Chapter 28 part 2

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Run, The Hunter said again.

This will not help, The Advisor said.

The Caretaker moved next to Bryan.  He needs your protection.

The first detective took another step closer to William, one hand on his handcuffs.  "Rios, let me talk to him," Bryan said.

William said the word to Bryan, but directed it to everyone there, human and non-human.  "No."

There was a ripple in the fog as the three detectives tensed.  William didn't move.  He waited and The Hunter stepped up, swiped targets on Rios' throat and abdomen.

"No," William said.  The Hunter turned to him and the red targets faded away.

"That's it," Cray said.

The fog around Cray's taser crackled with red and blue light for a fraction of a second, then showed the path of the darts straight to William's chest.  He waited.

"Don’t," Bryan said.  William didn't turn to him, kept his eyes focused on the taser.

As Cray squeezed the trigger, William lashed out with a hand and yanked Rios to the spot he'd been standing.  The darts struck the detective in the right side of his chest and the current running through them dropped him immediately to the ground, the shotgun tumbling a few feet away.  William looked over at Cray, who took two full seconds to realize he had hit the wrong target.

Finally, Cray pulled his finger off the trigger and dropped the taser.  The Hunter painted a series of targets on this detective.  Eyes, sternum, side of knee, neck.  "No," William said.  He thought of dropping the heavier detective to his back, formed the image in his mind and got a nod from The Hunter.

As Cray dug under his shoulder for his gun, William closed the distance.  The Hunter showed him a sweep on Cray's outline.

The gun came free and Cray swung it out, but William ducked and rushed forward, already in close range.  He drove his right arm up, his shoulder under Cray's armpit, then swung it downward across the heavy man's chest and neck as he chopped his leg back and up in a sweep behind Cray’s knees.

Cray's legs sailed up as his back plummeted down to the grass.  William guided him down until he hit with a loud thump.  His gun made a softer thud as it landed in the grass a few feet away.  The detective went silent, wide eyed for a moment, then his face tightened in pain and he groaned loudly.  As Cray rolled to his side and pressed a fist into his lower back, William saw little shoots of red blossom and pulse from the man's back down his writhing legs.

William turned to Bryan, saw that the taser was out again.

Protect him, The Caretaker said.

The others cannot know that he knows you, The Advisor said.

The taser showed no crackling light around the barrel.  Bryan wasn't going to try to shoot William.

He still needs your help, The Caretaker said.

William felt his lips pull away from his teeth, heard the breath hissing out between his clenched lips before he was aware of what it meant.  Then, the emotion began to push up through the fog.  It was anger.

With it came a wave of other feelings and sensations.  The hopelessness returned and pain began to spread through his body.

Before it burned the fog away and left him without the help of the voices, William snatched a hand out and grasped the barrel of the taser.  The plastic crunched and broke beneath his fingers.

Bryan tried to take a step back, but William followed him, grabbed the lapels of his jacket.  As The Hunter faded away, William twisted his right arm to the left and then back behind Bryan's head, still holding the jacket.  The movement forced Mickelson into a half spin and he ended up wrapped in William's arms, choked by his own coat.

William kept the pressure light but steady.  The fog was gone, replaced by pain all through his body.  "Why?  I have to protect her," he said, voice low.

Behind him, he heard movement.  He spun, dragged Bryan with him, to see Rios crawl to his knees.

The collar choke wasn't tight enough to cut off air or blood, but William felt Bryan reach up and dig his fingers underneath the fabric.  "Maybe it's not your job anymore."  His voice was a whisper, but it sounded angry as well.

Rios pawed through the grass, reached for the shotgun.  William kept Bryan in front as the detective raised the weapon.

"Maybe it's not your job yet," William said.  He let go of his grip as he shoved Bryan away, straight at Rios.  Though William was alone and exhausted without the fog, the push had enough force to send Bryan stumbling into the other detective.  The two crashed together and William turned toward the street as Rios fought to bring the gun back up.

He hugged the side of the far house, as far away from the rising heat of the fire as possible and ran.

"No!"  The voice behind him was Bryan's.  Then there was a blast from the shotgun.

William ducked down low, wished he had the fog and the voices to show him the spray of the shot.  He kept running and after he cleared the fire and was on the street, he realized he hadn't been hit.

His run became a limp, but he pushed himself forward, across the next series of yards, out of the neighborhood.

*

The nightmares were back.  Even with all of the lights on, Susan Westen couldn't fall back asleep.  Every time she closed her eyes she saw the hands, felt them holding her down.

She didn't know why she had the same dream since she'd gone away to college, but after getting her M.D. she had been able to control it, had found the discipline necessary to lock it up in a corner of her mind.  She had processed what her father had done to her as a child, had turned his abuse into fuel that she could focus and it had helped her for years.

But things had been different since she had been attacked.  Slowly, every brick in her defenses had been broken down.  It was harder to remain calm with the patients, much harder to pass her calm onto them.  The day room had become a battleground. Two orderlies had been injured in the last few days and the young nurse who had helped her had quit.

She wondered, as she lay on the bed in her brightly lit room, if she was still doing her job at all, if she was helping people.  She immediately grabbed the thought and locked it away.  Such thinking wasn't to be tolerated.

Nor were thoughts about the hands.

Her own mangled hand lay on her chest, itching and throbbing in the bandages.  Why had he crushed hers?  Why her right hand?  She hadn't been holding Mary down with it.  She wouldn't do that.  She never would.

She closed her eyes, and saw the hands again.  First her father's.  They started by holding her, slowly moved on.  But then, there were more, another pair that held her down.

She sat up, felt the blood rush through her broken bones and let herself wince.  She was alone after all.  She could let the pain show.

The thoughts of the other hands were not to be tolerated nor trusted.  She knew how a mind could manufacture memories to suit its interpretation of data, how it could recreate whole experiences that simply were not true.  It was misfiring neurons, her brain trying to re-create a new context for implicitly encoded memories.  As a little girl, her brain had bypassed her hippocampus and not stored the memories of her father's abuse explicitly in order to protect her.  That's all it could ever be.  The memories of the other hands were a creation, nothing real.

She looked down at the bed.  It was the middle of the night, but she wouldn't be getting any more sleep.  She dressed, slid the clothing carefully over and around the damaged hand, but it still hurt terribly.

This was all his fault.  William Adams.

She would go out.  The detective, Mickelson, had warned her, but he didn't know how important it was.  He'd never know.  She would go out and she would find Adams.  And if she couldn't find him tonight, she'd find the next best thing.

*

(Author’s note: Read on for more trouble as William’s bad night continues and Bryan makes a decision that could turn fatal.  Also...Jared's plan to get William is just around the corner...  Until then, thank you all for the votes and comments!  Keep them coming!  Talk to you soon!)

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