.

"I'm sleepy, mama," the girl said, her voice rough from sleep.

"I know, baby. But it's time to wake up. We have a big day ahead of us."

            Miss Parker's only answer was to tighten her hold on her mother's shirt.

            Catherine smiled and rubbed circles against her daughter's back. She understood her reluctance to open her eyes, and if she could, she would let her sleep. But it wasn't possible. She still allowed her to rest a few more minutes; if they had to rush because they were late, then they would. What mattered was that her daughter was fine.

            She kept her eyes on the clock on Miss Parker's bedside table, and she kept rocking in her arms until she couldn't delay it any longer. She tucked a strand of hair behind Miss Parker's ear, and stroked her cheek with her thumb.

"Come on, baby," she whispered. "You really have to wake up now."

            Catherine got up from the bed, forcing her daughter off her lap. When Miss Parker's feet hit the floor, her eyes opened and she yawned. She knew she couldn't buy any more time than she already had, and so she followed her mother into the kitchen. She sat on her chair and held her head in her hands while her mother prepared her chocolate milk.

"Don't put your elbows on the table," Catherine reminded her as she placed the bowl on the table.

"Where is Daddy?" Miss Parker asked as she obeyed her mother.

"Daddy is already at work."

            Miss Parker was disappointed, it was easy to see; she had already been in bed when he came home last night and this morning, he was already gone despite the early hour. She was barely seeing her father these days, and she wished that would change.

"But we'll go see him after school," Catherine added.

"Really?" Miss Parker asked, her face lighting up at the thought.

"Yes. But first, school, ok?"

            Miss Parker nodded, as she started eating her breakfast.

            Catherine shook her head, smiling at her. She sometimes wished she could convince her husband to spend more time with their daughter, but his mind was on his work. She had learnt to live with it, but she knew the little girl still hurt that her father didn't want to spend more time with her. At least, the thought of seeing her father after school cheered her up.

            But that wasn't the only reason they were going to the Centre. Her daughter was going to meet one of the children there, Jarod, and participate in a SIM. She wasn't particularly happy about the last part; even though her husband had promised her that this would be only this one time, she didn't want to see Miss Parker taking part in SIMs. But Jarod was one of the few children that she hadn't managed to meet before, and if she was going to rescue him one day, sooner rather than later, she needed him to trust her.

            She was glad that the hypnotism lessons she had taken with Jacob all those years ago hadn't been for nothing. While she wasn't proud that she had to hypnotize her husband to get what she wanted, she also knew that she didn't have a choice. She couldn't go as far as to tell her husband that she needed to meet Jarod – that would have been suspicious to the Tower – so she had to resort to having her daughter meet the Pretender.

            She knew it meant that the day she decided it was time to rescue Jarod from the Centre, she and Miss Parker would have to leave too. The boy was too smart to trust her alone, but if he created a friendship with her daughter first, she believed he would be less reluctant to follow them.

            She would also have to tell Fenigor that her plans for Jarod were slightly different than for the other children. While she couldn't find the other children's parents, she knew exactly where Jarod's were, and she planned on taking him there as soon as possible. She had yet to locate Kyle – she wasn't even sure he was at the Centre – but she was hoping she could do so soon. Margaret and Charles needed to be reunited with their youngest son, too. At least, for the time being, she would be able to reassure them on Jarod's well-being, thanks to her daughter.

            When she saw that her daughter was done with her breakfast, Catherine urged her to the bathroom to wash her face and get changed. She still had to tell her about the plan for the afternoon before they left for school. That was the reason why she had woken her up earlier than usual in the first place; she didn't want to take her to the Centre without her knowing what would happen, that would only upset the little girl.

            She had no doubt that the setting would frighten Miss Parker if she hadn't been prepared in advance, and she didn't want that to happen. She knew other people would think that she was using her daughter for her own purpose, and they would be right to think so, but she didn't know how to act otherwise. She could only wish that if her daughter ever figured it out, she would understand and forgive her.

