Suspicious Minds (Stranger Things Novels #1)(70)

His smirk told her he knew he’d won that point. Terry looked over at Kali.

“What did you tell him?” Alice’s face hovered in Terry’s mind. If he knew about her visions of the future, there’d be no stopping him…

“She told me the truth,” Dr. Brenner said. “That you asked her to distract me.”

Terry’s pulse pounded like a drumbeat.

“She told you that I…I…,” Terry stammered. Fear kept her rooted in place. She hated being afraid of this man. He didn’t deserve it. But how could she not be? Did he know about the void? “I don’t…”

“We don’t lie to Papa,” Kali said softly. Kali turned her head to Terry and, as Brenner watched Terry, lifted her finger to her trembling lips in the symbol for keeping a secret. He didn’t know, then. “He always finds out.”

Dr. Brenner took a step closer to the bunks, turning his attention back to Kali. “That’s right.”

He clapped his hands together. He was smiling. “I can’t wait to see how you perform next month. I suspected as much, but today’s conflagration confirms it. You are getting stronger. Very promising.”

Funny. That wasn’t how Terry would describe this feeling.

“What’s next month?” she asked, proud of how steady her voice stayed.

“A surprise for Kali,” Dr. Brenner said. “And for you.”

Terry closed her eyes. You bastard.





5.


Dr. Brenner escorted her back to her room. The orderly had deposited the contents of her bag on a table, including the camera and the Polaroids from his office. Oh, and the giant sanitary pad and belt she always kept on hand these days.

“Have you been menstruating regularly?” Brenner asked.

“God, buy a girl dinner first,” Terry spit out. Her cheeks flamed. This was not exactly a usual topic of conversation.

“Have you?”

“Yes, not that it’s your business.”

“I’m just checking for side effects from your medication. Is it once monthly?”

He waited, eyes lasering into her.

“No, actually. On and off,” Terry said, cheeks still burning. “Constantly. That’s why I have that in my purse. You may not know this, but spotting happens to lots of women. Especially when we have stress. Would you like to hear more? I have so much to say about cramps.”

Brenner coolly picked up the stack of Polaroids, unbothered by her trying to embarrass him the way he had her. He went through the photos with slow deliberation, considering each.

“I’ll keep this one,” he said, showing the one of the nameplate on his desk. He replaced the rest of the stack. “You can have the rest. It’s impossible to make any but stray words out. Sorry your plan didn’t work out. Better luck next time…Except there had best not be one.”

Terry still felt the effects of the LSD like the room was vibrating. “Are we done?”

“Almost.” Dr. Brenner watched her. “Terry, you and your friends are part of very important research. As is Kali. I know it may seem cruel to you, but it’s very humane. Other countries do much, much worse in their quest to expand the bounds of human knowledge.”

Shadows appeared around him. Or maybe the acid just let her see them. Maybe Dr. Brenner always walked ringed in shadows, like a Black Rider galloping off the pages of her book.

Terry couldn’t pretend not to see what he was. “Really? Do they keep a five-year-old girl isolated from other children for purity’s sake? Do they have children living in cells in a place like this? In hospital gowns? Shut off from the world and what being a kid is?”

“Those children might be the only advantage we have.” He went silent for a moment. When he spoke, he wore a faint smile. “In a recent intelligence update, I was told that the Russians have developed a theory that mothers and their children have a mental link with each other. Do you know how they tested this theory? They bred rabbits, and then they put the mothers and their offspring in different rooms and killed the babies to see if the mother felt it.”

“God.” Terry’s stomach turned. Visions of dying bunnies bounced around in her head. Bop-Bop. Bop. “I think you should go. This trip is getting too intense.”

She picked up the Polaroids where he’d set them down and took them with her to the cot.

Brenner stayed where he was. “I will see you next week, Miss Ives. You don’t want to test my limits to hunt you down and bring you back.” He paused. “But oh, maybe you’re like the mother rabbit in this scenario…I know you’ll be back, because you won’t risk me punishing a child in your place.”

Terry refused to tell him he was right. He obviously knew it. “I said you can go,” she said.

Once he did, she flipped through each shot she’d taken on her precious Polaroid film. Blurry names and text that would be meaningless to anyone who hadn’t seen the full document. She’d ended up with nothing…

Except getting caught.





6.


There were men who considered themselves above Dr. Brenner, but who he privately thought of as his backers, his financiers, those he gave reports to rather than reported to…A crucial distinction.

The way to do great work was to do your own work. Once you started following someone else’s whims and compass, rot set in. Luckily for him, most of the crucial powerbrokers whose support he needed had rotted from the inside out long ago. Manipulating them was simple enough. People could lose the courage of their convictions so easily.