All I could see was the ceiling. Mr. Left’s voice sank into a murmur, but another voice rose. “It’s time. Begin the experiment.” I drew in a deep breath, pressing hard and wriggling against the straps. Slowly at first, then speeding up, I felt the prickles in my scalp connect to each other. I assumed it was something like electricity, but as it ramped up, it just became an ache, then screaming pain. Like being a thundercloud with dozens of strikes of lightning shooting across the clouds at the same time.

  Once the lightning cleared, it was almost like looking through a thick fog with car headlights, or down the lens of an old camera with fuzzy edges. I saw Sydney, leaning up against my shoulder.

  My shoulder?

  I knew I was still strapped to the table- I could very faintly see the bright light above me.

  “Do you think she’s alright? She’s been gone for a really long time.” Sydney's voice came, almost like through water.

  “I know, it’s scary.” I could feel the deep rumble of Stenway’s voice come through my chest. Stenway? That was not who the test was supposed to be on. How…?

  The phone rang and Sydney jumped up to get it. “Hello? Mom? Nothing? What did the police say?” She was quiet for a long minute. “Yes ma’am.” She hung up the phone and came back down to the couch.

  “Something’s wrong.” A man’s voice blared into my ear, then I saw him, a pair of huge glasses that popped in front of my face. I felt the pricking of the headset again, like it was slicing through my head. “Turn it off. Left, you lied to us.”

  You know when you have a really bad fever, and you wake up in the middle of the night and your medicine has worn off, and you’re all shaky and you still think that awful nightmare lion is coming to get you but you know that you’re in bed but everything hurts and your head wants to explode but you need to get up and run away but if you move even a little bit you'll crumble into pieces?

  That’s about what it felt like as I tried to focus back on the room of villains. There was lots of shouting, which wasn’t helping. I felt a pat on my arm. “Try to focus on one thing, dearie.”

  “Ms. H?”

  “Followed Mr. Left in. Someone has to keep an eye on him, bless him, more big ideas than common sense. Just you try to focus on one thing.”

  I laid there and felt the now warm leather pressing against my forehead. Sydney was upset. My parents were probably losing their minds. Stenway didn't seem too bothered. Nothing seemed to bother him often though. Finally I felt like I could look around a little bit, and follow the conversation.

  “Is she a super? Latent ability?”

  The narrative has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

  “More than likely the technology isn’t complete. Like I assumed.”

  ".... should have been able to read off the sign hanging above him."

  “We need to debrief her fully. If we can’t get this under control…”

  “I still say we need to test her…”

  "While we have her here, we should..."

  "... and there's no way that..."

  “We could just…”

  I felt the leather strap on my head release, and wriggled my arms to sit up a bit. I pulled my hands out of my pockets and squeezed and unsqueezed my fists. I’d left four small crescent moons in the insides of my palms, I guess from clenching so hard. Wait no, just on the right one. Without thinking I shoved my left hand back into my pocket and felt something soft.

  My head slammed backwards against the cold vinyl and I heard the catches on the leather strap jingle from the shock.

  Saw Sydney’s head and heard her sobs.

  Felt someone pulling at my arm. Ms. Higley yanked my arm from my pocket.

  “What’s this?”

  The first things I saw were the bright green eyes of Mr. Left. He stared at me, mouth open.

  I stuttered and tried to force out words. Mr. Left snapped out in a tone I’d never heard before: “Terraze. Let her speak.”

  The grip on my throat released and I sucked in a breath. “Did you see that?” He nodded, once.

  “Did he see what?” A voice boomed from the back of the room. The rest of the room exploded into noise. Mr. Left just stayed there, staring at me.

  Finally Mr. Left spoke. “Say nothing. You remember nothing. Darkness, light, whatever you want to say. But it was all just nothing. Got it?”

  I nodded. The bright green eyes seemed to be inside my head now.

  “Left.” The same voice from earlier boomed out again and Mr. Left was yanked out of my sight. I stared at the wall behind where his head had been, taking in the roar of the room. I heard the jingle of the straps and felt them slip away.

  Mrs. Higley grabbed my arm. “Come with me, miss.” Her eyes went a little bit cross eyed for a moment, then focused back on me. “Put that hat on your head and take my coat.” She shoved the clothes on me and tucked me under her arm and with the cover of the noise, we made it out of the room.

  Instead of the hallway we’d come in, Mrs. H dragged me down a back hallway. It actually wasn’t so much a drag- I just had a hard time keeping up. My head still felt all wobbly, and so did my legs. I kept having flashes of memory, what I’d seen when I was on the table. Quick images of Sydney’s head, the t.v., the paintings in our living room.

  We made it into the car and Mrs. H yanked her coat off of me and pushed me flat onto the seat. “You may need to take a nap, miss. Well, you look peaky, and we don’t know how long Mr. Left will be in there. Drink some of this.” She held up a thermos, uncapped the top, and poured a little of a hot liquid into it. I stared at her. She chuckled. “It’s some tea, miss. It’ll help you relax. Some chamomile, hops, passionflower.” I still stared at her. Mrs. H sighed. “Your choice, child.”

  The tea smelled sweet, gentle, flowery. I held my hand out for the cup and took a sip. It was a little bit bitter, but also did taste like flowers. Slowly I finished the cup. Mrs. H was right, it was relaxing. The images I kept seeing started to slow down, weren’t coming as quickly. Slowly I felt myself nodding off. I curled up onto the backseat and rolled onto my side.