Secrets Are For Keeping

Chapter Forty-Four

I was dropped off in a bland room with dimmed lighting and only a desk with two chairs, one on either side of it.

One of the metal chairs was occupied. The one farthest from the door. I stared at the occupant, a woman wearing a large white lab coat with dark hair pinned up into a bun. There was a blue pen jutting out from a pocket on her coat, and a clipboard sat on the desk in front of her.

"Please, sit down," the lady offered, but with absolutely no kindness in her voice. She was the complete opposite of the doctor that had given me my Animus, and didn't really even feel like a doctor at all with the exception of her lab coat. She looked bored with her life as I sat down in the metal chair across from her.

She got up from her chair and walked to a counter behind her that had a sink in it. I heard the water turn on and then the lady turned back around holding a plastic cup filled three quarters to the brim with tap water. She placed it down on the desk, like she'd done the same thing a thousand times.

"Drink," she ordered, then turned to scan her eyes over words on the clipboard. I wasn't actually tied down to anything and I could already see multiple objects on the counter that could be used as weapons. Why were they being so careless in just this room? They'd even decided to cut off the new zip tie they'd put on when trying to take me out of the room. It made even less sense for there not to be one now where I had the entire room at my hands to use against this one woman.

But even with the option to hurt her, I decided against it. There were likely guards posted outside the room and she had yet to do anything that would hurt me. All she had done was tell me to drink water. Maybe this was just another inspection, just like we'd had back at the school.

I picked up the unstable plastic cup of water, and began to drink it. Once I started, I couldn't stop. My throat was parched, and I hadn't even noticed it until the first drop of water had hit my tongue. When I was finished with the cup, I placed it back down on the desk. My stomach rumbled, reminding me just how hungry I was. I had no clue what day or time it was. All I knew was that I'd woken up some time ago and then had been kept in a white room for a while. After that I'd fallen asleep, meaning it could really be any time of day. I could've even been drugged while I'd been asleep to ensure I didn't wake up, which could mean that I'd been passed out for longer than I thought. The problem with my last idea was that Kain's story of being taken away wouldn't match up with it. Unless he too was drugged, which was possible.

"Please tell me your name," the lady said, interrupting my thought process.

Her statement confused me. Shouldn't she already know my name?

"My name is Nova Carlson," I responded anyway, since the question was easy.

"How old are you?"

"I'm sixteen."

The lady was scribbling loudly into the clipboard like I was listing out all the truths of life and she had to get every word down. But all I was saying were things that should've already been in the packet of information about me.

"How are you feeling?" The question felt at odds with what was usually asked of me during an inspection, and I didn't have an immediate response like I'd had for the other two.

"I'm fine...why?"

The doctor ignored my question. "Have you done anything in your life that you wish you could take back?" Now her questions were going back to being familiar. I was about to answer with the same answer I'd given every other time I'd been asked the question, when I remembered what Pepper had told me.

They already knew.

But maybe she was wrong. If she was right, why would they still be asking? They had to be wrong. Pepper lied to me, just like how she'd been lying the entire time about everything. This was just one more lie for her to add to her never ending list of lies that she'd told people.

"No," I promptly replied, allowing my facial muscle to relax so that nothing could give away the fact that I was lying.

"So there's nothing you've done that could be called illegal?"

"No," I repeated, keeping my face clear while trying to keep my Animus clearer. It wouldn't betray me now. Not when I was trying so hard to stop it from doing so.

Somewhere deep in the back of my mind where my Animus couldn't reach, a voice screamed out against my lies, trying to make me think of Beckam, trying to bring back to life memories that I'd buried years ago.

She sighed, and rolled her eyes like I was being a disruptive child that she was being forced to babysit. It made me wonder if Pepper had been telling the truth and the reason why she was rolling her eyes was because she already knew I was lying and believed it was pointless for me to continue trying to avoid the inevitable.

And then...

...my vision began to shift. I closed my eyes as a sudden wave of nausea rolled into me.

What was going on?

When I opened my eyes again, the world was swaying back and forth like I was seeing everything through a ripple of waves in water. My stomach felt queasy, and my hands began to shake as cold sweat beaded on the surface of my fingers.

My entire body went burning hot...then cold...then hot.....

The woman stood up and the screech of her metal chair against the ground was overly loud in my ears, making me grit my teeth. I tried to stand up, but my legs barely moved before I realized my body was too heavy for them to handle. I gripped the table with my right hand as I felt like I was losing my balance even though I was sitting down.

The door to the room opened, but I was too weak to attempt an escape and the world was still spinning so much...spinning everywhere...

I didn't even feel my head fall down on the table, but then it was there. The world turned sideways and I was glad to finally have my body resting on something. The lady was talking and I could hear every word she was now saying to the guards.

"Attempt at finding a solution to force subjects to tell the truth number 20337, has failed. The drug needs to be revised and tell Doctor Holden to hurry up in finding a solution that will work. I do not enjoy having my subjects dragged out of here after every attempt."

Subjects? Like I was just a part of an experiment. The pieces of the puzzle seemed to click together slower than usual as the dizziness continued to lap over me, like waves on a sandy beach. I closed my eyes, but now my jaw was trembling. What was I thinking? Oh yea, subjects. Experiment. Truth solution.

They were...they were experimenting on people. They were experimenting with...

My eyes opened suddenly, just as I saw an inspector coming towards me.

They were trying to find a solution to force people to tell the truth. And it hadn't worked. That's why the lady had rolled her eyes. Pepper had been one hundred percent correct, and they already knew why I was guilty. They already knew what I'd done.

They only want a confession.