Page 84 of Thorn

Arya stared at her lap. Was he? “I assumed he was…I don’t know. I never saw anything. We were watched carefully when we were together, so we were cautious to speak only scientifically. I do know that when he didn’t comply…when he failed…when he tried to make mistakes to slow down the work, they would come in and beat me. They had a video camera. They wanted George to see that his behavior hurt me, very badly. And…well I tried very hard to comply so neither George or my sisters were hurt.”

“Do you know what happened to your hearing, Arya?”

“Yes, it was an accident. I was explaining the issues with pinpointing the weapon. I went into the sound proof room to adjust the experiment and someone set off the subsonic sounds. I heard an odd noise. And then everything changed. My ability to hear. The tinnitus. The confusion. Short term memory loss. Uhm…disequilibrium.”

“And what happened next?”

“I was in my bed one night. George was able to get my door unlocked. He said he was going to escape and asked me if I wanted to come with him. Of course, I did. I was willing to risk anything at that point − my life, my sisters’ lives.Anything. They had told me more about the weapons they wanted me to develop after CHAMP, a low frequency infrasound that would explode blood cells−" Her eyes stretched wide. “Wait! Is that the apocalyptic weapon you mentioned, Thorn? Taking out mammals and leaving infrastructure? I didn’t line those up. It was – I didn’t.” She shook her head vehemently. “I didn’t even want them to have CHAMP−”

Lynx interrupted, “Arya, George asked you to escape. Were you successful?”

“He drove us through the night to a small field. There was an airplane, and we stopped to eat and have something to drink, waiting for the morning light. I fell asleep. When I woke up, I was in the hospital and DuBois was there with George. That’s Dr. David DuBois, who is absolutelynotmy father.”

Chapter Forty

Thorn

Paris, France

Monday, Zero Three Twenty Hours

“Other than those sketchy details, I don’t remember the escape right now, maybe it will come back to me later,” Arya said.

“I’d like to know who was there at the hospital,” Lynx said. “I’m trying to get an understanding of the relationships.”

“George was helping me at the hospital. He spoke to the doctors on my behalf. They were speaking a language I didn’t know.”

Lynx seemed to brighten. “Portuguese maybe?”

“It sounded like a romance language. When they gave me paperwork to sign, I could guess at some of the words. It was too complicated for me to figure out, so I just signed it. I needed surgery.” Her fingers came up and traced along the scar on her head. “And when I woke up, David Dubois and George were in the room with me. I needed time to recover. I was there for weeks, I think.”

“Close your eyes. Go back to your recovery time,” Lynx said in a smooth low voice. “Let a picture come up for you. Tell me what you see.”

“My head and face were bandaged. George told me they’d had to shave off my hair.”

“George was still with you.” Lynx’s voice was hypnotic. “Anyone else?”

Thorn had to trust Lynx knew what she was doing. He watched Arya’s face slacken.

“He introduced me to David DuBois. He was famous for his neuro-biological studies in PTSD and brain trauma. He said he couldn’t fix my ears, but he might be able to help me with interventions that could make my injuries less disabling.”

Arya’s eyes slid back and forth behind her closed lids.

“You’re remembering a scene.” Lynx’s voice soothed. “Tell me what you see.”

“I woke up and pushed my call button, but the nurse didn’t come. I got myself out of bed, I needed to use the toilet. When I opened the bathroom door, I found David and George having sex in my bathroom. I was horribly embarrassed.”

“Isn’t Matthews married to a woman?” Thorn mouthed into his covert mic.

“That doesn’t mean anything,” Lynx said back in his ear.

True…

Arya opened her eyes. “I’m so sorry. I think I need to lie down and close my eyes. The vertigo is making me nauseated. My head is pounding.”

“You gave me everything I needed. Thank you, Arya. You rest, and we’ll keep moving forward with our plan.”

Thorn shifted to get off her bed, but Arya wasn’t letting go of his hand. He closed the laptop lid and stretched out to place it on the hospital table. Reaching across his chest, he pushed the button to lower the head of the bed back to flat, then turned on his side so she could burrow up next to him, their fingers still entwined.

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