Suspicious Minds (Stranger Things Novels #1)(49)

Gloria shook her head. “Sounds like as good a crazy plan as any, then. I’ll need a few days to research the best protocols. So when are we doing this?”

Terry picked up her fork. “I guess as soon as Alice has the machine ready, unless someone comes up with a better idea first.”

“We won’t,” Ken said.

A whirl of nerves spun through Alice, and they were back to being the bad kind.





2.


Terry sat in a chair in a room at the lab with her eyes closed. Brenner had led her through a long series of visualization exercises—mostly picturing the various parts of her body and envisioning them healthy and strong. What purpose it had, she couldn’t say, but it had been easy.

He’d eventually quieted and left her to go deeper.

She found herself back in that nowhere-everywhere place. The void. Alone.

She’d been experimenting with trying to find someone, the way she’d seen Gloria. But there was nothing. No light of any kind.

Anyway, even though Alice’s logic that it was her choice was sound, Terry hated the idea of shocking her. She had tried to come up with a plan that meant they didn’t have to. She’d come up empty.

When Kali appeared in front of her, approaching in the black, Terry blinked. She was sure she’d hallucinated it.

But the girl remained, darkness around them.

“Kali?” Terry asked in her mind, holding out her hand.

“I’m here,” the girl said. “Am I dreaming?”

“Maybe?” Terry offered. Who knew?

Either way, talking to Kali with Brenner in the room monitoring Terry and none the wiser gave the moment a special thrill. From the outside, she just sat motionless, tripping. She felt drowsy and pleasant with her eyes closed.

Terry dropped her hand. She didn’t want to scare Kali off, so she asked something neutral. “What have you been doing today?”

Kali struck her as being in a mood. Not a good one.

“Making pictures for Papa.”

“Like you made for me of the sunflowers?” Terry asked.

Kali scowled. “No.” She held up her hand, holding a crayon. Terry squinted at her forearm and saw the small tattoo there: 008. “Pictures. Those are ’lusions.”

She tried not to react with the horror she felt at the number, for Kali’s sake. “?’Lusions…?” she asked. “Oh, illusions.”

“That’s what I said.”

Terry might not have been around many kids, but she knew better than to argue with that tone of voice. She would tread lightly.

“Does Papa know we’ve talked? Is it still our secret?”

“I told you. Papa knows everything. There’re no secrets from Papa.”

A circle of fear bloomed inside Terry. She tried not to let the girl see. Had she told him about sneaking out to find Terry before? Or, worse, had he encouraged it?

Kali watched her with the attention only a child waiting for you to give something essential away could. If she asked outright again, Kali would never trust her. And now Kali didn’t need to sneak out for Terry to see her.

“I know that seems true, but it isn’t,” Terry said, gazing straight into Kali’s eyes so she could see her honesty. “He doesn’t know we’re talking here. This is between us. The only way he’d know is if you told him.”

The girl was quiet for a long moment. Then, “I’ll do my best.” She peered at Terry with renewed interest. “Do you have friends?”

“We’re friends, aren’t we?” Terry asked.

Kali smiled, clearly pleased. “I want friends more than anything. Do you have other friends?”

“Oh yes,” Terry said. “Some of them are even at the lab today.” When Kali looked around them in the nowhere-everywhere of the void, Terry clarified. “Not here here, but at the lab. We all come together. And I have other friends, too. Andrew…” Why could she barely get his name out? She’d gotten choked up. Blame the acid. The Selective Service and its lottery. Brenner. She was overly sentimental lately.

She swallowed and forged on. “Andrew’s one of my very best friends.”

“It’s not fair.” Kali stomped her foot in the water, and an echo of circles spun out from it into the darkness. “Why do you have so many friends? You’re not even special, really. Papa says he’s getting me a friend, but he’s said it before.”

The little girl was having a meltdown and rightly so. “You don’t have any other friends?”

Why would he keep her separate if there were other children like her? God, everything she learned about Brenner made her loathe him more.

Kali shook her head, her face scrunched, near tears.

“Well, that’s not fair,” Terry said. “I’m glad we’re friends. And you made this friend all on your own, without any help from your papa.”

Kali nodded. “I have to go.”

Terry had so much more to ask her. “You’ll visit me again when you can?”

The fierce chin ducked in a yes, and then Kali threw herself at Terry and put her arms around her. The girl hugged Terry hard and fast and then released her and disappeared into the black of the void.

The resilience in that little girl. How long had she been under Brenner’s sway? Terry had so many questions. She felt a tear slip down her cheek, touched by the sudden hug.