THE END

Chapter 22

I drift into consciousness to see Neil next to me, strapped down, and Leonard nowhere to be seen. He let us basically destroy each other for a couple hours- it was almost enough to make you go insane.

The moment he pulled out the wires I fell unconscious, perhaps just from the stress of having my mind picked apart so much.

I feel like at this point I have nothing left to myself. It's almost dehumanizing. Every small secret I had is available to Leonard whenever he wants it, and available to Neil even when he doesn't.

My thoughts are no longer my own, which scares me.

I look over at Neil, unconscious, and wonder if he feels the same way. Our brains have been picked, our bodies abused. We haven't eaten in ages and our minds are tortured. We've been kept in cages and strapped to tables. What else will be thrown at us?

I understand fully now, why they call this torture. And the sad part is that there's no one left to rescue us. We're on our own.

And I even begin to doubt Neil. He was the one solid thing left in my life, the one person that I could rely on and that I knew would be there regardless of the circumstances. It had always been us against the world. The unbreakable team.

And now it was broken.

.................................................

After a few hours of silence, Neil speaks. "Cecy."

"Yeah, Neil?"

"How come you never told me about Kennedy?"

I let out a long sigh. Neil must have found out when our brains were connected. "Because it wasn't important." Ken was my older brother. He died when I was 11, just a little while before I became close with Neil. Since then I've been an only child; I didn't want to remember that so I never brought it up.

"Of course it was important, he was your brother!" I don't respond. I try to block out the memories, but they take over my mind.

The sharp rap on the door. The officials breaking it down. Them marching inside and ripping Ken from where he was standing. He was only 16, but to them he was a threat. He had been hacking into their software, looking at their plans without anyone knowing. He was so smart, smarter than anyone I knew. I don't think he ever even did anything with their plans, he just looked. He was curious. And because of that he was taken away. We got a letter exactly 5 weeks later saying he had been killed and the threat was neutralized.

He wasn't a person to them. He was a threat. A problem that had to be fixed.
I was only 11, too young to fully understand. If it had happened later I think my hatred for the officials would have grown much quicker, but because I was so young I didn't hate them for it. I only hated that he was gone.

I had blocked out this portion of my memories for so many years that I almost forgot. I almost forgot him. I hadn't thought about him once in months, until Neil brought it up.

"Why didn't you ever tell me, Cecily?"

"Because I was trying to forget. It was before I met you. It was in the past."

"I just wish I had known, maybe I could've helped somehow..."

We look at each other from across the tables and I work one of my hands out of the straps. He does the same and we grab hands desperately.

That small comfort is enough to give me some hope. I hold his hand tightly and then say, "You know there's plenty you didn't tell me, too."

"What do you mean?" He asks.