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Authors: Anna DeStefano
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town?”
“Across town?” Loneliness and pain and hatred and guilt. Maddie’s eyes filled with each emotion, one after the other, then all at once. Her confusion swirled around them, drawing him closer. “Sarah’s hundreds of miles from here,” she insisted, “in a long-term care facility in Georgia.”
Jarred lifted an eyebrow, remembering the tense conversation he’d interrupted between Maddie and her mother. Maddie had been asking for information about a twin she’d assured him she wanted nothing to do with.
“According to the records I accessed over the hospital’s medical link, Sarah Lynn Temple was committed to Trinity Psychiatric Research Center after suffering an irrecoverable mental breakdown. For the last ten years, your sister’s been cared for just a few miles from here.”
C HAPTER E LEVEN
Kayla Lawrence was dead.
Richard had used every safeguard he’d programmed into Sarah’s dream conditioning. He’d stayed connected with her mind throughout the simulation this time. But he hadn’t been able to stop the shadow dream from taking over. He hadn’t stopped some perverted bastard from using Sarah to kill a woman whose mind she’d known intimately for months.
How could this have happened?
Richard terminated the com link to the center surveillance team watching Lawrence’s apartment. The police were on scene. The suicide case was already all but closed. No suspicious circumstances for local authorities to investigate. It was a tragic tale about a seemingly content, middle-aged woman ending her life with no explanation.
No family to demand further investigation. No significant other who needed to understand the unexplainable. Viable hosts had been chosen for Dream Weaver based initially on their loner status. Richard had selected Lawrence from the government’s list. And now she was dead. Sarah had killed the woman with the dream-projection skills Richard had taught her.
She’d never forgive him.
He’d never forgive himself.
He snapped his laptop closed and paced to Sarah’s recovery room bed, shoving his hands into the pockets of his scrubs. He reached for her mind, knowing there would be nothing but silence there. It took her two full days to recover from a typical simulation. He’d rushed her into another projection this time. Now, after Kayla Lawrence’s death…
Sarah had been so horrified, her mind had broken through her meds and the paralysis that came with deep sleep. She’d woken up screaming, semiconscious, fighting him and everyone else in the room before he’d taken her under again. Would her mind recover from this intact? Would she be able to link with him or anyone else again? Trust him again?
Video cameras were recording his every move, providing panoramic footage of every nuance of Alpha’s emotional and physical state. Details he’d used to isolate the stimuli and suppressive routines needed to target Sarah’s dream work. Images that, if he wasn’t careful, would now destroy their chance to escape.
Tonight…Sarah would be nowhere near ready, and she would likely fight him when he brought her around. But their only chance to get out would be tonight.
“So.” He gazed down at the one variable in his deepcover mission that no one would ever fully control—Sarah herself. “It’s time.”
He chose his words carefully.
Performed for the cameras.
“It’s all or nothing now.” He caught faint movement beneath Sarah’s eyelids.
She was dreaming. On her own. Beyond Dream Weaver protocol and Richard’s safeguards—safeguards that had failed them both. Recovery meds seeped intoher bloodstream through the shunt in her chest, regulating her comatose state. The recovery period between simulations was on nuclear countdown. Richard’s team would be working up to the last minute—preparing a new host’s background report, presumably for Sarah to use to return to her Dream Weaver work.
Not that the center’s directors were going to let that happen under
“Across town?” Loneliness and pain and hatred and guilt. Maddie’s eyes filled with each emotion, one after the other, then all at once. Her confusion swirled around them, drawing him closer. “Sarah’s hundreds of miles from here,” she insisted, “in a long-term care facility in Georgia.”
Jarred lifted an eyebrow, remembering the tense conversation he’d interrupted between Maddie and her mother. Maddie had been asking for information about a twin she’d assured him she wanted nothing to do with.
“According to the records I accessed over the hospital’s medical link, Sarah Lynn Temple was committed to Trinity Psychiatric Research Center after suffering an irrecoverable mental breakdown. For the last ten years, your sister’s been cared for just a few miles from here.”
C HAPTER E LEVEN
Kayla Lawrence was dead.
Richard had used every safeguard he’d programmed into Sarah’s dream conditioning. He’d stayed connected with her mind throughout the simulation this time. But he hadn’t been able to stop the shadow dream from taking over. He hadn’t stopped some perverted bastard from using Sarah to kill a woman whose mind she’d known intimately for months.
How could this have happened?
Richard terminated the com link to the center surveillance team watching Lawrence’s apartment. The police were on scene. The suicide case was already all but closed. No suspicious circumstances for local authorities to investigate. It was a tragic tale about a seemingly content, middle-aged woman ending her life with no explanation.
No family to demand further investigation. No significant other who needed to understand the unexplainable. Viable hosts had been chosen for Dream Weaver based initially on their loner status. Richard had selected Lawrence from the government’s list. And now she was dead. Sarah had killed the woman with the dream-projection skills Richard had taught her.
She’d never forgive him.
He’d never forgive himself.
He snapped his laptop closed and paced to Sarah’s recovery room bed, shoving his hands into the pockets of his scrubs. He reached for her mind, knowing there would be nothing but silence there. It took her two full days to recover from a typical simulation. He’d rushed her into another projection this time. Now, after Kayla Lawrence’s death…
Sarah had been so horrified, her mind had broken through her meds and the paralysis that came with deep sleep. She’d woken up screaming, semiconscious, fighting him and everyone else in the room before he’d taken her under again. Would her mind recover from this intact? Would she be able to link with him or anyone else again? Trust him again?
Video cameras were recording his every move, providing panoramic footage of every nuance of Alpha’s emotional and physical state. Details he’d used to isolate the stimuli and suppressive routines needed to target Sarah’s dream work. Images that, if he wasn’t careful, would now destroy their chance to escape.
Tonight…Sarah would be nowhere near ready, and she would likely fight him when he brought her around. But their only chance to get out would be tonight.
“So.” He gazed down at the one variable in his deepcover mission that no one would ever fully control—Sarah herself. “It’s time.”
He chose his words carefully.
Performed for the cameras.
“It’s all or nothing now.” He caught faint movement beneath Sarah’s eyelids.
She was dreaming. On her own. Beyond Dream Weaver protocol and Richard’s safeguards—safeguards that had failed them both. Recovery meds seeped intoher bloodstream through the shunt in her chest, regulating her comatose state. The recovery period between simulations was on nuclear countdown. Richard’s team would be working up to the last minute—preparing a new host’s background report, presumably for Sarah to use to return to her Dream Weaver work.
Not that the center’s directors were going to let that happen under
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