THE ENEMY WITHIN

THE ENEMY WITHIN Chapter 7

"I get it. Forget about that. Listen, what happened to you, it could have been any of us," Vincent said.

Jamie nodded. Noah appeared less convinced.

"Tell me something, what do you think is going on?" Vincent asked.

"See, that's the thing – and this is just a little messed up to admit - for all I know you're just figments of my fractured psyche. Up until last night, I thought I had imagined you."

Jamie wrapped his knuckles with her fork. "Imagine that?"

The pain from the fork was no illusion.

"Assuming everything around you is actually here and this isn't a psychotic break with reality, what then?" Vincent prodded.

"If I knew the answers, I'd probably never have been at Hanover to begin with," Max said, glancing at Jamie, who poured sugar packet after packet into her mug. He was pleased to see no fork at the ready.

"Sweet tooth," Jamie said, spooning around her sugar with a hint of coffee.

"Fair enough," Vincent said. "All I ask is that you keep an open mind to everything you're about to hear. Your birthday's June 3rd. Before you ask, all our birthdays are the same. None of us knew our fathers and our mothers died giving birth. You could say we're the unwanted ones," Vincent said, motioning for more coffee.

Max didn't even bother trying hide his surprise. He closed his mouth. His birthday was June 3rd.

Jamie took the reins. "On September 3rd, eighteen years ago, all of our mothers disappeared. They were found three days later with no recollection of where they'd been. All of them turned up pregnant. Quite a coincidence, don't you think?"

If their mothers disappeared the same day ... had she just read his thoughts? He pushed past it. "Disappeared as in they were abducted?"

Vincent smiled, "The wheels are spinning now, huh? Tell me this, have you experienced any kind of strange phenomena lately?"

"Is that a joke? That's all I experience," Max said.

"Right, OK, I'm not talking about what led you to draw that city on fire. I mean something far worse. Something so painful, time just stops. You'd know what I mean," Vincent said.

"You're talking about something worse than the hot coils tightening around my head." He couldn't believe there was anything more painful than that waiting for him.

"Maybe it hasn't happened to him yet," Jamie said.

Noah smothered his toast in strawberry jam. "Why are you dancing around this?" He looked sharply at Max. "I'm sure what you went through was a mighty suckfest. But this – you'll want to tear your own flesh off to make it stop. It's like you're burning up from the inside out. Like your blood is boiling through your bones. Sound familiar?"

Max felt a trail of sweat and fear run down his spine. He shook his head. That did sound worse.

"It's a big day when you find out you're only half-human. You're welcome," Noah said.

It was hard to tell through the sunglasses whether Noah was kidding. But from the expressions on Vincent and Jamie's faces, Max took him at face value. "Do you know who our mothers were?"

"No idea. Wish we did," Vincent answered, his features softening. "I hope you know, it wasn't your fault. It wasn't any of our faults. We didn't ask for this. But here we are all the same."

"And our fathers, you're saying they're, this sounds so weird to say, they're –

"Something more than human.