            When Miss Parker came into the living room, ready for school, Catherine asked her to come sit on the couch beside her. She took a deep breath before she started talking.

"You know I told you we were going to go see Daddy at the Centre after school," she said, and Miss Parker quickly nodded. "That's not all that we'll be doing when we are at the Centre. You're also going to meet a boy about your age."

"Who is he?"

"His name is Jarod. He lives there, and we think it's time the two of you meet."

"Is he nice?"

"Yes, he is," Catherine replied with a chuckle. "But you know, when you meet him, it's going to be different than when you met your other friends. There's going to be a glass between the two of you, and people are going to observe," she explained as best as she could to the little girl what her husband had told her.

"Why will there be other people?"

"See, Jarod is a special child who works with Sydney. They just want to see whether you two could be friends," she just said; she didn't think her daughter was ready to hear the truth. "We can stop any time you want. And you won't have to go there if you're too afraid," she added, to reassure her that it was her choice in the end.

"Will Daddy be there?"

"Yes. Yes, he will."

"Then, I'll do it," Miss Parker said; she wanted her father to be proud of her, and if it was what it took, then she would do it.

"Alright. Now let's go or you'll be late for school."

            As she watched her daughter run to the door to put her shoes on, Catherine wiped a tear that had escaped from her eye. She was proud of her little girl; she just hoped that she had made the right choice in the end.

###

            Broots followed Sydney into the older man's office. It was late afternoon, and they had spent most of the day locked in a small room. That might not have been the first T-Board they had faced, but they were still exhausted by the day's events. From what they had gathered, Raines hadn't found the person who had warned Miss Parker, not that Sydney had expected him to.

            He hadn't shared his thoughts with Broots, but he knew that they were both thinking the same: it could only have been the voices that had stopped their friend from falling into Lyle and Cox's hands. But as no one at the Centre but the two of them knew about her inner sense, they would probably never figure it out. And this was all for the better.

"What do you think will happen now?" Broots asked. "I mean, what will happen to us?"

"I don't know. I believe we go back to our respective works, now that Miss Parker isn't coming back."

"So, it’s over? We're not looking for Jarod anymore?"

"We'll still keep an eye out for him, but I doubt we'll hear from him any time soon."

"Why do you think that, Sydney?"

"Yes, why do you think that, Sydney?" Lyle said from the threshold.

            Broots started at the sound of his voice; neither man had heard him approach. The thumbless man smirked at the computer technician's reaction, before turning his head towards the psychiatrist.

"Do you have information that I don't?" Lyle asked again.

"No. But I know Jarod enough to know that he'll lie low for a while, especially if Miss Parker is now with him as you suspect. Playing with the Centre was fun for him when he was the only one who could get hurt. But now that there is someone else in the equation, he’ll stop taking so many risks."

"Well, let's hope that you're wrong," Lyle replied. "Because my head won't be the only one on the line if you're not."

"And why is that?" the older man asked, even though he had already figured it out.

"It means that you two work for me now, and you're going to help me track Jarod and my sister."

            They knew better than to object. They didn't really want to work for Lyle, but they knew they didn't have a choice; if they refused, they might end up dead somewhere. So they just said nothing, and waited for Miss Parker's twin to leave the office.

"It is sometimes hard to remember that he is Catherine Parker's son," Sydney said, when they were finally alone. "He is nothing like her, or Miss Parker."

"It's like he has only taken after Mr. Raines," Broots added, even though he still find it hard to believe that the bald man was Miss Parker's biological father.

"Yes, but then, we know that Mr. Raines has manipulated him when he was still with the Bowmans. He made him who he is now. I wonder if he knows what it really means."

"Are you saying...?"

"I'm saying that Raines shouldn’t trust him. I don't know how much longer Lyle will agree to stay an underling."

"Sydney, if Lyle ever managed to catch Jarod and Miss Parker..."

