Page 56 of One Step Sideways

“I’m pretty sure you know what a clinic is,” was the only response I got as he led me into a sterile-looking room. Not that I was taking any notice of my surroundings because all my attention narrowed on the guy with a stethoscope hanging around his neck.

Danny.

Chapter Twenty-four

Danny – earlier that day.

I couldn’t decide whether the warden—Edgar Connaught—was on the level or very clever. He explained that while he’d requested medical staff from the personnel next door in the high security unit to train me, apparently a nasty flu had taken a lot of staff out and they couldn’t spare anyone. Which made me wonder if it was more that he didn’t want other people in here, apart from his hand-picked few. I’d done my research, and every single C.O. was ex-military. Edgar Connaught had been offered early retirement from the navy ten years ago, and with the limited time I’d had I couldn’t find out whether it had been voluntary or he’d been pushed.

There’d been an incident—buried deep in the records—with his youngest son in basic training. Apparently, it had been recorded as an accident with his M-9 pistol, but I wondered if it had been suicide. Suicide rates among service members were currently at an all-time high since record-keeping began after 9/11, and there didn’t seem to be a correlation between those on active-duty and those not.

Edgar Connaught hadn’t been happy with the explanation and despite the way the higher-ups had tried to quieten him, he had made a lot of noise, and at the same time his eldest son had been killed in a mortar attack overseas. A year later, he and his wife of twenty-seven years had gotten divorced.

I gazed at the man in the suit. All my research had shown me wardens in uniform, not suits, but that barely made the list of fucked-up things I’d found out today. I’d been given a brief tour of the staff areas and the clinic, and that was it. Apparently, I would never be present in the main lock-up areas even with an escort. Wearing my obvious scrubs, I was too much of a target. I was shown the control center and my heart jumped in my mouth when I saw Kane on one of the screens then Shae on another.

The cells were made of some type of one-way glass. Not fragile clearly, but the point was we could see in, but they couldn’t see out.

There were seven enhanced currently being held, including Kane, and I breathed in relief when I realized Shae was one of them. There were three that didn’t warrant such a high-security area. One of those was even in for shoplifting, of all things. Then another two. Samuel Burrows had been taken into foster care at ten when he had gotten the mark, as his birth family had surrendered him immediately to the cops, without even waiting to see if he displayed a dangerous ability he couldn’t control.

He’d gone into the foster care system, and there had been at least one set of foster parents that he’d stayed with for over a year that had been prosecuted for abuse. Apparently, a teacher had raised concerns about another, and a social worker yet a third, but when she’d changed jobs it hadn’t been followed up on. Samuel aged out of the system at eighteen, showing minimal abilities with telekinesis. The day he’d aged out, he’d taken the bus back to his hometown and walked into his old home to find his parents eating dinner.

He'd tried to explain that he wasn’t dangerous and pleaded with them to let him come home, but they had told him to get out or they would call the cops.

In fact, the father had told him he wished he’d died at birth so they wouldn’t have such a stain on their family name. His mom had prayed for God to consign the devil’s demon spawn back to hell where he belonged.

Samuel had taken everything in and then stayed completely still while every knife, every blade, had flown out of the kitchen and embedded themselves in his parents’ bodies in precisely the right places to make sure they bled out. Then he’dcalled the cops because his sixteen-year-old younger brother was at ball practice, and he didn’t want him arriving home and discovering the bodies.

He’d waited while the cops arrived and hadn’t tried once to resist arrest. He told the cops he had made sure his younger brother had an aunt he could stay with that didn’t really get on with his parents, so he wouldn’t be put in the foster system. That had been important to him.

Then the last boy, Callum Granger— as if Samuel hadn’t been enough—just about broke my heart. Callum was only sixteen and had transformed at twelve. However, his ability was generating huge amounts of electricity which he couldn’t control. He’d woken up on that fateful morning and become hysterical after seeing his reflection in the bathroom mirror. Both his parents had rushed in, hearing the screams, and his dad had pulled Callum into a hug.

An estimated electrical current of twenty thousand amps killed Callum’s father immediately. His mom managed to keep it together and not touch her son, but he was sedated with a dart some of the emergency response team had started carrying, and once unconscious, his ability could be managed. For three and a half years, his mom visited her son every week despite the two-hundred-mile round trip journey, until he was moved to this new facility four weeks ago and visitors were banned. His mom never blamed Callum. The problem was, while Callum was conscious, he couldn’t turn his ability off, and the state had spent three years experimenting with sedatives to try to control it with no success.

I couldn’t even imagine, and I’d bet my last dime Finn would get involved with this if he had the chance. The problem was state lines.

Georgia had taken advantage of a loophole in the new law that the Tampa team had been responsible for enacting. Basically, enhanced minors couldn’t be locked up simply for having a scar on their face.Unless they had committed a crime.The loophole was successful at incarcerating both a kid simply guilty of shoplifting, and admittedly another for voluntary manslaughter. I’d be interested in what Oliver Michaels made of it.

“So that’s our collection,” Connaught said and smiled.

Collection?And I got why Kane cursed so much if he had to deal with these idiots all day. Not that servicemen didn’t. I’d just never cursed much because Mom hated it.

“So, what exactly are my duties?” I asked, trying to be pleasant when I really wanted to put my fist through his face for the eagerness he hadn’t tried to hide when describing Callum’s ability. “I’m assuming first-aid, minor injuries?”

Connaught hesitated. “Actually, no. All my C.O.s have first-aid training, and I doubt there will be any serious injuries. As I know you are aware, the enhanced haveenhancedhealing abilities. What I really want is for you to establish a baseline with their general health. Gain their trust. I know you did two tours. Befriending the locals is an integral part of that. This is a very similar situation.”

He gazed at me like he’d said nothing wrong. That he wasn’t talking about American citizens.

“I hate that the enhanced aren’t utilized as the gift to humanity they are, and that as youngsters they’re often put in situations that create criminals.” He gestured to the tablet on the desk where he had just been reading out the back stories of the inmates to me. Although I didn’t think he needed the written copy. He seemed to have learned every detail.

“One of our newest inmates is Kane Diaz.” I was very careful not to react. “He was arrested and convicted for bodily harm to his father at the age of sixteen, but you will note that his own injuries—some going back years—were never taken into account. If you look at the medical records, he had whip marks on his back that were still bleeding.” Connaught leaned forward. “I want to stop that.”

Did he?

“What have you found out so far?” I tried to look curious.

“Diaz has spent seventeen years in the high-security unit next door. The only incident I can discover which might have involved him using an undocumented ability was during a prison riot. He somehow managed to be in two places at once.” He tapped his pen. “What’s interesting is that he had an older, non-enhanced prisoner with him, a lifer that apparently took a younger Diaz under his wing. The fascinating thing is that I’ve managed to access recordings which show the exact time Diaz and the other prisoner entered the chow hall wherethe riot started, just before the cameras all malfunctioned. I have personally interviewed four C.O.s as part of my research for my position here that all ran as summoned from the direction of the cells, and not one of them saw Diaz or the other prisoner coming back. The direction the C.O.s came from is the only way Diaz and the other prisoner could have gone. When the C.O.s took control back and inspected the cells, both Diaz and the other prisoner were in Newhold’s cell.”

I frowned. “How reliable are the accounts?” I knew exactly which incident he meant. Kane had used his ability for the first time, and as I’d thought, somehow he could not only block other people’s visionbut make them unaware of it as well. It was an incredibly powerful gift, and I knew Connaught wasn’t going to let this go.

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