The Reach

The man behind the desk (not Andre, thank God) looked like he had left high school about a week ago. She didn't recognize him. 'There's a problem in the play area,' she said, as he came around to meet her in his white hospital suit. 'It's Dennis. They need help calming him down.'

'I'm not supposed to leave--'

'Listen to me. Andre's out for coffee and Evan asked me to come get you. We're short staffed and Dennis is going to give them trouble. Go on now. I'll watch the desk here until you get back.'

He swallowed hard. 'I'll be just a minute.'

She waited until the elevator doors closed. There was not much time. It wouldn't be long before Wasserman and the others figured out what she had done, and why. She had to get Sarah out now.

But the keys proved impossible to find. Behind the desk was an intercom speaker, a series of cubbyholes labeled with patients' names and doses of medication, heavy canvas gloves, and a can of mace. A little three-inch television flickered from the corner, the sound turned low.

The orderly would have the keys on him, she thought, of course he would. If they came back down before she got Sarah to the stairs, she would be trapped. Damn. How the hell are you going to get through that door?

Despair settled over her like dusty cobwebs. She had been driven by emotion, by need, not stopping long enough to think more than a few minutes ahead. Whatever she was searching for was close now, she could taste it like blood on her teeth. But she had backed herself into a corner, and now the walls were closing in on all sides as she imagined what might happen to her when she got caught down here.

It's too late. Just get out while you still can.

That was the voice of a quitter, and she refused to listen.

It wasn't until she turned away in frustration that she felt the answer, an unseen presence so vivid she brushed instinctively at her face and hair as if to push it away. Only then did she wonder how she had failed to notice it before. It was as if the air itself were alive.

Jess Chambers felt an odd transient moment of doubling, as if she were looking through two pair of eyes, one outside, one within. The hair on her neck and arms rose as if in warning. For another long moment she stood silent, immobile, and then pushed through into the corridor with a sense that she had stepped into a darker place.

--35--

The corridor was in shadows, and any other residents who might remain behind the padded walls were still. An eerie calm had settled over the basement. Jess Chambers passed each door with ghost images burned into her mind, the feeling that she had been here before, that she existed both on the outside and the inside of these prison cells.

As a psychologist you have to listen to other people's private thoughts, thoughts nobody else ever has to know about. But a child doesn't hide things the way adults do; with children, you don't have the same barriers. So why, in the time they had spent together, did Jess still feel Sarah had been hiding from her?

She knew the answer, in this cold place, inside the buzzing of electric air; Sarah did not trust anyone, not even herself. Things had happened within these walls, accidents that were not entirely blameless.

Mental illness is a matter of mistrust, Jess thought, as she walked. Never knowing when your own mind might betray you. Jess had private thoughts, of course. She was sometimes unable to keep her mind from things that might be considered inappropriate. She knew that it gave her distance. But what must it be like to a little girl who had felt responsible for others' lives ever since she had been able to form such thoughts? Who knew with certainty that her every emotion could end up with such dire consequences?

They played into that here, didn't they, Sarah? Made you feel guilty? Made you feel responsible when accidents happened, when you could not control yourself?

The air seemed to pulse, as if in answer. Hands tickled the inside of her skull.

Jess crouched at Sarah's door, the last along the line. She considered the lock. This was not one that could be sprung with a bobby pin. She stood and peered through the little window. Touched the glass and found it ice- cold. Traced a fingernail along the surface; it was translucent, lightly covered by frost. She rubbed it away.

Sarah Voorsanger stood against the far wall. The jacket that had contained her was lying torn and discarded on the floor. Jess was awed by the changes in the girl, how tall and straight she stood now, the power that she held in the depths of her dark eyes, pulsing from her like waves. Oh, we only saw the barest glimpse of it, didn't we? We only knew the edges of the truth. Sarah had been afraid before, and her faith and hope of an eventual release had faded long ago; perhaps her urge to fight had faded with them. But now she was stronger, and older, and she had a reason to fight for her life. She had been introduced to a world of possibilities outside this place.

Sarah looked up into the glass, and they found each other. Jess could see her breath, puffing like silver clouds before her face. She could feel something inside her mind, probing.

In spite of her best efforts to subdue it, fear trickled through, cut deep into her gut. Sarah crossed the little room and put her hand up against the glass. Their fingers touched with the window between them. Something groaned, and the glass cracked and buckled. The hand twitched inside her skull.

Jess felt it just in time, fell away from the door as it shrieked and split at its hinges, as it tipped with a shuddering crash to the floor.

Concrete dust swirled and spun like tiny tornadoes in the following silence. Jesus Lord. Jess got to her feet, choking on the thickened ait. The door was a twisted chunk of discarded metal lying against the opposite wall. She reached down and touched a ragged edge, yanked her hand away from the scalding heat. She could hardly believe what she had just seen. But the evidence was lying smoking and battered at her feet.

You ain't seen nothing yet.

Back in the outer room, she heard the elevator whir to life.

'Sarah?' Jess said. 'We have to go. Now.' No response. She peered into the wound where the door had been. Sarah stood just inside the opening. Her lips were blue and she was trembling.

'I was bad,' she said softly. 'And I liked it. I almost couldn't stop.'

No seizures now, she's learning how to control it better. Or was that just a side effect of whatever they were feeding her?

Words rushed and stumbled over themselves in an attempt to get out. 'They've been telling you this is bad ail your life, Sarah. I know they have. But they're wrong. We can work all this out later, but right now you can't think about all that, not if we're going to have a chance to get out of here. Do you understand? You have to trust yourself. This power is a part of you, just like anything else. It's nothing to be ashamed of--'

'Leave me alone!' Sarah shouted. 'Please.' She backed away again, into the corner of the padded room. 'I'll hurt you, I'll hurt everyone, I won't be able to keep it down anymore.'

The elevator stopped and the doors slid open. A moment later Evan Wasserman stepped into the hall. He was flanked by two big men wearing riot gear and protective goggles and carrying police batons in ugly, thick-fisted hands. She saw guns clipped to their belts. Not cops, Jess thought. But they sure as hell know what they're getting into down here.

She stepped forward, planted both feet, and gave her best bluff. 'Hey. Where the hell have you been? She's already gone, I couldn't stop her.'

'Shut the fuck up and step away from the door,' one of the men said. She heard the fear in his voice, though he was trying hard to keep it down.

A syringe glistened in Wasserman's hand. 'You'll never get close enough to her,' Jess said.

'That's why you're going to do it.'

'The fuck I am.'

'She trusts you. You're the only one.' Wasserman took a few steps closer. 'You can help us, or not. But these walls are reinforced steel and concrete. They're specially made for this sort of thing. Nobody can hear you down here, and there's no way out. Why don't you make it easy on yourself?'

Wasserman's eyes were wild and his tie was missing. There was an air about him of absent neglect, like a home where all the lights were blazing and the grass grew tangled in the yard. He's lost it, she thought. He'll kill us both now.