"I know, Broots, I know. We just have to make sure we're here if that happens. We have to work with him, even though neither of us wants to."

"But we can't help them," Broots said, looking at the security camera above their heads. "If we do, they'll kill us. I don't know about you, but I have Debbie to think about, and I can't leave her alone."

"We won't help them," Sydney reassured his friend. "We'll just make sure that they stay alive if they come back to the Centre, even if we have to make a pact with the devil to do so.

"I think we have already made a pact with the devil the day we signed our contracts to work here."

            Sydney nodded, agreeing with Broots. He wished he could spare his friend, but it just wasn't possible. Neither of them could leave the Centre, not if they wanted to stay alive, and the least they could do for now, was to try and protect the two people he still considered as his children from Lyle's madness.

            They heard a rattling sound in the vent above their heads, and raised their eyes to the grate just in time to see a shadow passing by. They wouldn't be the only ones trying to help Miss Parker and Jarod at the Centre. Angelo, they were certain, would do more than just make sure that the two escapees stay alive; he would do his best to keep them away from Blue Cove.

            Somewhere, down in the bowels of the Centre, hidden from the sweepers, Angelo sat in front of a laptop, a file open at his side. Barely anyone was paying attention to him these days, unless they needed his help, and that allowed him to move almost freely around the Centre. Not even Jarod had noticed him lurking in the shadows the night he had been here.

            At any other time, he would have shown himself, but he had felt that the Pretender was so focused on his task that he wouldn't want to be interrupted. So he had just observed him, unseen, and followed at a distance to make sure that he would get out of the Centre without being noticed by one of the employees.

            He had waited until his childhood friend had left before crawling through the vents and towards one of his hiding places. There, he had opened a box, and it hadn't taken him long to find the file he had been looking for.

            Now, with the file beside him, he was looking through the Centre database. A grin stretched his lips as he finally found the information he was looking for.

###

            They had decided to stop at one of Jarod's safe house in Indiana for the night. They could easily have made the trip in one day if they had taking turns behind the wheel, but Jarod had insisted on stopping there to rest for a little while. Miss Parker didn't mind; she still felt unsure about going to Jarod's family home.

            She had come to terms with being on the run with the Pretender she had tried to catch, but it didn't mean that she wanted to see the whole family. She wasn't even certain she would be welcome there; after all, she had kept their family apart for years, and she was still doing it in some ways. They had every reason to resent her, and she couldn't blame them.

            But she was doing it for Ethan; they were his family, too. He had never met his father before, and she knew that Emily had been searching for him long before she and Jarod even knew he existed. He needed them in his life, but he would never have agreed to go if she hadn't. And truth be told, she was a little bit curious as to how Michael was doing.

            She hadn't been surprised when Jarod had told her that his clone had chosen himself a new name. It wasn't anything remotely close to the ones he had grown up with, and she easily understood why: he was trying to be distinct from the man he was a clone of. She thought it was sane for him to do so and from what Jarod had told her, it was working: Major Charles wasn't seeing him as a copy of the son he had lost such a long time ago, but as his youngest son.

            At least, she thought as she looked at the Pretender taking their bags out of the trunk, the Centre hadn't have time to completely screw with Michael's mind the way they had with Jarod's and hers. Even though she had never told anyone, she wouldn't have let them have their way anyway. That they had managed to do it in the past was enough.

            She followed Jarod and Ethan through the door and groaned. As she had suspected when they had stopped the car in front of the building, Jarod's safe house was nothing more than an abandoned warehouse. He seemed to have a predilection for those, but she had hoped for something better.

            The ground floor was nothing but an empty open space. There weren't even chairs or anything to sit on. She was about to ask Jarod whether he had the intention to make her sleep on the floor when he asked her and Ethan to follow him.

            They walked up the stairs and through the door Jarod was holding open for them. Much to the siblings’ surprise, what was behind that door didn't look like the rest of the warehouse. While the first floor was another open space, there was some furniture there, including two single beds and a couch.

