Page 120 of Mind Maze

The videos begin again, starting with the licking man. With Seth in my way, I can only hear the sounds. It’s easier to think of Caius when it’s just sounds.

He’ll find me.

I’m sure of it.

What’s transpired between us isn’t one-sided. He feels it too. It was supposed to be fake, but we quickly fell into a desperate need for one another. I can’t see in any scenario where Caius would abandon me. Not now.

My heart clenches with hope. I just have to find a way to endure until I see him again. Then the two of us will get LuLu and Kaitlyn out of here. And anyone else we find, for that matter. We’ll shut down this twisted operation.

Until then, I need to store away clues. Learn everything I can. Don’t succumb to their reprogramming.

As filthy images cross the screen and become more and more brutal, I stare without seeing. I block out the sounds as I let my mind categorize everything I’ve learned thus far. Distance in approximate hours to the location. Every detail about the outside and what I know about the inside. Faces of nurses and the doctors. Every prick of medication, sorting out the responses and assuming what type each of them are.

And then there’s what I’ve learned about this mind control.

The Crownes. My family. The president, his son, and his son’s friend.

What about Vivienne and her showing back up in my life all these years later? Her journals, the pictures, the connection with my father. Is her mental illness a coincidence in all this or another link?

There’s Solomon and Ava and LuLu. They all fit in too.

Everyone has given me jagged pieces of a complicated puzzle. It’s all to be stored away until I can piece it together as it was meant to be.

I just have to get through this.

I can’t let them break me.

Something familiar drags me from my safe place, forcing me to comprehend what I’m seeing on the wall. The video is from that night. A hidden camera inside our room caught the entire scene.

I’m forced to watch Gareth overpower me.

I can hear the sounds stabbing at my ear drums and piercing my skull.

The begging. The pleading.

I’m going to throw up.

As if anticipating this, Seth shows up with a plastic tub for me to vomit into. The video continues to obliterate me as I pukeup my guts. Since I can’t move my head, it runs down my chin, dripping into the container. Seth strokes my hair.

“I’ll get you cleaned up in a minute. Just get it all out. Doc Junior went to grab you a Sprite.”

I make eye contact with him and spit acidy bile in his face. A flash of irritation is the only response I get. He doesn’t even swipe it away or chide me.

Once I’m done, he leaves my sight. When he returns, he uses a wet cloth to clean off my face, and I note his is no longer covered in my spew.

“What makes you happy?” Seth asks. “I could show you more of that.”

That feels like a trick question, but I give him the truth.

“Freedom,” I tell him. “Love. Puzzles.”

“Good,” he praises. “Let’s show you some of those things.”

The disgusting rape and sex stuff disappears. I watch a couple share vows on a beach and then run into the crashing waves, hand in hand. The video switches to a woman cradling a baby as she sits in her glider, staring at the child as if it’s her whole world. Then it switches to an old man sitting at a table overlooking a placid lake surrounded by tall trees. He’s putting together a puzzle of a lovely wintery scene with deer. Old ’50s music plays in the background and he hums along.

It switches to a video of a farmhouse nestled in front of a belt of trees. A tire swing hangs from the large tree out front. Wind makes the swing move and you can hear the creaking of the branch supporting it. The windows of the farmhouse are open and I hear laughter inside.

Though these are happy, they also make me sad. I think about the ring on my finger, the man who’s probably searching for me, the budding love that’s been stolen from me.

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