Chapter 35

_Friday, April 10

10:07 P.M.

_

She felt the straps on the gurney loosening and then she started prying her eyes open. She thought, hoped, it was Stone, but she couldn't see well enough to be absolutely sure. Her mind and her vision were still overflowing with horrifying nightmares of time gone awry. What did all those bizarre dreams mean?

She was groggy but was coming alert. Perhaps it was the sense of electricity in the room, but something very unscheduled was going on.

When she finally got her eyes open and focused, what greeted her was a blinding row of white lights directly overhead that seemed to isolate her. But there was tumult all around her in the lab, a cacophony of alarmed voices echoing off the hard surfaces of gla.s.s and steel. She squinted into the light as she felt Stone slip his arm around her shoulders and raise her up.

Thank G.o.d, he's here, she thought.

"Come on," he was saying. "She's not interested in you. She just wants Kristen out of here. This is the only way."

"Who ... ?" She was startled by the sound of her own voice, mildly surprised to discover she was even capable of speech.

She gazed around, trying to find her when ... Jesus!

Katherine Starr was standing next to Kristen. She was moving in a surreal way, gripping Kristen's hand and pulling her along.

Stone had found her. He had understood. Katherine Starr appeared to be wearing a blue bathrobe under a gray mackintosh, but the part that got Ally's attention was the knife she was holding, glistening like a scalpel.

No, it _was _a scalpel, shiny and sharp as a razor.

Tough luck, guys. No pistol this time, but she still managed to come up with a convincing subst.i.tute.

She didn't look any saner than she did the last time. Now, though, she finally had what she'd come for. She had her daughter. Could it be that Kristen was about to be liberated? Had the world come full circle?

"No." The voice belonged to Winston Bartlett. "I want her with me."

"You 're the p.r.i.c.k responsible for this." Katherine whirled on him, brandishing the scalpel.

"Mrs. Starr," Van de Vliet interjected, eyeing the sharp metal, "you can't take Kristen away now. She's at a very delicate stage of her procedure."

"I seem to be doing a lot of things I can't," she declared turning back. "I'm not supposed to be out of my room, but I am. And now I'm getting us both out of here. We're going through that air lock and onto the elevator. So whose throat do I need to cut to do it?"

Winston Bartlett was edging away, and his eyes betrayed he was more concerned than he wished to appear.

"Look at her," Katherine Starr continued shoving Kristen-- who was completely disoriented her eyes blinking in confusion--in front of Van de Vliet. "She doesn't know me; she doesn't know anything. She's acting like a baby. What in h.e.l.l have you done to her?"

"She had the procedure she wanted. At the time I warned there might be side effects we couldn't antic.i.p.ate."

"She's lost her mind. That's what you call a _side effect_?"

All this time Kristen was just standing and staring blankly into s.p.a.ce, but there were growing storm clouds welling in her eyes. It caused Ally to wonder what was really going on with her. Had this troubled girl been made permanently childlike, or was there a split personality at work? Did she have a new mind now, or a parallel mind?

"We're still trying to stabilize her condition," Van de Vliet said in a soothing tone. "We just need a little more time."

That was when Kristen wrenched free of her mother's grasp. Her eyes had just gone critical, traveling into pure madness. She strode over and seized a gla.s.s jar containing a clear solvent.

"I want them all to die," she said in a little girl's voice. "They're going to kill me if I don't kill them first."

Now Katherine Starr had turned and was staring at her. "Kristy, honey, put the bottle down. I'm going to take you home. I don't know what he's done to you, but I'm not going to let you stay here anymore. You're coming with me."

This is not going to end well, Ally thought. She began struggling to her feet, trying to clear her mind enough for an exit strategy.

Nina was upstairs, or at least that was where she had been. Okay, the first order of business is to get her out. Stone could probably manage on his own ...