"You're not afraid someone decides to demolish it one day?" Miss Parker asked Jarod.

"They can't. I've bought it."

"Of course, you did."

            It didn't surprise her at all. He had probably bought several places like this one around the country with the money he had taken from the Centre. She guessed it must have represented a big step for someone who had spent most of his life as a prisoner. Although it wasn't quite a home, it was a safe place for him to stay in between pretends.

"You can take the beds and I'll take the couch," Jarod said.

"I should take the couch," Ethan replied. "You're taller than me, it would be uncomfortable for you to lie on the couch."

"Alright," the Pretender conceded. "Now that this is settled, I'm going to get us some food."

"None of your junk food, Jarod," Miss Parker said as he opened the door. "I'm serious."

"Are you afraid that now you're not chasing me around anymore, you won't get enough exercise?" he teased her.

            The door had closed behind him before Miss Parker could say anything in return. She shook her head, before turning towards Ethan who was looking confused. It was easy to understand why: he had mostly seen them cooperating, and while he knew they hadn't been on the same side until very recently, he hadn't witnessed it. And they had never really explained it. Maybe it was time to tell him about them.

            She spotted the silver case sitting on the table, and she decided that they should start from the beginning.

"Come with me," she said, grabbing the silver case and going to sit on the couch. "You know that Jarod and I grew up together at the Centre, but did he tell you about the first time we met?"

            When Ethan shook his head negatively, she smiled and turned towards the DSA player. It didn't took long to locate the right DSA; she remembered the date quite clearly even though it had happened about three decades ago. She put the DSA in the player and pressed play.

            It wasn't only the date that Miss Parker remembered, but the day in itself. She remembered her mother taking her to the Centre that day, after school. Everything had been clearly explained to her that morning, but her father repeated her mother's words anyway. She didn't interrupt him, she just listened to him talk more than she really heard the words.

            She nodded when he asked her if she was ready and he took her hand to lead her towards a door at the far end of the corridor. He had told her to wait there, before leaving. She had watched his retreating back, hoping that he would look back, but he never did. And then, the door had opened, and she had seen Jarod for the first time.

            She had often wondered what would have happened if they hadn't wanted her to participate in this SIM. But she now knew that while it hadn't been in their plans for her and their Pretender to be friends, she had never been only the Chairman's daughter. They had always envisioned her as nothing more than an asset to achieve their goal.

            She had been in their plans all along, even though she hadn't known at the time. She wished, not for the first time, that her mother was still alive. There was so much she wanted to ask her; she wanted to ask her if she had known about Mr. Parker's plans, or if she had been left in the dark, too. She couldn't see her mother agreeing to her husband using their little girl, but she had been surprised so many times in the past that she just wanted to be reassured on this point.

            More than that, right now, she wanted her mother to be there and reassure her that everything would be fine with Joshua. She wanted to ask her some advice about how to be a good mother.

            But she couldn't do any of that because Raines had killed her mother.

As her eyes fell on Ethan watching the video, she realised that she wasn't the only one who had lost her mother. At least, she had had the chance to spend the first ten years of her life with her, but her brother couldn't because she had been taken away from him the day he was born. At the very least, she could tell him about the mother she knew; it wasn't much, but he had assured her before that it would be enough.

            She wondered once, after Carthis, what would have happened if Raines hadn't killed her mother. On the DSA, right after Ethan's birth, Miss Parker had heard her say that she would have wanted to raised the three siblings together. Their lives would have been so different had Catherine been able to do as she wanted. But she hadn't been allowed to, and she and Jarod had remained Centre's prisoners, unaware of Ethan's existence until recently.

"Do you have any more videos of Jarod and you as children?" Ethan's question interrupted her line of thoughts.

"I really don't know," she admitted. "Your brother and I were always very careful not to be caught on security cameras. We weren't supposed to be friends."

"Why is that?"

