One hundred and twenty-six: Taking back control

WARNING: MATURE CONTENT AND POSSIBLE TRIGGERS. The rest of the story chapters may contain triggering material. If you would like to avoid all of this, feel free to skip to the last chapter and do not read beyond this warning.

Alistair came in a rush with Gracey, Priscilla and a doctor I didn't know. The doctor examined me and then helped Gracey and Priscilla coax me out of the blanket and into the shower. There they helped me wash and dress. The moment they let me go, I scooted into the nearest corner, hugging myself, not even letting go to wipe away my tears. Iain had a furious look on his face when I was carried out, still wrapped and huddled inside a blanket - not the one from my bed. I'd refused to let it touch me again, once they'd gotten me out of it in the first place.

Gracey, Priscilla and Svetta had rushed to stuff all my clothes into my bag, while I was carried to a car. Before the door was shut, I grabbed hold of Alistair and asked in a shaky voice.

"What if this is what he wants? What they want?"

"Can't help it," Alistair brushed my hair back from my face with a hand and handed me a tissue. "It's protocol."

"What if they follow us and do this at every location?"

"Then that's one hell of a big statement to make," Alistair said. "We'll see whether he dares do it a second time. Does he really want you to be locked inside one of the penitentiaries? Doesn't he love you? How could he let someone do this?"

"He's here," I told Alistair. "He did it himself. He's here, but I don't know what he wants."

I couldn't bring myself to tell him about how Kiran was still fighting with me over control of my body. Him remotely. Me with what I'd learnt of the slave commands. I knew I was fighting a losing battle, but it didn't stop me from trying. Why did he want control over me? As far as I knew, they could only control certain parts of me. Unless those moving tendrils had been moving to take over more parts of me. How would controlling me benefit him, unless he could make me purposely and seemingly willingly choose to return to his side? That action would cause huge waves. I didn't want to know what would happen the moment I lost this battle.

"I'm closing the door. Watch your hands," Alistair said, closing the car door. "All right, we've got everything."

And we were whizzed away from the safe house.

Three safe houses, a few days and several agents in hospital with injuries later, I had lost the fight for my body. I twitched and jerked with the pain of those moving tendrils and electrical pulses in a private hospital bed. Every time Kiran had gotten a hold of me again, his remote control of me improved and my ability to hack whatever programs and commands he was inputting into the machine growing inside of me waned. The doctors were crowded around the images they had taken of whatever was inside of me. The agents stood and looked with the doctors.

And they were all silent. They looked between me and the images on the computer after having finished a several hours long discussion and debate.

It was probably worse than I imagined. Kiran was forcing their hand. He was doing something to me that he would be unable to undo. If I wanted to live - if my government wanted me to live, I would have to return to the bastard stalking rapist who didn't know how to take any rejection.

It was hard to talk and every attempt to move on my own resulted in excruciating pain. Obeying the electrical impulses resulted in no pain. That was the worst part. The only upside was that whatever the machine in me was, it was supporting my own body's functions. So my health hadn't taken as big a dive as expected.

Eventually, Alistair made a phone call. He discussed something with the doctors and then came to my bedside, looking very upset.

"You have a choice," he told me.

"I'd rather die," I told him. "Now does anyone in our government believe me? Why would I want to go back to be controlled by them and forced to do whatever they wanted?"

"I can't let you die," Alistair told me. "It's personal. I can't do it. I can't let you die, but neither can I send you back to him. Having seen what he's been doing to you every chance he gets, I'm not sending you back to that kind of hell. But I'm stuck. I don't know what else I can do."

"Give me a computer," I said through gritted teeth, fighting another wave of pain. "A team of geeks who will know and understand what I'm doing and work together with me. I'll deal with Kiran myself. He'll know it's me when he sees it and if he wants to kill me then, then so be it. I'm not going back to him willingly. Then get me some good doctors and engineers that specialise in this sort of thing. If we can't get it out, we are going to hack at it to regain control of it. I am going to be back in control of my own body again, if it's the last thing I do."

Alistair was silent for a moment after my declaration and then took a deep breath, looking at me in the eyes.

"I'll see what I can do."

Alistair didn't manage to get back to me. I guessed he had been busy trying to organise people and equipment for me that the government might not think important enough to authorise. That night, Kiran's people took me away. I guess whoever was the spy had reported back. They didn't want to give me the chance of freeing myself from their grasp for once and for all.