Seer: Thrall Read Free

happen? What do you think would have happened if this had been a top secret government facility? Do you think they would rap you across the wrist and tell you not to do it again?" She paused. "No!" she screamed. "They would have bundled you off to another secure facility, one far more obscure than Guantanamo, and they would have pulled every secret out of your head before dropping your limp body into an anonymous grave."
    She pulled away and asked in a more restrained tone, "What did you think would happen?"
    "You can go to hell!" I said. "I'm not answering your questions. You can just wonder who else I told."
    She narrowed her eyes.
    "Do you doubt my resolve?" she asked. She leaned forward and ripped the blanket from my body. I could see the restraints. She tapped my left wrist, and I saw there was still an I.V. in my arm, well secured between restraints across my wrists and elbows, holding my arms immobilized. She reached down, twisted something, and I saw my red blood begin to flow out of my body.
    "No!" I screamed. "Don't do this! Solange!"
    "Do you doubt me? Do you really want to test my resolve, Sidney?"
    "Stop! Shut it off! I'll talk. I'll talk!" I screamed.
    "How did you get my code?" she asked.
    "Shut it off!"
    "Answer the question and I'll think about it."
    "Solange..." I began to hyperventilate again.
    She'd been watching the blood, and her fangs were out. She looked up into my face. "It takes time," she said calmly, the words sounding strange coming out around the fangs. "You have several minutes to answer before it turns dangerous."
    "Dreams!" I screamed. "I had dreams. Lots of dreams! Shut it off. I'll tell you everything! Shut it off!"
    And she did.
    I stared at the tubing.
    "It's still flowing," I whimpered. "Solange..."
    "No," she said. I stared at the blood in the line, but she used her hand to lift my face towards hers. The fangs were gone. "I shut it off. You will answer my questions, won't you?"
    I nodded, even with her hand still on my chin.
    "Please, take it out."
    "Oh, no, Sidney," she said. "It stays. That's for a later conversation. Consider it incentive to be complete. Now, tell me everything."
    I began to talk.

Explanations
    She questioned me for a long time, a very long time. I knew I was completely defeated. A few times I balked at her questions, and she only had to glance at the valve in the I.V. line before I began babbling an answer, thrusting the words out at her, in between begging her not to turn it on again.
    Finally I wound down; I had nothing else to tell her. I looked away for a while. Finally I turned back to her. "Are you going to put me back there?"
    "That is not my intention," she said. She paused. "I have one more question, and this is for the woman I thought loved me."
    I turned away, closing my eyes.
    "Was it a lie?"
    "Was what a lie?" I asked, but I knew what she meant.
    "When you said you loved me. Was it a lie?"
    "No."
    She reached out and pulled my chin back to face her. I tried to shake her off but she was insistent.
    "I want you to tell me why you did it. Maybe you thought the dreams were a metaphor, but you believed them enough to break into this facility. You knew you were betraying me. Why did you do it?"
    I closed my eyes, and I felt the tears begin to crawl from my eyes. I didn't answer her right away.
    "Please, Sidney," she said. "Why?"
    "I never betrayed you," I said coldly. "You asked what I thought would happen? I didn't think about it. But I told you what you should have done." Then I screamed, "You should have talked to me!"
    She walked away for a minute, her back to me.
    "Get off your high horse, Solange," I said. "You should have told me. And if you weren't going to, you never should have accepted my offer of a date. Once you knew I was a seer, you really, really should have told me. You do not have the moral high ground, and you know it."
    I panted and strained against the restraints.
    "You could have claimed the moral high ground when you caught me, and