"I never really got an answer for that one when I asked. I was just told that I shouldn't question it. I can only guess that they thought I would distract Jarod from the SIMs, or that I would put ideas in his head."

"Ideas about running from the Centre?" he asked, and she nodded. "But that didn't stop you from seeing each other."

"Nothing could stop us," she said with a smile. "We didn't care about being punished, really. Jarod and Angelo were my only friends when I grew up, and after our mother died, I actively sought them out. I was left alone most of the time. The only times I wasn't alone were when I was with them."

"What changed?"

"I was sent away to boarding school and Jarod was left behind. Time eventually pulled us apart."

            Time hadn't been the only factor; her father had done everything he could to separate them, and that included hiding the letters they had sent each other. But neither of them had known at the time, and Jarod still didn't know. He still probably thought that she had forgotten about him the moment she had left Blue Cove, just like she had for so many years. Maybe it was time to finally give him the letters.

"What are you doing?" Jarod asked as he entered the room to find the silver case open before them.

"Miss Parker was showing me the video of your first meeting," Ethan answered before she could. "Do you have other DSA showing the two of you as children?"

"No. And I'm pretty sure they don't exist either."

"That's what I told him too," Miss Parker said, getting up from the couch. "So, what did you bring for dinner?"

"I thought Chinese would be the safest choice," he replied, taking the food containers out of the plastic bag.

            Miss Parker nodded, agreeing with his choice. She looked around, but there didn't seem to be any plates around; they would have to eat directly out of the containers. At least, he hadn't forgotten the chopsticks.

"Come eat, Ethan," she said as she heard him play the DSA from the start again. "You'll have time to watch it later."

            Already knowing better than to cross his sister, Ethan closed the lid of the silver case and walked over to the table. As he sat, Jarod pointed to each container, explaining what was in them. They ate in relative silence, the only sound outside of the chopsticks being Jarod tapping his foot against the floor.

"Stop it," Miss Parker said, annoyed that the Pretender just couldn't sit still.

"Sorry," he replied. There was a beat, and then, he continued. "So why were you showing Ethan this DSA?" he asked.

            She had wondered how long it would take him to finally ask this question. She had known he had wanted to since he came back, but he had held himself back. Until now. It was a question quite easy to answer, but she still struggled to find the words.

"I wanted to explain to our brother how we went from friends to... whatever we were these past few years."

            She hadn't wanted to say 'enemy' because, even though she had tried to convince herself in the past that it was all they were for each other, it couldn't have been farther away from the truth. Yes, they had been on opposite sides and she had chased him all over the country, but enemies they were not.

"I understand," he said.

            And he did. He understood that Ethan wanted to know what happened between his brother and his sister. It was only natural for him given that they had been reunited only recently, and that a couple of years ago, he hadn't even known they existed. They didn't have a conventional family, and he needed to understand why.

            They finished eating in silence, each of them lost in their thoughts. Ethan looked at his sister and his brother in turn. He was glad that he had found them again, even though he still had a bruise on his arm where Parker had punched him. But they appeased him, and the voices, while they were still present, were nothing more than a buzz in the back of his mind. It had only happened with one other person before, just a few days ago.

            His mind went back to Mia, and how she had made him feel. It had been the first time he had felt that way, and he still wasn't sure what it meant. He guessed he could ask Miss Parker and Jarod, but he didn't really know how he could explain it. Even when he was thinking about it, he had trouble putting words on what he was feeling. It just didn't make any sense to him. And he wondered if there was any reason for him to try to figure it out if he was never going to see her again.

"Can I talk to you?" Miss Parker asked Jarod when they finished putting away the leftovers.

            He nodded, and followed her to where he had put their bags when they had arrived. Ethan watched them go, the voices quietly telling him that everything would be fine. It wasn't made to reassure him.

            Parker opened her bag and took out one of the stacks of letters that she had put inside before leaving Ben's. She had her back to Jarod, and so he couldn't see what she was holding for the moment. She traced her handwriting with her fingers, and her lips stretched into a small smile.

