Page 124 of Mind Maze

Her blond hair has been braided neatly into two pigtails. The doll she had is now inhishand and she doesn’t seem pleased about it.

The face of the girl—my sister—is wrong, right? It’s the same face as the girl in the picture I’d found sitting on my hotel bed. They’re not just connected, they are the same.

How?

I blink several times to see if I can clear away the confusion of what I am seeing. If my hands were free, I’d rub at my eyes until a girl who looks like me comes into view. This one I’m watching doesn’t have dark hair like me and my biological parents.

They approach me in the video. His voice is soft but clear, directly being fed to my ears by a speaker attached to the contraption.

“I’ll take good care of Calista.”

He looks at the doll in his hand when he says it. He’s not speaking to me in that moment. He’s speaking to the girl.

How can that be?

Then he speaks to me in the video. “You’re being adopted, kiddo. I’ve done all I can do.”

Even as a grown man, hearing him say “kiddo” undoes me. My skin crawls and flashes of his mental torture starts assaulting me against my will. It takes everything in me to focus on the video and not my horrible memories.

The two of them walk away and disappear through a door. In the video, I stare after them, unmoving.

And then Dad appears with Ted.

I know the rest from here. He adopts me, takes me to his lodge, uses CUP programming to alter my mind to the point I don’t recognize it and question my past, and then brings me into the fold of his dark, twisted world as a partner in it—an heir to an evil empire.

The video stops and then I hear a voice behind me that chills me to my soul.

“So lovely to see you back here, kiddo. We have a second chance to fix you.”

I know the voice. The voice is the man from the video. My tormentor. The one who tookherand did God only knows what.

He steps into my line of sight and my brain takes several seconds to catch up. The vague man from my memories isn’tsome scary guy. No, he has a charming smile and a face that makes people want to follow him.

He’s the President of the United States, after all.

Dr. Huxley.

Hatred at myself consumes me. How could I fall victim to Dad’s programming and let him conveniently wipe Huxley from my mind? They must’ve all felt pleased as fuck when I was at the event, meeting President Huxley, and having no idea that he was a man whom I hated with every fiber of my being.

The betrayal I feel is sickening.

Huxley is a monster. He was cruel in his effort to “treat” me. I’d been a devastated kid who’d lost his parents. Huxley took me in and used me as a science experiment. He thought all his fucked-up methods could fix me—heal me of my debilitating grief.

I was too headstrong, though.

Mentally fought him every step of the way.

He wanted to break me, but I wouldn’t let him.

So rather than admitting defeat, he let Dad adopt me. I was forced to endure new psychological warfare against my fragile mind. This time, headway was made. I think, deep down, I just wanted to feel safe and loved. I allowed myself to be manipulated.

I have to get out of here.

“You were a failure,” Huxley says, cocking his head to the side. “I worked so hard on you.”

Rage and hurt are a firestorm inside of me, but I’m unable to do anything about it. I’m back to the source of my torture.

“But look at what you’ve become,” he continues. “CUP did wonders for you when I couldn’t. It truly is remarkable.”

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