            She turned around to face Jarod and handed him the stack of letters. He took them, confusion written in her face, and she knew she had to explain herself.

"These are all the letters I’ve written to you when I was in boarding school. Mr. Parker must have intercepted them before they got to you. And he did the same with yours. I found them all in a safe at his house. They're yours to have."

"So you hadn't forgotten me right after you left?" Jarod asked, still confused.

"No. And neither had you, despite what I thought for years."

            His hold on the letters tightened, and she could almost read his thoughts; he was wondering how different things would have been if they had received these letters. They would never know, though. They had been stolen from them like so many other things in their lives.

"I have something you should have, too," he said, surprising her.

            He went to his bag and put the letters down to unzip it. He reached for the small box hidden inside. He hesitated for a brief instant, worried about what she might do, but he knew he had already waited too long. He took it out of the bag and handed it to Miss Parker. Her confusion mirrored his from a few minutes before, but it didn't last long. As soon as she opened the box and peeled away the tissue paper, she read the words and her facial expression changed.

            He had expected hot blooded anger from her. He had expected her to lash out. He had expected her to punch him. He had expected anything but this. Her face closed down, her mask firmly put in place. She didn't look at him, she didn't say anything to him. She just turned away, the box clutched in her hands. Before he could react she had grabbed her coat and was out of the room and running down the stairs. He heard the door open and close behind her.

            He was about to follow her outside when a hand against his chest stopped him. He looked up to see Ethan slowly shaking his head.

"I think it's best if you leave her alone."

"Ethan..."

"Look, I don't know what happened just now, what you gave her to make her react that way, but she didn't seem to want to see you right now. Or even be in the same place as you. Give her time."

            Jarod wanted to protest, to tell his brother to mind his own business, but he knew he was right. His shoulders slumped in defeat and he took a step back. He knew it was his own fault she reacted this way, and he hoped that she would let him fix it.

            He turned away, and his eyes fell on the letters she had just given him. He walked towards his bag, took the stack of letters, and went to sit against the wall, in the far side of the room.

###

            She ran, unaware of where she was, of where she was going. She ran until her lungs burned and she could barely breathe anymore. And then, she stopped running and looked around. It was dark and she was alone in a city she didn't know. Maybe it had been stupid of her to run away, but she just couldn't have stayed in the warehouse anymore.

            She hadn't been able           to think clearly after she opened the box to find her mother's diary inside. She had just known that she needed to be as far away from Jarod as it was possible at the moment.

            She noticed a diner that would stay open all night on the other side of the street, and she walked there. She pushed the door opened, nodded at the waitress on the other side of the counter, and sat at a table at the far end of the room. She allowed herself to look around as the waitress filled her cup with coffee; there were only a couple of other people there, and no one would come to bother her.

            She opened the box again, and finally took the diary out. She didn't want to know for how long Jarod had kept it away from her. She didn't want to know his reasons. She was just trying not to think that he had read her mother's diary, her most intimate thoughts.

            She ran her hand over the red cover; it was soft beneath her hand. She traced the gold lettering with a finger, wondering what to do. The diary was locked, but she spotted the key in the box. She could keep it locked, put it back in the box and never read it. Or she could open it and read it, page after page, and learn more about her mother. Both options were tempting, but it was the voice in her head that finally told which way to go.

            Her fingers picked up the key, and she unlocked the diary easily. She took a sip of coffee and wished she had something stronger to drink; she doubted that they had anything stronger than beer here. She opened the diary and her breath caught when she saw her mother's handwriting.

            Tears filled up her eyes, blurring her vision, and she wiped angrily at them. She wouldn't cry, especially here, in front of strangers. She took a deep breath and blinked a couple of times, willing the tears away. She looked outside for a moment, watching cars and passersby, and when she finally focused on the diary again, she had steeled herself for what she was about to read.

            It was time to know her mother's inner thoughts.

To be continued